The Newtown bee., 1905-01-20
THE HOME CIRCLE.
WHY DO THE BIRDS NEED FEED-
 ING IN WINTER.
WRITTEN FOR THE BEE

The question is often asked hy those not yet intere>tt d in protecting our feathered friends, "Wh\ do the hlrds need feeding in winter.' Hasn't | that they may fly away where there is plenty of food and won't we make paupers of them? Human b. inps if helped too much "tquently refus" [" do for themselves. Not SO with 1he birds The more they find to ,a1 the better they work and tle good work d bird does for the farmer depends en- tirely on what it eats. Take the tree sparrow for exambe. They are our great est weed destroy yerS, the largest part of their winter diet being weed seeds. The tree or Canadian Sparrows are with us from October until April. Probably there are more than ten of these sparrows to every square mile in Connecticut. One bird eats at least a quarter of an ounce of seed in a day. Connecticut must have about 5000 square miles so that if these birds stay withu 200 days in the year they would consume several hundred tons of weed seeds.
 These little workers must not be confused with the house-sparrows whose depredaLions have hurt the rep utation of the bird world. The latter were imported from Europe and have spread in such numbers as to raise the question whether they had to be eX terminated. The town and village streets would be lonely without their chirp and twitter on winter mornings and they act as ScavengerS in our streets. However they cannot con- pete with our native sparrOws when it comes to the work they do for the farmers.
 want to describe the little tree sparrow in such way that all the young people will recognize it.. The whole coloring of the bird is reddish brown and when a flock is feeding among the weed stalks and dead leaves so well does the coloring protect them that hawk soaring overhead would have difficulty in discovering it's prey. Frequently 40, when you thought there were but 10, rise from the weeds when startled by footsteps near their haunt. The tree sparrow has chestnut cap and dusky white wing lass and tiny blacd spot in the middle of it's breast distinguishes it from all the other spar rows.
 Now that the deep snowS have cov- cred the fields and the dOOryardS, where too often myriads of weed seeds are ready for next years growth, the birds must move on unless food is pro- vided during the cold waves. It is rarely that the snow stays with us through all the winter months and these are weeks when thes snow is Scant or the ground bare when the birds could work for us, if they could find food during the coldeSt periods. A lit. tie timely aid will keep an army of workers with us A. bushel of chaff SWeepingS from the mOW containing grass seed will feed fluckS of these birds for days. Scatter hanufulS of the chatl over d snow drift under your window and watch the birds gather. Last year palr of tree SparrUwS spent the win ter near our home. As the cold in creased they brought others with then until quite flock came each morning at daylight for their breakfast. They scratched in the chatf like hungry chickens and kept up merry tinklinp note even when the thermometer stood 10 below zero. 1 have a piece Of board fitted into window about three inches above the sill. This shell spread with crumbs and Suet attracts the tree sparrows, but they leave the suet for the wOOdpeckerS and the merry tap of the hairy WOodpecker at his hard lump of suet is one of our daylight greetings. The birds like the fat meat no matter how hard it is frozen and their bills are well adapted to the work. The wOUdpecker'S tongue is hard and barbed, so that insecl s car be easily removed from holes bored in the bark where the larva is concealed
 When the wOOdpeckerS are seen at work boring holes in the orchard trees they are often accused of doing harm although they are in fact looking for the wood boring beetles, then larva and caterpllars. These birds dig out insects which other birds cannot reach. We owe the preservation of our forests to the constant work of the hairy and dOwny wOOdpeckerS. There are near ly 250 species of WOOdpeckerS but these two are with us working all the winter months, but when the branches and tree trunks are covered with a heavy weight of snow, birds which follow the tree trunks find it very hard to obtain food. Small pieces of Suet tackled tC the trees will furnish many good meal Wulic Cilt SIDW dllu lCc IluNiCi UIlt work which will go on again as soon as Mother Nature gives the birds q chance. Two pair of woOdpeckers kept busy all last winter among oul apple trees and under several old trees the ground was streWn with bits ol loose bark I doubt if a square inch o1 the tree trunk escaped investigation A fruit grower could well afford during the cOldest weather to tack strips of Suet to each tree in his orchard. The chickadeeS attracted by the feast would destroy the eggs of the tent caterpillar and rid us of the pest, if they were in duced to lnger about our orchards.
 1 have often been asked how one could keep crumbs from blowing away in the wind. During the first snow storm of the season l put small dry goods box, turned on it's side, in the apple tree branches and the birds came to eat the crumbs scattered inside. A piece of suet tackled to the trunk where an overhanging limb protected the bark from snow and ice soon at tracted hungry nuthatch. The bird hung head downward a few feet from my head while I nailed the suet. It would take bite and then sit silently watching the storm as immOVable as a