14 TH EAU D'U BONS (BULL ea 
The sanity question again settled, Mrs. Kiley led us to her kitchen and 
pointed through the window at her bird, which was obligingly alighting at 
that moment on a grape arbor. We studied it, comparing it with the 
solitaire illustrations in Peterson’s western guide and in Birds of America, 
and with the mockingbird, which the solitaire resembles in many ways. 
We slipped out the side door from the back porch for a closer look, 
stalked it thru the shrubbery around the house, stood shivering in the lee 
of a lilac bush near the feeder, darted back into the kitchen for another 
took at the pictures, and continued such behavior for some 45 minutes in 
the dim light of the storm before finally concluding that we had a mocker 
whose shape was distorted by fluffing its feathers in the cold. Then we 
started the slippery drive back to Chicago. While stalking the mocker- 
solitaire we heard a meadowlark singing in the sleet! 
On the way back Mrs. Baldwin took a better look at a large bird we 
had seen on a post about a quarter of a mile off the road on our way out 
and decided it was an eagle. We watched it a while and then it flew — 
sure enough, a bald eagle. 
We were north of Harvey coming in on U. S. route 54 when Mrs. 
Baldwin again called a halt for what appeared to be a hawk. It had 
stopped sleeting and was lighter than earlier in the day, but would soon 
be dusk. We put our glasses on the bird and saw it was a short-eared owl, 
the first Anne and I had seen. 
We got out of the car and started walking back for a better look when 
it flew off its perch and began soaring, wheeling, and almost looping on 
quick turns. Suddenly it was joined by another doing the same kind of 
maneuvers. We saw at once that it was a nuptial flight! The flight con- 
tinued several minutes. Later they alighted on low stumps in a field about 
100 yards from us. 
During the flight I spotted a third owl in a tree some distance away. 
After the pair had alighted, the third owl, apparently a male, came winging 
toward them and the male at rest rose to meet him. The intruder already 
had a ragged wing but the two battled furiously in the air for some time 
before the ragged one flew disconsolately back to his tree with a larger tear 
in his wing than before. The female sat quietly on a stump, paying no 
attention to the battlers. It was getting too dark to see more and we came 
on home feeling well repaid by the performance of the owls for the dis- 
appointment in not seeing a Townsend’s solitaire. 
ft & fA 
Society Leads Bird Walks 
SEVERAL MEMBERS of the Illinois Audubon Society led bird walks in five 
Chicago parks last month in cooperation with the Chicago park district 
recreation department in a new nature program. Walks were conducted 
three successive Saturdays beginning May 7 in Columbus, Humboldt, Indian 
Boundary, Jackson, and Lincoln parks. The leaders were Pauline Esdale, 
Gwendolyn.,Smith, Abel Schwartz, Arthur Gronner, pegs ‘O’Rear, and 
Doris Plapp. 
