Norwich bulletin., 1921-06-04
THE QUAIL TRAP
FEW WINTER BIRDs-RoBRERs FEATHER-eRos CAN DATE-HAVEN SWAMP SPARRoWS-RiNeNEckS 

INSTEAD OF BoBWHITES.
 When we hear of a songless Eden our faith may waver a little. bat we know that we have had a birdless winter so far as our usual featheBed back-door pensioners are concerned. One young sharpeged observer said she saw but one tree sparrow and only two small punches of juncos Nothing, she says, but the ! good-for-nothing stay-at-homes = crows, l. jays, starlings, and English sparrows. This is the first winter in twenty-five | years that no pine or evening grosbeaks | have been seen in the English neighbor- | hood Maybe the influence of the mild . season on the Atlantic seaboard has kept | these wanderers nearer their summer ] homes in the north and west. A single i red-headed Woodpecker has been report | ed here, indeed a rarely, though quite common when I first looked up local birds, and I found an old time record of pair drilling a hole forty feet from the ground in poplar in the Hell Gate woods, Preston. In the same faded rec ord is an account of finding three eggs of upland blower on Blue Hill in Boz rah, also of seeing but not taking an- other set of three on Mccall Hill in Boz rah; a third set of four eggs taken from Shetucket Heights opposite Greeneville completes my record of this big sand piper, though I knew of several pairs breeding on Plum Island before the isl- and was occupied by government forces.
 The gOshawIl left his usual bloody trace in February. If goshawks were
 here late in the spring, said my young
 observer. we could not raise any chicks
 out of doors. A bold fox seized a hen
 before our eyes in the open lot near the house, but at our loud clapping and shouting dropped it's prey, so that we had a chicken dinner instead of the young foxes; but later the little dog foxes and vixens fared better, for N. 1 W. R2wson has missed four or five fowl probably by the same old fox that car ried off our best setting hen turkey last year. A female cooper got just one of our new chicks last week but was easily driven away on future attempts. Though the big buteos soar noisily overhead as in former breeding seasons, they have not made raid on our coops in twenty fiva years.
 i Crows go birdsegging soon after day. i light, and as 1 am an early riser I have , surprised them four times at robins i nests in our garden before the nests were ] protected by leaves, and later, further afield. picked up other blue eggshells dropped by the black thieves Though ] I have a personal grudge against the ! three pairs Of starlings that have taken possession of the bluebird and wacup holes and robin crevices in the three old ash trees at our gate, I must give them
 credit for feeding their young on the 1 twO-inch striped caterpillars from the cherry trees in the stone heap. Again l hate to bring a serious charge against 1 the mating orioles that have rified and torn from their cunning fastenings two nests of least lycatcher. You may think H4r-. e. f,.1 singing, glory of plunSage, and with fare.
 How very early the birds came bach this year is a common remark not quite
 borne out by the barn-door records. As
 in former migrations in the ups and downs of weather we were startled by Ithe early appearance of individuals iron
 the main army which did not arrive til
 the usual time, while some groups have an almost exact day for their advent like
 orioles. bobolinks, grosbeaks and cuck
 DOS, as if they were keeping a date to tht
 very letter. So closely do ospreys sticl
 to the time for their arrival, it has pass
 ed into a saying with New Jersey shor,
 fishermen that fishhawks come back t , patch up their big nests on St. Patrick Eday in the morning. From the school } house windows the children have notet the return of the six kinds of birds tha
 bred in the schoolyard last year, tn
 couTtship of the purple fnches and tre
 swallows being most spectacular. The,
 report outside that there has been no de ~ lcrease in the summer residents unde
 jtheir observation, with an apparent in
 crease in song sparrows, orioles, ant swallows. They also notice with in
 Iterest that robins are now nesting on tn Johnson gate. the Kelly veranda, and tn , Marsh window sill, to escape from raid 7, of crows,
 | While gathering painted cups for holiday sheaf in a damp meadow, tn ! second week in May. I flushed thre l swamp sparrows from their hiddel homes which is pretty near a record fo l this bird. The four eggs in each nes were darker than the eggs of song spar rows on the nearby upland, and, withou . handling for comparison, I should sa were smaller. There were no cowbird. . eggs: and in nests of swamp sparro7 z looked. into. in former visits to thi = meadow were no cowbirds' eggs, while i g every song sparrows nest I found th t year and last were one or two eggs
 this parasite The females dipped 2 II once silently into the marsh weeds, witt q cut the feints of other ground birds. Fe VI evening sparrOws were seen here on tf a spring migration and I have found nor , breeding for several years
 T We have no 1921 data of bobwhite ar = rJrffed grouse. so we will take a look ; !, the local status of the big gamebird tn; f has taken full possession of the countr.