Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1923-03-15
oughly appreciated by the members
of both political parties.
Sprinutime in Washington.


marching into it. The lawmakers are
leaving just as the Capital City is put
ting on the best dress which nature
has put into its wardrobe.
One who has lived in the country
and has something of a heart knowl-
edge of the places where tile willows
grow, where the marsh blackbirds
nest, and where the vesper sparrow
sings, confesses to liking for the
spring and it's Accomplishments, even
though he be no poet.
Washington is sort of half city and
half country and the people here, I'M
like those in other great cities OF the
country, have some real sense of the
joys of country life. The great parks
of the city are filed with birds, cult
waited flowers are at the doorstep, and
wild flowers of ali kinds are just be
You'd the doorstep. Washington's
spring is alluring.
For years in this town the writer
has kept a sort of calendar of the
seasons. The soft naples which are
abundant in and about Washington
have shown for 20 years first REDEEM
ing of their buds on some day be-
tween February 8 and February 10.
These are the first real signs of spring
in Washington except for the fact that
if the purple grackle, commonly
known as the crow blackbird has left
the city at all during the winter, 1t is
likely to return to its favorite parks
about the first week in February.
Song Sparrows Come Early.
For three years in succession song
sparrow has appeared on February IA
in a little clump of bushes just out
side the house wing of the capitol.
This bird stays in Washington all Win
ter, but he turks under bushes along
the great river and only occasionally
breaks into song. st. Valentines day
has been chosen for three years GER
tainly by one song sparrow take 1t
for granted, although | know nothing
about it, that it is the same bird-to
take perch on the top of a bush IN the
capitol grounds and to sing through
the hours his welcome to the season
which is at hand.
John Burroughs, the great natural
list who died about year ago, studied
the bird life in the spring in Wash
ington, not only to his own satisfac-
ton and joy, but unquestionably to
the satisfaction and JOY of many hun
bred thousands of American readers.
In his spring notes at the capital Bur-
roughs calls particular attention to
the purple grackle or crow blackbird,
which, in the year of his writing q
think it was in 1869 "stalked
across the treasury lawn" These
purple grackles, resplendent in the
color of Tyre, still ale stalking across
the somewhat limited lawn space of
the Treasury building The sheen Of
their feathers as the sun strikes them
is like the sheen on the spears of
the well-known AssyrianS in the we'll
known poem.
The cardinals, commonly called the
redbirds, stay in Washington all win
ter. but Just as congress leaves in
March they come forth from their hid
ing places in the underbrush along the
river to appear in the parks. There
probably is no direct connection be-
tween the appearance of the birds and
the disappearance of congress, but UNI
less there is a long session, or an
extra session in the year when con-
gress must close on March 4, the law
makers lose the chance to look upon
the lordly cardinal as he shines redly
in the trees and whistles with boys
cheerfulness to the world.
Fish Crows at White House.
Washington has a crow that is not
| the common corn crow Of America. 1t
is called the fish crow. 1t is about
two-thirds the size of the bird that
the farmers ordinarily look upon as the
foe of the cornfelds, and it has a
voice which, to put it politely, is much
less musical than that of its bigger
| brother known to the scientists as
! Corvus Americans.
About four or five pairs of fish
crows nest each year in the big trees
| in the White House grounds. Now,
these birds which for some reason or
/ a
English is rendered as bone-breaker,
have a must peculiar habit. They do
not nest until the leaves come upon
the trees late in April, but they visit
the nests of the former year as early
as March first and poke about in them,
apparently trying to make up their
minds how much patching and mend
ing will be necessary to make the old
house good for another season.
OF course nobody knows definitely
why the fish crows come back to look
over the old nests so early, or, if the
old nests have been destroyed, to look
over the old nesting places, but it is
a curious fact that daily through the
month of March and through the first
half of April the birds are plugging"
about their last year homes and are
| thinking of something which man
knoweth not.
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