40 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
nuts; the downy and the hairy wood¬ 
peckers, as well as the junco, are no ex¬ 
exceptions to this rule. There are foods 
that the hairy woodpecker seems to 
prefer above that of the time-honored 
cliunck of suet. For the past six weeks 
suet has been hung in live places in our 
yard, but not a bird has been seen to 
visit any of them; instead of it sweet 
corn that was green when the frost 
came has been eaten by one hairy 
woodpecker. The blue jays and chick¬ 
adees will eat no other food, if they can 
get plenty of nuts. 
Although the tree sparrow and the 
junco are classed as winter birds, they 
generally pass to the south of us for the 
coldest portion of the year, about three 
months. Only once did the daily sup¬ 
ply of food tempt a few tree sparrows 
to come all winter to the lunch counter. 
The crows, like the poor, are with us 
always, but do not make themselves 
seen and heard except on the milder 
days of winter. 
Among the rarer of the boreal spe¬ 
cies that have visited our yard, are the 
wliite-winged crossbills. Their near 
relatives, the red crossbills, also the 
evening grosbeak, have been seen in 
neighboring yards but are still to be 
added to the list for ours. Upon a 
December morning in 1908 two of my 
neighbors were fortunate in seeing a 
vast flock of birds, (described as “mil¬ 
lions”), which are believed to have 
been Bohemian waxwings. A few of 
that species were found that day in a 
mountain ash tree eating the berries, 
other small flocks appeared a few miles 
away in yards where the berries of the 
cedar or of the mountain ash were to 
be found. They remained as long as 
the fruit lasted, delighting their hosts 
by their gentle ways. When all the 
berries in the trees had been taken 
they gleaned from the ground, one bird 
sometimes feeding another from the 
scant supply. 
The northern shrike is a rare caller ♦ 
in spring and fall. It has been a win¬ 
ter resident in those years only when | 
the snow fall was light, leaving much 
ground uncovered, where the bird 
could find meadow mice for its larder. 
The hind quarters of these mice were 
frequently found on the thorns of plum 
trees, a reserve stock, probably, which 
the shrike ate when the hunting was 
poor. Its creaking song, sounding not 
unlike the noise made by a rusty hinge, 
proves welcome at a time when other 
bird music is lacking. 
The last species to be added to the 
list of winter residents in Clayton 
County, Iowa, is the cardinal. The 
gradual northern advance of this spe¬ 
cies has attracted the attention of or¬ 
nithologists throughout the United 
States. Reports have been made of its 
winter appearance in several localities, 
in latitude near 43 degrees, all the way 
from the vicinity of Boston to north- 
eastern Iowa. In my neighborhood the 
first cardinals were discovered in 
April, 1908, near the mouth of a small 
creek that empties into the Mississippi 
River nearly opposite the mouth of the 
Wisconsin. A male and a female car¬ 
dinal were seen, and both were heard 
singing. The next report of this spe¬ 
cies came from the village of Mc¬ 
Gregor, where the following winter a 
male cardinal took board for the sea¬ 
son at a table spread for birds. That 
winter individuals of this species ap¬ 
peared in Boscobel and Blue River, 
AVisconsin. In November, 1909, there 
came the first and only cardinal visitor 
to our yard: this was a female. That 
winter again a male came to McGregor 
for a few days; and in the following 
February a pair of these beautiful 
birds appeared before the windows of 
a residence in St. Olaf, Iowa. They re¬ 
mained in that neighborhood several 
weeks, coming to the door-yard to eat 
with the chickens. 
