Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1905-03-29
JOUR- WINTER GUESTS
WHAT Is BEING DONE TO SUPPLY
THE NEEDS OF WILD BIRDS.
Pleasure Of Feeding the Feathered
Visitors During the Days When
They Cannot Obtain Their
Own Living.

II there is anything more sure than
that the true lover of the wild birds
will help to save them from death by
starvation by feeding them during the
winter, it is that those who, for any
reason, feed the wild birds at this sea-
son, will become true lovers of them.
That birds are not naturally afraid of
men is proved by the behavior of the
feathered Inhabitants of regions sell
dom visited by men. The penguins of
the Antarctic will allow men to walk
clubs; they will learn better if they
are not exterminated before their edu-
cation is complete. The birds of Lay
san allow visitors to walk among
them, and even to pick them up some
times; may their confidence never be
shaken. Our own birds, as the result
OF bitter experience, usually give us
wide berth; but seemingly they are
not narrowminded about it, and are
ready to have faith in us again when
ever circumstances warrant it. Wher-
ever birds are we'll treated and careful
ly protected, their confidence in man
returns, and the day has come, think,
when such confidence is appreciated.
Thus, when man shows enough in
terest in birds to feed them, and, by
feeding them, gains their confidence.
his interest naturally increases, and he
becomes stanch friend and lover of
his little guests. 1t is bad man in
deed whose heart cannot respond to
the firm but delicate grasp of a chick
adee's foot, when he alights upon fin
ger and looks one square in the eye;
if had to meet such a man on a lone
ly road at night, I certainly should
not go unarmed. Fortunately such
men are few. The average man likes
to be trusted, whether it be by a fel,
low man or by bird, and in many
cases, at least. confidence begets de-
sire to be worthy of confidence.
At my new home in New Hamp-
shire, the birds have been fed this
winter as usual, and l find that they
are not less tame than those of Mas
sachusetts or Connecticut In fact,
the blue jays are the tamest l have
ever seen. While they have not as yet
actually alighted on our hands. 1 be-
lieve that, with little patience, they
could be induced to do so. AS 1t is.
they come to the window-sills and take
little notice OF our presence, even
when the windows are open. The tree
sparrows are not nearly as numerous
as they were about our home in Mas
sachusetts last winter but they come
as regularly, and are quite as tame. To
feeding station on the ground in the
garden come large f1ocks of snow bunt-
1ngs, redpolls and goldfinches, and
now and then we have a downy wood
pecker or white breasted nuthatch.
But, as usual, the chickadees are the
tamest of all our guests-tamer, in
fact, than we have ever known them
before. We cannot appear at a win
dow without half a dozen of these lit
tie titmice alighting on the sill one or
two at time, and they will either
hover just in front of our faces. or.
standing on tiptoe, hammer on the
glass with their bills. If we open the
window, they will come in and fly all
about, alighting on desks, chair-backs
and tables as though they owned the
place. When we go out upon the
piazza, they come to our hands and
faces without waiting to be asked: in
fact, if they were anything less dear
than chickadees they might fairly be
accused of impudence.
One visitor we have had who was
not SO welcome; hungry northern
shrike. Of course he came for the
chickadees, and he got at least one of
them. He chased it through the lilac
bushes, from top to bottom and from
bottom to top again, until the desper-
ate chickadee in an unlucky moment
flew out into the open country. The
shrike followed like a fury. the two
turning and twisting and doubling. un-
til, at last, coming close to the ground.
the butcher bird nailed his victim.
Perhaps minute later, the shrike
arose, carrying the chickadee, how.
could not see from where stood. He
alighted with his prey upon a strand
of a barbed-wire fence, but, taking
wing again a moment later, he few
close past me, carrying his victim in
his claws. The fact which impressed |
me most was the great ease with which |
he carried it. He few in almost a
straight line and the fight was not
labored in the least