The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-08-05
BY c. N. Goethe.

Sweeping through the air in grace
full curves, picking up its food-dragon
flies and aquatic insects-as it skim.
med over the surface of the lake in
Suffers Fort park, a black tern, or
sea swallow, some distance from its
usual haunts, last Sunday furnished a
bit of interest to grown ups as well as
children. The tern has a wide habi-
tat, from Alaska to Brazil and Chilli
but is seldom recorded in a built-up
locality like the Suffers Fort Park
district
Quite a number of wild birds are
found at or near the park, and are
easily recognizable by nature students.
Wagtails are often found in flocks-
the plaintive call of the kildee plover
is often whistled on moonlight nights;
several California screech owls are
heard nightly, and occasionally seen
against the starlit sky. A brood of
wood warblers have just left the nest
in a tree not far from the big cotton
woods. A western chipping sparrow
for the last two weeks has been filling
the air with its cicada-like song. Not
long ago the park was visited by a
Louisiana tanger, with it's brilliant
black and red and yellow, more in
color like the birds of the tropics that
one sees offered for sale by poems in
the red Zarapes, under the shadow of
the cathedral on the zocolo in Mexico
City. The name of this bird is a re-
minder of the days when Louisiana
stretched across the continent to the
Pacific Ocean and to the British lines
1t is bird generally found in the pine
forests of the high Slerras, but wan
ders occasionally to the banks of the
Sacramento. The song of the meadow
lark sometimes mingles with the ia
miliar tremolo of the linnet or house
finch. A couple of years ago bird
lever near the fort caught an unusual
city visitor, the cedar wax-wing, which
showed clearly on its wings the queer
appendages like the red sealing-wa1
that gives the bird it's name.
Some day every California schoo
will have it's nature study field excur
sions, and the inquisitive boy or girl
when he finds a stray wanderer of the
feathery tribe in one of the city parks
instead of wondering a minute-the1
forgetting, will have the joy of recog
nizing an old friend. The fun of ex
ploring country lanes and bits of wood
land, like in Del Paso Park and the vii
low and poplar thickets that firing
most California rivers and creeks, o
finding the miniature jugs that tn
Wasps tuck away under bark of dea
trees each containing an egg and
torpid spider, paralyzed with wonder
full instinct by the mother wasps
sting at certain nerve center whic
the wasp always accurately finds-th
fun of exploring, of chasing in mic
winter from their hiding place a pal
of mourning cloak butterflies tina
have hidden beneath the bark, of gail
ering bright colored caterpillars an
raising butterflies from them, or a
aquarium where tadpoles are deve
oped into toads to be later on the SET
sons garden police, of digging up
space in the back yard and finding tn
larvae of a dozen kinds of beetles an
learning which are good and whic
are injurious, of seeing fight betwee
a big spider and a "tarantula killer
of learning how ants milk their aphi
-cows-and how they have their so
diers and their slaves, Of finding OF
how next years catkins and buds al
being formed already this summer, {
raising from gals the narrow-waiste