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mockingbirds has taken to staying and the bluebirds come also, and pine 
finches and goldfinches, the former only as rare winter visitants. 
Best of all haunts for winter birds, however, is down by the water. 
Wherever a warm hole in the ice can be found near the mouth of a creek 
or at a spring, strange things go on. You may see twenty-five blue jays 
all at once disporting in the snow. Red-bellied woodpeckers drop down for 
a wee drop. Even a lone killdeer may be sighted, or a Wilson’s snipe, 
though this year we saw neither. Their place is taken by several kinds of 
blackbirds wading out and lhfting water-soaked leaves in gingerly fashion 
to catch scuds and water insects. At six in the morning with temperature 
down te 0° flat, many birds can be caught at their bath! 
Then in open places in the river, rafts of ducks will be seen, resting 
from migration or dipping or diving for food as is their custom. Coots, 
called mudhens, are sometimes with them, while overhead weave back and 
forth from place to place, or in migration, other hordes of ducks or geese 
PHOTO BY JOHN H. GERARD 
The Birds’ Dining Room 
or gulls. With them, trying to feed on stranded fish, will be an eagle or 
two, believe it or not. A couple of cormorants may warm themselves in 
the sun. 
But last and choicest of all places to hunt in is a deep swamp woods. 
We entered such a paradise this past week, with its hidden stillness and 
quiet nooks, but also with the rustle and music of many song birds in it, 
