8 THE AUDUBON BUT rete 
After the Storm 
By CHARLOTTE E. VAN SICKLE 
THESE RECORDS were obtained in Winnebago County, IIll., not far from the 
Wisconsin state line, about one hundred miles from Chicago. We have kept 
a bird record for more years than we would care to admit, but we have 
never done much “bird hunting” during the winter months. Usually our 
bird record by the first of March contains only the most common bird 
residents, such as the hairy and downy woodpeckers, chickadees, nuthatches, 
crows, etc., with quite often a red-headed woodpecker seen near oak groves. 
This year our record is different as Nature herself has conspired to 
literally drop birds, and such birds, into our laps, willy-nilly, looking for 
them, or not. After the unusually warm weather up until January, about 
the middle of this month we were blessed (the soil needed the moisture) 
with a regular, old-fashioned blizzard which blocked highways with drifts 
up to eight feet deep. We had our first thrilling experience on our first trip 
out to the nearby shopping center, Rockford, Ill., after the highways were 
cleared. 
This city is about twenty miles from our home, and about half way 
there we cross quite a large river with bottom lands on both sides. As we 
were driving along the highway across this low land I saw what I took to 
be a hawk soaring over a barnyard, and the bird traveled on in the same 
direction as the highway. I had asked for less speed so that I might follow 
its flight as long as possible. Suddenly the bird turned and flew directly 
over our heads. As he turned I discovered his white head and tail and I 
am afraid I let out a scream to stop the car. My husband, who has great 
patience in driving our bird hunting group around looking for birds, but 
none when we can’t instantly identify a bird on sight, stopped the car. He 
also said, knowing that I do not see great distances and that we had driven 
a mile since I had first seen the bird, that he thought I must be looking at 
an airplane. I stepped out of the car, with no galoshes, no binoculars, drifts 
four or five feet deep on all sides, and with open mouth (I am sure) watched 
a mature American bald eagle with white head and tail float majestically 
over my head and across the field. 
Two days later, a friend coming out from the city saw the same bird 
in almost the same locality. It has not been heard of since. We hope the 
dead body is not hanging on some farmer’s barnyard fence, but who knows. 
Although we had never before seen a live eagle in this locality, they are not 
entirely unknown. Last fall we saw a young eagle that had been shot some- 
where in this vicinity. My friend from the city had identified an eagle, a 
few years ago, only a few miles from where the one was seen this year. 
The next day after the eagle episode, armed with binoculars and 
galoshes, we drove to another river where for some distance the gravel 
highway has on either side of it low lying land. Just before starting out 
someone told us that there was a flock of seventy-five prairie chickens along 
this highway. You know with what skepticism such news is received, with 
mental reservations to say the least. 
Coming down the last hill to the flat land we saw a field with corn 
shocks still standing in it. Each shock, or so it seemed, had one or more 
