eit wb ONS BUI Elan ey, 
the weather was suitable for outdoor photography, and one morning 
when I went into the cellar, a shadow passed between me and the window 
and I thought something had passed by the window on the outside, but 
the second time I saw it I realized that it was the little owl which had 
escaped and was flying about the cellar. 
This one was much smarter about getting out, and was much 
“scrappier” than either of the other two. I kept him in a glass fish 
globe, and when I[ would put my hand in to pick him up he would fly at 
it with beak and claws. This was the third one I caught, and it and the 
second one were so much more vicious than the first one, that I now refer 
to the first one as “the angel child.’”’ The second one, although he 
weighed only 6% ounces, would fluff out his feathers and spread his 
wings until he looked as large as a bantam hen. All this time he would be 
weaving back and forth and hissing at me with a noise that might well 
have come from a small gander. Neither of these birds made good 
models and it was with difficulty that I secured one fairly good picture 
of each. 
Before I let them go, I “borrowed” a few feathers from each one 
and pasted them on a card marked with each bird’s band number. So, 
if they come back to me another year, I shall know whether they 
have changed their gray feathers for rufous ones. We suppose the gray 
ones are always gray and the rufous ones always rufous, but it 1s things 
like this that bird banding will help us to find out. Come on, be a bird 
bander! It’s lots of fun! 
The Wood Thrush 
Of all the singing birds this 1s my choice? 
A spirit call at dusk from dark’ning swamp; 
No counterpart could come from human voice; 
No sound so sweetly thrills at twilight damp. 
For years it was a haunting memory 
Unsolved, and oft I listened for the sound 
frtileat last, I learned the mystery 
Was just a bird, and not a voice I’d found. 
The same sweet song unchanged through passing years, 
Its mystic spell the same at twilight hush; 
I lose at once all sense of doubt and fears 
While harking to the song of brown wood thrush. 
Again I see the twilight of the swamp; 
Along the trout stream joyously I tramp. 
