34 THE “AU DUB ONT BU OEE Team 
The Wood Thrushes nested again on the parkway to the north, in a big 
elm tree, this time on a horizontal branch, reaching over the sidewalk, 
about twenty feet from the ground. So we were assured of lovely music 
for several weeks, and surely no song of summer is sweeter or more 
satisfying. 
We could easily see the female sitting in the nest, and her mate was 
always on guard, except when he went on duty to give her a chance to 
come down for food or a cool bath in the pool. ‘The young came off about 
June 15th, and later we saw two of them being fed in the yard. Last year 
a second brood was raised in early August, but this year we were not so 
fortunate as to have them. ; 
One day, about the 25th of June, we discovered a little flock of 
chickadees in the “‘wild patch.” “There were seven of them, two adult birds 
and five youngsters. Soon they were all bathing in the upper and lower 
basins of the pool, and a very cunning sight it was to watch them. We were 
filled with curiosity to know where in the neighborhood they had nested, 
and was this pair the one that had come to our feeding shelf and suet tree 
all winter? 
Almost no grosbeak singing came to our ears this past season, and we 
missed it greatly. Later I found that a friend of mine not more than five 
blocks away had entertained a large family of these beautiful birds for 
weeks, altho she had not located the nest. 
Our most unusual visitors were a pair of woodcocks. During the ex- 
ceptionally dry weather in the latter part of the summer, these birds were 
frequently in our yard, most often in a secluded corner screened by shrub- 
bery, where a compost heap of decaying leaves and grass offered a store of 
insects to their long probing bills. Sometimes at dusk they would appear 
on the open lawn, working at the edge of the border where the sprinkler 
had saturated the soil. At other times we would flush them when crossing 
the woodsy place near the pool. 
It certainly seemed quite out of the ordinary to find these wildwoods 
birds in a populous suburb. 
Not many humming birds came to our yard this year, but once in late 
summer in the Dunes, we had a veritable feast of ruby throats and flitter- 
ing wings; never, indeed, had we seen so many of these tiny creatures as- 
sembled in one spot. At a turn of the road near the old tamarack swamp, 
we came upon them, hovering over a great patch of jewelweed—dozens of 
them, dipping, darting, sailing in bewildering array. The caretaker of Dune 
Acres, who 1s stationed at this corner, said they had been there for weeks, 
so there had undoubtedly been some nests in that vicinity. 
