2 T HCE} “AUD VU-BtO Ni eB Usted ee 
dropped from the Iowa list as now extinct here. One hundred and thirty- 
five species of birds breed in Iowa according to reliable nesting records 
of the last 20 years. 
On Audubon’s return trip down the Missouri he reached the mouth of 
the Big Sioux River on Oct. 1 and reported “Geese very abundant,” but 
the party stopped to shoot turkeys on the future site of Sioux City. None 
of the night-flying, wierd-honking geese nest in Iowa. The more numerous 
of these birds of passage today are the blue geese, followed by the lesser 
snow geese, Canada, and white-fronted geese. 
Audubon listed “plenty of sandhill cranes” as well as “two swans, 
several pelicans, and abundance of geese and ducks” near the mouth of 
the Little Sioux on Oct. 3. None of the trumpeter swans and only occa- 
sionally the whistling swans now rest in Iowa on their migratory flights. 
The sandhill cranes still migrate through Iowa but they are rare. Since 
most of the marshes have been drained, native water birds have tended 
to disappear, but the nests of American coots can still be found. The king 
and Virginia rails and the gallinules pass through Iowa, occasionally 
nesting’ here. 
None of the common species of shore birds was mentioned by Audubon 
along the Iowa border, but he saw yellowshanks, tell-tale godwits, and 
solitary snipes in northwest Missouri. Only three commonly nest in 
Iowa — spotted sandpiper, the killdeer and the upland plover. The com- 
mon migrating species include the lesser yellow-legs, semipalmated, solitary, 
pectoral, and least sandpipers. 
Less numerous, but perhaps more distinctive, are the black-bellied, 
golden, and semipalmated plovers, Wilson’s snipe, American woodcock, 
and Wilson’s phalarope. Fewer still, but therefore more exciting to find, 
are the greater yellow-legs, stilt sandpiper, Hudsonian and marbled god- 
wits, sanderling and dowitcher. Perhaps a few of these 20 shore birds 
might have been included in Audubon’s notation on May 8 — “we saw 
many small birds, but nothing new or very rare.” 
Audubon mentioned seeing turkey buzzards, a fish hawk, and a swallow- 
tailed hawk here a century ago. Turkey vultures are occasionally found 
during the summer, and a few scattered bald eagles. Prairie falcons 
cecur, but are rare. 
Among the beneficial hawks nesting in Iowa are the red-tailed, marsh, 
sparrow, Cooper’s, broad-winged, red-shouldered and Swainson’s hawks, 
while the very rare duck and pigeon hawks are not increasing in numbers. 
The “swallow-tailed hawk” or kite listed by Audubon, sometimes called 
the “snake hawk,” has in recent years almost entirely disappeared from 
the state. The “fish hawk,” now called osprey, is an uncommon migrant 
and only a rare summer resident along Iowa’s larger streams. 
Iowa is favored with many roadside carolers nesting in nearby fields, 
meadows and bushes, greeting the passerby with their songs. First is 
heard the prairie horned lark’s bubbling warble on soaring wings, followed 
by the “spring-o’-the-year” song of the eastern meadowlark, which is 
