Part 2

White-breasted Nuthatch 15 English Sparrow 25 Purple Martins 35 Northern Shrike 39 Prairie Horned Lark 47 Loon 53 Hibernating Woodchuck 57 European Hedgehog 75 Nest of a Meadow Mouse Exposed by Melting Snow 85 Screech Owl 89 Meadow Lark 99 Downy Woodpecker 105 Fox at Den 119 Chimney Swift 125 "One of your bird-houses should be tenanted by a wren" 129 Male Bobolink 141 Barn Swallow 153 Belted Kingfisher 165 Catbird 171 Woodchuck 183 Song Sparrow 191 Yellow-billed Cuckoo 199 Kingbird 207 Red-winged Blackbirds 215 Cedar Waxwing 221 Yellow-breasted Chat 245 Skunk Hunting Grasshoppers 255 American Redstart 259 Grebe 277 Spotted Sandpiper 281 Chickadees (Upper, Mountain; Lower, Hudsonian) 287 "The great horned owl and the snowy owl can be tamed" 301 Blue Jays 305 A Four-storied Warbler's Nest. Each Story Represents an Attempt by the Warbler to Avoid Becoming Foster-parent of a Young Cowbird 311 Snow Bunting 315 Cotton-tail Rabbit Taking a Sun Bath 331 Bonaparte Gull 337

=January=

January First

The best New Year's resolution a lover of nature can make, is a promise to provide the feathered waifs of winter with free lunches. This may be done by fastening pieces of suet to limbs and trunks of trees, and by placing sunflower seeds, bird seeds, or cracked nuts on the veranda roof or on the window-sill of your room, where sharp eyes will soon spy them.

January Second

Your boarders will be the birds that either remain with you throughout the year, or have come from the frozen North to spend the winter. These are the birds that feed upon seeds of various kinds, or the feathered carpenters that pry into the crevices of the bark, and dig into the rotten wood in search of the insects and the insect larvæ hidden there.

January Third

The chickadee, white-breasted nuthatch, and the downy woodpecker, keep company during the long winter months. They will appreciate your lunches most, and will call on you frequently throughout the day.

Notes

January Fourth

Do not attempt to tame your visitors until they have made several calls for lunches. Then put a crude "dummy," with a false face, near the window, and raise the sash to let the birds enter. Within a few days the chickadees will perch upon Dummy's shoulders and take nut meats from his buttonholes.

January Fifth

Having thus gained the chickadees' confidence, hurry to the window when you hear them call, and quietly take the place of the dummy. Of course they will be suspicious at first, and probably you will meet with many disappointments, but when you have succeeded in taming them to alight upon your hand or shoulder, you will find enjoyment in calling them to you by the gentle whistle to which you should accustom them.

January Sixth

Tempting food, and slow movements when in the presence of birds, are the main secrets to successful bird taming. The chickadee, as you will find, is the easiest of these birds to tame. He has several songs and call notes, so do not expect always to hear him repeat his name, "chick-a-de-de-de-de."

Notes

January Seventh

Persons not familiar with birds often mistake the white-breasted nuthatch for a woodpecker, for their actions are much alike. The nuthatch creeps about the trees in all kinds of attitudes, while the woodpecker assumes an upright position most of the time and moves in spasmodic hops. The young and the female downy woodpecker do not have the red crescent on the back of the head. The hairy woodpecker is another "resident" that looks like his cousin, the downy, but he is once again as large.

January Eighth

Winter in the North is a season of hardship and hunger to wild creatures. The otherwise wary and cunning crow often puts discretion aside when in search of food, and fearlessly visits the village refuse heaps, or the farmer's barn-yard. In the orchards you will find where he has uncovered the decayed apples and pecked holes into them.

January Ninth

Even the mink, after days of fasting, is driven by starvation to leave his retreat in a burrow along a creek or river bank, and to forage upon the farmer's poultry. Poor fellow, he does not hibernate, so he must have food; fish is his choice, but when hard pressed, he will take anything, "fish, flesh, or fowl."

Notes

January Tenth

In the fields and lowlands, the scattered coveys of Bob-whites that have escaped the hunter, huddle for shelter from a storm under a stump or in a hollow log. Sometimes several days pass before they are able to dig through the drifts that imprison them. Should a heavy sleet-storm cover the snowy mantle with a crust too thick and hard for them to break through, starvation is their fate. Sportsmen living within convenient reach of quail coverts should watch over them in such weather and provide food and shelter for the birds.

January Eleventh

Even the flocks of horned (or shore) larks that feed on the wind-swept hilltops, pause occasionally and squat close to the ground to keep from being blown away. They have come from the North, and after passing the winter with us, most of them will return to Canada to nest.

January Twelfth