10 THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 
Proggin and Prowlin in Minnesota 
By Dr. Aurrep Lewy and Epwarp R. Forp 
Through the courtesy of Mr. Joseph Simons, of Chicago, who has 
a lodge on Squaw Lake, Itasca County, Minnesota, the authors were 
enabled to make observations from May 28 to June 10, 1932, in a section 
where bird life appears not to have been so intensively studied as in some 
other parts of the Gopher State. 
Squaw Lake is practically all shallow water and is, in truth, a field 
of wild rice about six miles long and from a half mile to two miles in 
width. Its shores generally are margined by marshy stretches which, in 
places, give back into wide, willow-dotted bays of wet meadow. From 
these bays lead, further in, among ridges or promontories covered with 
mixed hardwood and evergreens, a number of sphagnum-carpeted tama- 
rack bogs which, enclosing sections of the ridges, form a sort of “‘islands’’ 
comparable to the “hammocks” of the South. The lake itself contains 
a number of islands, some of which are but reedy reefs, others high and 
well wooded. 
The scene presented upon our arrival was stirring enough from the 
viewpoint of one finding an especial pleasure in the presence of a large 
number and a wide variety of birds. Purple Martins and White-bellied 
Swallows filled the air about the lodge. Baltimore Orioles, Kingbirds, 
Downy Woodpeckers, and Warbling Vireos had taken up their territories 
close to the lodge. About 50 feet from the building, in the dead top of 
a large maple, a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers had their nest. Below the 
hilltop on which the lodge stood, and along the shore of the lake, Red- 
wings and Yellow-headed Blackbirds were active. On the lake, dotted 
with muskrat houses, Coots, Pied-billed Grebes, Mallards, and Great Blue 
Herons abounded. Left behind the day before, Duluth had seemed chill. 
It had suffered a snowfall on the preceding night and traces of the icy drifts 
marked the bleak countryside. Here at the lake warm airs supervened, the 
lush leaves of the young rice lay along the surface of the water, bird calls 
resounded. 
The authors did a lot of what one writer describes as “proggin’ an’ 
prowlin’ ’—if we truly recall the phrase. “This consists, we believe, in 
splashing around pond margins and creeks, push-poling flat-bottomed boats, 
and otherwise making a ruction in the haunts of turtles, garter snakes, 
Swamp Sparrows, muskrats, salamanders, Coots, and Grebes. “he last 
named species, because of its interest and abundance, deserves a special 
word. Seven or eight nests containing from two to seven eggs were found. 
Sometimes the eggs were uncovered, sometimes they were fully hidden by 
the wet weed masses piled upon them. ‘The parent, in the case of the 
covered eggs, probably had been warned by our approach. Nests open to 
