36 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
Published on the tenth of each month except 
July and August. 
The official organ of the Wisconsin, Illinois and 
Michigan Audubon Societies. 
Twenty-five cents per year Single copies 5 cents 
Contributions to By the Wayside are invited 
from all lovers of Nature and friends of the 
birds. All communications should be sent to 
Roland E. Kremers, 1720 Vilas St., Madison, 
Wis. 
Our Winter Birds 
BY ALTHEA R. SHERMAN, MCGREGOR. IA. 
Probably no less than two hundred 
species of birds pass each year within 
neighborly distance of my home. Of 
these one hundred and forty-seven spe¬ 
cies have been identified within our 
grounds, and upward of a hundred 
visit our door-yard annually. But 
when Jack Frost holds old Mother 
Earth in a hard embrace, and the pierc¬ 
ing north wind howls over our bleak 
prairie the number of species shrinks 
to very insignificant proportions. It 
is likely that few more than two dozen 
species can ever be found hereabout in 
winter; sixteen is the number that 
have visited our yard. 
A few days ago the great horned owl 
was added to the list of birds that 
have been seen in the door-yard. It is 
not an uncommon species in the woods 
two miles eastward, and this is the 
season when it comes to our prairie 
homes in search of misguided tree- 
roosting chickens, but its visits are 
usually made in the night. When this 
owl was discovered at half past one 
o’clock in the afternoon it was sitting 
on the ground in the front yard at a 
distance of thirty-five feet from the 
house, and nearly the same from the 
trunks of three evergreen trees. With 
watchful turnings of the head it main¬ 
tained is position on the ground for an 
hour, until put to flight by the cat. Its 
semi-diurnal habits are indicated by 
the frequency of its appearance abroad 
in the woods in the daytime. 
The barred owl, as well as its distant 
and diminutive cousin, the screech owl 
are winter birds, although the latter 
species is less plentiful in the dead of 
winter than in other seasons; indica¬ 
tions are that most of these owls go 
farther south to spend the coldest 
months. They return in March appar¬ 
ently mated and ready for nesting. 
Ten boxes for woodpeckers have been 
put up on our place, and at least four 
of them have been occupied by screech 
owls. In two of the barn boxes owls 
have laid eggs, and in a box in my 
bird blind a brood was raised. There 
during sixty-two days, and part of the 
nights, the nest life was closely watch¬ 
ed. An intimate acquaintance with 
these interesting and amusing little 
birds leads one to wish that they would 
confine themselves to city life, where 
they are a benefit as English sparrow 
destroyers ; but their taste for bird flesh 
is not confined to English sparrows, 
and the inroads they make upon our 
small song birds induces me to prefer 
their room to their company. For 
those familiar with only the customary 
or upright position of the screech owl 
a new experience may be in store some 
day; if while watching an owl sitting 
upright, and looking the embodiment 
of wisdom, it suddenly throws its bach 
into a horizontal position and walks 
off, it will be strange if a novel sensa¬ 
tion is not felt, such as one might ex¬ 
perience should a minister or a college 
professor descend from his desk and 
walk about “on all fours.” 
The bobwhite in this locality was 
very numerous in the summer of 1903. 
The succeeding two winters proved 
very disastrous to this species. Heavy 
(Continued to page 39) 
