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Many of these birds were completely new to me. Others were old 
friends disguised with new first names. Some I had seen on a former trip 
to the west coast. One, the sanderling, rated as common in this region in 
migration, I had never seen before. It was a long way to go to meet a bird 
from home. 
Evanston, Illinois. 
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In March I hear the robin sing 
And then I know that it is spring. 
But, reader, how do you suppose 
The chuckle-headed robin knows? 
Once, when I’d chased the cat away, 
He swore at me for half a day! 
—EDWARD R. FORD 
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SPARROW HAWKS, the smallest and most brightly plumaged of the common 
hawks of this area, now are perching on fence posts and telephone poles in 
northern Illinois, their orange bodies and gray wings providing variation 
for the red and blue hues of the cardinals, bluebirds, blue jays, robins, and 
other hardy songsters. 
The person who first called the sparrow hawk by that name may have 
used the title to describe the bird’s size or its feeding habits. It is one of 
the small members of the hawk family, just as the sparrow is one of the 
small members of the songbird clan. 
Adult sparrow hawks are nine to ten inches long. If the bird was named 
because of its occasional habit of feeding on sparrows, the title is undeserved, 
since small birds make up only a small portion of this hawk’s diet. 
We recall only one instance of seeing a sparrow hawk carrying a spar- 
row. That was last spring. A male bird flew across Maramy road on the 
Wheaton farm, and when we stopped to watch him he flew excitedly into a 
wire fence. Upon hitting the fence, the sparrow hawk dropped a bird he 
had been carrying. It was a white-throated sparrow, one of the attractive 
migrants which passes through this area in April and May. 
Evidence indicates that the sparrow hawk turns to the capture of small 
birds only when other foods are not available. This attractive little bird 
lives mainly on grasshoppers, spiders, other insects, reptiles, and mice, with 
the grasshopper his main course when available. 
Illinois conservationists gradually are educating the farmer and sports- 
man to the fact that all hawks are not bad hawks. The state department of 
conservation has banned the shooting of all species of hawks, and the Illinois 
natural history survey has pointed out that hawks consume so many rodents 
and insects that they more than pay for the small amount of damage done 
by an outlaw bird which may occasionally kill young poultry or game birds.— 
Ben Markland in “Day by Day on the Farm,” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 
10, 1944. 
