Pe Mee AGU Ds biOr Nt BrU lL: Db Bere N 13 
thinner and less musical than the western meadowlark’s wild, clear whistle 
-—— both heard in Iowa. 
A few bobolinks are heard singing about “Robert of Lincoln,” while 
our state bird is one of the happiest of roadside singers. Then arrive the 
brown thrashers, the first among the mockers, and two birds mentioned 
by Audubon — the brown-capped chipping sparrows singing in their rapid 
monotone, and the pink-billed field sparrows with their plaintive song. 
Inspired by these songs the eastern kingbirds and the encroaching 
Arkansas kingbirds add their fifing notes, while the bronzed grackles and 
the cowbirds (the latter mentioned by Audubon) do likewise. The in- 
numerable dickcissels and the indigo bunting give a continuous performance 
from the telegraph wires. Migrant shrikes serve as highway patrolmen 
of the air in summer and the northwestern shrikes take charge during 
the winter months. 
The Iowa Ornithologists’ Union members have identified from 40 to 
75 permanent resident birds on their Christmas bird census hikes. Nearly 
always included in these lists are the red-tailed, sharp-shinned and sparrow 
hawks, the bob-white quail, ring-necked pheasant, mourning doves, the 
long-eared, short-eared, barred, and screech owls, the red-headed, red- 
bellied, hairy and downy woodpeckers, and flickers. Winter days in Iowa 
are enlivened by the rollicking songs and antics of the black-capped 
chickadee, the “yank, yank, yank” of the white- and red-breasted nut- 
hatches, and the scream of the gangster blue jay. 
Iowa receives a few winter callers which nest near the Artic circle 
and migrate south for the winter, among which are flocks of tree sparrows, 
slate-colored juncoes, fluffy redpolls, the elegant Bohemian waxwing tramps, 
and the gypsying Lapland longspurs. 
A few northern shrikes, American rough-legged hawks, goshawks, 
saw-whet owls, and snowy owls drop down to call during the winter months. 
Among erratic visitors during cold weather are Carolina wrens, winter 
wrens, and purple finches, while occasionally flocks of red crossbills and 
pine siskins come to feed in our coniferous trees, paying with their songs 
as they circle in flight. 
fT fi fi 
Goldfinches 
Now that the giant sunflowers rise 
Along the garden way, 
The shy goldfinches, seeking seeds 
Visit them through the day. 
One fancies as one watches them 
And hears their low refrain, 
That they are sunbeams changed to birds 
That seek the sun again. 
—ELIZABETH SCOLLARD ~ 
