16 THE A’ U DjaU B°O;N?) B Ui Gihereie 
much as possible like a stump. Again he flew trailing his long green legs 
behind. The tiny Maryland yellow-throats peered at us from bushes along 
the way, or sat boldly on the wires of the fence and sang ‘“witch-i-ty.” 
Sometimes one added an extra note making it ‘“‘witch-i-tee-ah.” There were 
sure to be some red-wings “o-ka-leeing” from the tree tops at the edge of 
the swamp and one time bobolinks sang from the fence posts. There 
were three of them evidently having some sort of test of musicianship. 
We stood almost breathless listening to as fine a concert as we had ever 
heard. 
In the edge of the woods fox sparrows, white-throated sparrows and 
chewinks scratched among the leaves. Sometimes they stopped to sing and 
each song had its own distinctive charm. It was hard to say “This is my 
favorite song,” but the sparrows are a family of great singers. The trail 
wound through the woods for a mile and each section had its bird life. 
The first part, where maples, tupelos and oaks came down to the edge of 
a peat bog which was then all great white pines, was a favorite place for 
warblers. There were woodpeckers, downy, hairy, red-head, flicker and 
sapsucker. Some beat a tatoo on a dead branch, others noisily told the world 
that spring had come. Flicker’s “wick-up” could be heard half a mile. 
Sapsucker was more quiet but busy making rows of neat little holes in 
the trees of his choice. 
There were great patches of bird-foot violets in one sandy valley. Up 
the slopes beyond, the ground was white with phlox. Here the mourning 
doves built their early nests on the ground, with only a few broken 
branches for protection. Later in the year they built in low trees. In a 
valley near the lake was an old hollow tree where the great horned owl 
had his nest. We seldom saw him during the day but at night he came 
out to hunt and his hunting call was a terrifying thing. Screech owls 
lived in a deep ravine back of us. Whip-poor-wills sang all night moonlight 
nights, just outside our windows. Ruffed grouse nested in the ravine, and 
the mother made the chicks hide when we came upon them. Chickadees 
stayed with us all summer, even building a nest in one of the feeding boxes. 
A wretched little wren destroyed the eggs and made enemies for life of 
our household! During the summer the cardinal nested near the cabin. 
We had prairie warblers winging their flute-like song from a dead perching 
tree at our window. Red-eyed vireo built his dainty nest in a small oak 
tree near by and wood pewee nested and sang his cool woodsy song’ all 
summer long. His, and red-eyed vireo’s songs seem to go right on through 
moulting. 
There were many other birds, catbirds, thrashers, thrushes, all the 
warblers, tanagers, orioles, swallows. One of the loveliest experiences was 
the song of a wood thrush just at dusk; and another was the song of a 
field sparrow in the middle of the night. 
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 
