Evening star., 1936-05-13
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES Z. TRACEWELL.

Keeping q bird notebook Is great fun,
II you begin with the Identification of
your first bird.
Then the crudest little book, no more
pretentious than the sort school children
use, becomes a veritable treasury Of
memory.
1t is possible to secure bird portraits in
color, with which to illustrate the
volume. so that as time goes on the
keeper has personal record with certain
features possessed by no elaborate bound
volume.
One may begin such a book any time,
however, putting in it all the birds one
has seen in the garden.
Whenever the job is undertaken It
means the establishing of record which
will take its place on the family desk
along with the written garden record.
A garden notebook is essential. For
those who love the birds bird notebook
is equally so, and is better than combin-
ing them.
There are two ways of keeping such a
book.
One is in running chronological order.
not exactly day by day, but more or less
in that direction.
The other is to devote a page or sew
eral pages, to each bird as identified.
Perhaps the first method is that of the
unmethodical person, the second the
system naturally adopted by the man or
woman devoted to order.
Either way, however, gives a complete
record of observations. In this indoor
outdoor sport the danger Of forgetting
tu 1v, tIa,-
need something to jog their memory.
They do not have such memories for
such things as they have for the more
plebeian details of life.
The essential differences between the
cardinal, or redbird, and the scarlet
tanager, for instance, are not easy for
the beginner. 1t is here as with MEM
berS Of the sparrow family. One has but
to delve slightly into the lore Of the
ornithologist to understand that the
Identification of the various members of
this widespread family is almost impos-
Sible for the beginner. He will do well
If he actually sees and tells one from the
other the English sparrow, the fox SPAR
row, the song and white-throated SPAR
rows. This will leave scores of sparrows,
all looking very much alike to the mex
perienced eye.
The bird beginner will be saved much
perturbation by one saving fact-that
only a comparatively few species will
visit his yard, and not more than three
or four at any one time. If he sets down
the details, as he sees them, from time to
time, he will have always at hand a
ready reference which will enable him to
note the chief differences when a new
and unknown bird alights in his garden.
X \
One of the chief factors to note down
is the arrival of the birds. Their going
away from him in the Fall will not be
so easy. since they depart one by one
then. leaving silently, without notice, so
that it will be weeks, perhaps, before he
realizes they are gone.
Bird arrivals may be noted very ex-
actly. The brown thrasher, for instance,
will come every year in this vicinity
about April 16. The wood thrush, which
many think the loveliest of our birds,
arrives almost on the day. April q.
Once these dates are jotted down they
cannot escape, and an easy reference to
the pages in early Spring will allow even
the most careless to be on the watch for
old friends.
Old friends! Yes, that is the way the
SongbirdS become, once a householder
takes more than an academic interest in
them. He or she will find that this is
one happy interest which grows rapidly
by what it feeds on.
Bird watching amounts to something,