Petia CeO UebeOeNe Bh Ushi lak TalN 7 
crested flycatchers, phoebes, a kingfisher, male and female scarlet tanagers, 
and several others. A loud “teacher” drew us down a small path, where 
we crept up on an oven-bird. 
The mosquitoes, unfortunately, were bad, so we retired for breakfast. 
In front of the hotel was a junco with its young, which we would never 
have identified without the adult because of their brownish coloring. 
The Audubon tour, a three-hour one by station wagon, started after 
breakfast under the direction of Kenneth Morrison, Minnesota Audubon 
representative, who couldn’t have been nicer or more patient when we 
wanted to linger at a particular spot. Formerly editor of the Conservation 
Bulletin and public relations representative for the Minnesota Department 
of Conservation, he writes for the Audubon Magazine and other nature 
periodicals. He is well informed about Itasca. 
Our time limit precluded visiting the entire park but we were shown 
highlights. Along one small, narrow trail almost impassable for the station 
wagon, Mr. Morrison tenderly moved back a leaf and showed us a hermit 
thrush sitting on her nest on the ground. She did not fly until the last 
minute and then only a short distance. Great blue herons stalked along the 
edges of the lakes, and dozens of loons flew past. We saw more loons flying 
than swimming. Mr. Morrison found us a Franklin’s ground squirrel, new 
to us, and stopped the station wagon on the tiny bridge across the Missis- 
sippi to look at a young doe. 
The white tailed deer grew so numerous in the park under protection, 
and ate so many seedlings, that the state had declared a short open season 
the two preceding years. The remaining deer remembered, and had grown 
much more wary. Formerly deer ate from visitors’ hands, but we saw 
only the shy doe and a young fawn kept in an enclosure near the hotel. 
In a dense virgin pine forest bordering the park road, Mr. Morrison 
showed us a pileated woodpecker’s diggings, fresh ones that bored four or 
five inches into the trunk of a tree, about a foot from the ground. We did 
not have time to wait for the woodpecker to appear, however. In a small 
open meadow bordered by trees we saw a flock of pine siskins. Wood and 
hermit thrushes sang from the depths of the woods. 
Mr. Morrison pointed out a stand of jack pine to us that he said was 
the best place to look for the Arctic three-toed woodpecker, so we resolved 
to go back. He also showed us several yellow-bellied sapsuckers, humming- 
birds, hairy and downy woodpeckers, and other birds with which we are 
familiar at home. He had found a chipping sparrow’s nest in a small pine, 
and nearby a robin’s nest. We didn’t quite approve of the robin’s location. 
The nest was under the eaves of a small building marked ‘Men.” 
We learned, for the moment, to identify the many evergreens of the 
park, and to tell birch from aspen. Our tour ran overtime, we were so 
interested. 
After lunch, when another tour started out, we wandered by ourselves, 
and made a trip back to the jack pine grove. Suddenly a bird whizzed by 
and lit on the trunk of a tree. I could see that its back was all black. 
The Arctic three-toed! While I tried to get some words out to call the 
