Evening star., 1936-01-29
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEY ELL.

Our correspondent brings up three
points of exceptional interest.
The first has to do with the duttering
and clawing of the birds for flrmer
footing on window shelf or other feeding
device.
No matter how much the birds are fed
on the ground, there is always room for
a feeder which displays the birds aerial
ability and tactics better than anything
else.
There is no more fun in this sport than
watching them wheel and alight on the
platform of feeder.
Not only is it a beautiful spectacle, but
often a comical one, as well, when half
a dozen birds fight each other for four
positions.
This battle however, is mostly a matter
of play, on the birds part.
They peck at each other or try with
a great fuss of wings to drive some bird
away which has got there ahead.
II is a curious thing that more often
than not they succeed.
The usual procedure is to drive away
at least one bird. 1t flies away, maybe
to another feeder, whereupon the other
bird takes it's place, until driven away
by another in turn.
| Starlings of course, are never driven
| away by sparrows-only starlings by star
| lings. Yet a male cardinal-no small
| birds easily dislodged from his perch
| by a sparrow.
The wing display in these mimic bat
ties is beautiful to watch, as we'll as the
general flying work of the birds. They
make the agile young man on the flying
trapeze look pretty clumsy.
| X 4
| a second point, we'll worth considering,
| as brought out above, deals with the
| plain fact that when one sets up feed
ing station for birds he really sets up a
"free lunch stand"
Anything in Nature that will eat the
| food put out has as good right there as
another ard the philosophical donor Will
try his best to accept the creatures which
| come for his largess and not permit the
| ones he does not want to fret him too
| much. Often the fears of the bird feeder
are dispelled by time. or seem to be, IN
the light of experience, not as serious
as he had thought.
In the matter of cats, for instance, 1t
is our belief that little is to be feared
from them as far as killing the Winter
birGs is concerned We have had as our
guest every morning for the past year a
large and vigorous tomcat, creature all
bone and muscle, which calmly sits on
the back porch and watches about 200
or 300 birds feed without ever touching
one of them. If there ever were cat
to harm birds. this is the one, because he
is like wire spring. We give him good
breakfast. of course, and maybe that
helps explain it, and maybe 1t doesn't.
The third point brought out by our
correspondent is good one-the neces-
sity for giving the birds water IN eX-
tremely cold weather.
While they eat snow, and may be seen
pecking at it often, there are many dry
DAYS, some caused by freezing weather,
when even snow is difficult to get at.
And then there are many dry bone
DAYS in Winter when there is no snow
it seems difficult to believe at this writ
ing-when a bird must be put to 1t to
find anything to drink to say nothing OF
water enough for a bath.
On sunshiny days shallow vessels OF
| slightly warmed water may be placed out
in the afternoon in the sun so that they
will not freeze too quickly. Often shell
tered nook may be found where there is
| little wind and a great deal OF sunshine.
| Such is ideal.