Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-04-03
Twenty Sevenl Varieties Seen
in an Afternoon Walk.
An Augusta Bird Lover and Some Of
His Friends.
The Feathered Sonssters Are Early
and Numerous, This Year.


20. The season is early and the day
though sunny was not warm.
Climbing Rines Hill the English
sparrow and domestic pigeon, common
~ called dove, were in sight as the
walk began. These birds are like the
poor, they are always with us. We find
them wherever We go.
The pigeons live mostly in the crew.
ices along the west bank wall of the
river above the bridge, though conven-
lent spots in sheds and barns are pre-
ferred, and a genuine dove cote is even
better than that; but cotes are not
plentiful in Augusta. So they get
along the best way they can, increase
and multiply and have large families
and appear to enjoy life. The pigeon
is a sociable bird and likes to have
company. His neighbors and friends
are always around him and his enemies
are apt to be inconveniently near His
life is round Of eternal vigilance, yet
he seems to be happy. The young bird,
or SQUAD, is priced by epicures, but
the man who made meal of boiled owl
would find the old pigeon too tough
proposition for even his eating. The
pigeons go out after their living and
can CLEAN kernel of grain or a bit of
bread. They are considerable damage
to farmers, on account of their habits
of eating oats and corn or other grain
that may be raised. A favorite food
with them is peanuts. Horace Bow
ditch and some other of our citizens
regularly feed the doves, and they
know him and begin to gather when
ever he stands in the doorway. Some
of the boys feed peanuts with the
shells on to the doves and watch them
struggle with the overlarge mouthful
that those make. The birds are per-
sstent and greedy eaters and they
keep at those whole peanuts and swal-
low them 6aaells and all, frantically
twisting their neeks to conform to the
turns and curves of the peanut. A
blfghted peanut win be dropped at
once,S for they seem to know by the
weight of the nut whether the meat
inside is good for anything.
"That dirty little foreigner" the
English sparrow is an acquaintance of
all of us. He obtrudes his provinces
wherever he can find a hole big enough
to afford q passage, and makes him.
self nest there. They stay with us
all winter, and support themselves on
the pickings of the street, and prepare
trouble for the people who in mistaken
kindness feed them. Their filthy nests
are unquestionably one source of the
swarms of flies that infest the land in
summer time. Like the crow they
have neither beauty nor song, and they
do not even mind their own business,
but go to making trouble for their bird
Eeighbors. They make nests behind
awnings or signs, back of a window
blind, under doorsteps, in cornices, in
birdhouses, in hollow trees, in almost
any sort of hole except a woodchuck
hole, and there they pile in a heap of
almost everything, with a regardless
ness for neatness or beauty equal to
that shown by the crow. They are
not fussy about the kind of a place
where they set up housekeeping, for
all they want is a chance to start a
small public dump. in the top of which
they scratch a hollow to keep the eggs
from rolling out. Four or five or six
broods of young in a summer is the
habit of the English sparrow, and they
begin early. The first flock noticed in
Augusta this spring, came out of the
nest on March Is, and numbered five
fledglings.
The pigeons and the English SPAR
rows will sometimes feed together,
but if the food supply is scanty the
larger birds will take good care that
the smaller ones don't get any of it.
There were some pigeons feeding in
Market Square, one day last winter,
and the sparrows gathered around and
wanted a share of the oats dropped
from the horses nose bag. They walked
round and around the large birds and
looked at the tempting feast till finaS
one little sparrow, holder than the o.
ers, rushed in and grabbed bite.
Thump! A pigeons bill struck him on
the Uranium and it rang like a bass
drum. He rolled over with fatal
attack of conclusion of the brain and
the big birds kept on feeding. undis-
turbed by the tragedy. The depot at
fords feast for these birds whenever
wedding party starts on the tour OF
a lifetime, and they will take good care
that none of the rice thrown is wasted.
All through the winter theNe We're
frequent reports of robins seen IN the
city. The writer was not fortunate
enough to catch a glimpse or tnem'
hut he has repeatedly seen robins IN
thick Maine woods in the dead Of win
ter. It is seldom that the winter ropiiis
come near houses. Probably they are
tho birds that breed in Labrador ana
the region east Of Hudson bay, ana
this latitude IL about as far south as
those birds migrate, while our sum
mer residents migrate to climate az
most as warm as what they found VIII WIN
MS in the months when oysters are NOT
on the bills w fare, That is not an
established fact of ornithology. how
ever. The winter birds are duii on
color as compared with those OF spring
and fall or even of the late autumn
migrations, and they don't have tne
lively. cheerful appearance OF our
summer friends. A couple dozen ol
robins were seen before getting out
side the city, Sunday afternoon.
Another find within the city nmi's
was a logeerhead shrike or butcher
bird, the first butcher bird the on.
server had seen since las. year. Ihey
70 about silently mot advertising .ne y
Lrs.,.ss. and the English sparrow y
their favorite food. Let the sparrows
be chattering by hundreds in q stree'