The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-03-01
WINTER VISITORS AT HOME.

l
 Next month there will be so many
 welcome bird arrivals from the south, that we may scarcely notice the gradu- al slipping away of number of unob- trusive little visitors who came down | from the north at the beginning of win
 fer and who have done their part to- ward tiding over for us a season when
 bird life is at it's lowest ebb. This, however, is but a winter resort to them Now they will return to their homes, where they will build their nests and rear their young. Many of them re- ouire. at this time, peculiar conditions which cannot be supplied in climate
 like ours To obtain these conditions,
 most of the birds seek the north, but
 this is not always necessary, as it often
 happens that the climate to be found at
 high attitudes in the mountains IS all most identical with that Of low lands
 much farther north. This fact is well
 known to the birds, and it Is interesting
 to note that the breeding ranges of
 certain species, which customariy build
 in northern countries, will extend
 southward even to the tropics, along the
 sides or tops of mountain ranges of sui
 ficient altitude to afford the climate re-
 quired Thus the little golden-croWned
 kinglet, which, under ordinary condi-
 tions. does not build its nest much further south than the Canadian border,
 nests in the Rocky Mountains as far south as Mexico, and along the Ale
 ghanies into North Carolina.
 In other cases, single pair of birds
 will sometimes make their home upon an isolated mountain which affords the
 desired conditions, when the nearest
 nesting pair of the same species is per-
 haps two hundred miles to the north
 ward. This statement applies not only to our winter visitors, but also to many other migrants.
 Perhaps the best-known of our win ter vieitant birds are the juncos, which come to us in November and stay until April. When they leave us, most of them go up into Canada, but many of them spend the summer along the summits of the Aleghanies, going as far south as Virginia. They make their snug nests on or near the ground. or grasses and moss and rootlets, and line them with finer grasses and long hairs. The site selected is usually under the low-sweeping branches of an evergreen, in the upturned roots of tree, or in a tangle of brush or tree-tops. The dark sIaty plumage of the little birds blends so we'll with these surroundings that it renders them difficult to see, The four or five eggs which each nest contains, |, yxyb ito spotched at the larger end with red dish brown. The only sound we hear from the iunco in winter is a brisk "tsip'' but for his mate he has sweet little song; just such song as we might expect from bird of the juncos 
 A winter visitor of an entirely differ ent character is the northern shrike, or butcher bird. l mention him next, be- cause of an incident which occurred in my garden few days ago, About a dozen juncos were feeding on canary seed in the snow, just outside my door, and I was busy photographing them through an open window. About noon, the whole flock started up in terror, and, looking across tO all apple-tree near by, I saw the gray, black and white form of a shrike parched upon the top. He fingered about the garden all the afternoon, and in vain I waited | for the juncos to return. They evident | y had no intention of furnishing the | shrike with a meal. The butcher-bird | Is a miniature bird of prey, living | chiefly on small birds, mice and insects He is a provident fellow, and when he captures more food than he needs for immediate use he impales part of it upon long thorns, or upon the spikes of | l barbed-wire fence, where he will re- urn for it when game is less plentiful