ureter tebe O Na eb Ui leis LN 17 
In Summer, Think Winter Food Patches For Wildlife. 
They Sure Work for Us.’ 
Winter food patches can make the 
difference between an otherwise 
almost birdless area and one which 
abounds in a wide variety of bird 
life. This fact was quite noticeable 
on a Sunday in February when I 
took a long bird hike around our 
farm. 
During the first part of my walk, 
the only birds that I saw were a 
few horned larks, starlings, two 
downys, one horned owl, a Caro- 
lina wren, and one _ red-bellied 
woodpecker. But when I came to 
the corn patch that I had not har- 
vested, there must have been a 
hundred doves, fifty cardinals, 
many tree, song, swamp, and house 
sparrows, a downy, a red-headed 
woodpecker, and many juncos in 
that little stand. This one-third 
acre of unharvested corn is beside 
a multiflora rose fence, a pond, and 
timber. All winter long it has been 
used by a wide variety of birds. 
The only time that we have had 
birds come to our feeder was while 
the snow cover was deep enough to 
cover the ears of the standing corn. 
Two winters ago, we had about 
five acres of a mixture of sorgum 
and corn left standing. (I didn’t 
really intend to leave that much, 
but the weather interfered.) Most 
birders will probably find that hard 
to believe, but that winter, tree 
sparrows wintered by the thou- 
sands on our farm, dependent on 
that food patch. Also song, white- 
throated, and white-crowned spar- 
rows, along with juncos, doves and 
cardinals, stayed around in num- 
bers never before present. A few 
more pheasants and quail wintered 
here that year than usual. The only 
bird that visited our feeder that 
year were the usual house spar- 
rows and starlings. 
Apparently, only a very small 
acreage is required to provide win- 
ter food for our feathered friends. 
I have: found that ia‘rather tall- 
growing grain sorgum is best, and 
corn is second, and the combination 
of the two is better than either 
alone. While my experience with 
sunflowers is rather limited, it 
seems that although sunflower 
seeds are eaten by birds, the heads 
fall to the ground early in the win- 
ter and are beyond reach of most 
birds if snow falls. Lodged sun- 
flower heads provide excellent food 
for rats and mice. 
I believe that a properly placed 
food patch will increase the winter 
bird population of a given area a 
hundredfold and at very little ex- 
pense to the landowner. This would 
also be true for lands under the 
management of the Department of 
Conservation, Forest Preserve Dis- 
tricts, and Conservation Districts. 
—Jim Smith, Homer, III. 
N.A.S. NAMES NEW MIDWEST REP 
New Central Midwest Representative of the National Audubon Society 
is Myron Swenson (RR1, Box 19, Mauckport, Ind. 47142). He replaces 
John L. Franson who was transferred to Austin, Texas, to serve the 
southwest region of NAS. Franson retains his national activity as staff 
coordinator on both stream channelization and strip-mining issues. 
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