Evening star., 1947-03-05
This and That
By Charles E. Trace,pell.

Perhaps the happiest bird watcher on
that snowy afternoon was the man to
whose window three bluebirds came.
They made a beautiful sight. Indeed,
what birds could have done better?
For bluebirds are no mean beauties at
any time, and in the snow their lovely
coloring shows to the very best advan-
tage. This is true of most species, The
man on Massachusetts, avenue was no
more fortunate, perhaps, than the Chevy
Chase (Mdo woman who had purple
finch.
A turtle dove in the snow is another
beautiful sight. The pink tones are
accentuated, while the grays seem more
glowing.
The dove is an odd customer at any
time, but in the snow he resembles a
feathered plow.
All the local wintering birds, of which
there are some rs species, can be fed
easily on the snow.
Most OF our snow layers are firm
enough to support their light bodies.
If seeds and grains sink, the birds are
sure to find them anyway. These fel-
lows are pretty smart when 1t comes
to finding food.
There will be some occasions, however.
when the visitors lack their usual intel
ligence in this respect. They fly in and
If the food is not in the usual place
they fail to discover it. There is not
much that can be done about this.
They fly away, and it must be pre-
sumed that they are searching for food
elsewhere. The chances are that they
will find it, too, because there are a
great many more persons feeding the
birds today than there were 10 years ago.
~ +
The day after the heavy snow some
food was thrown on back porch. The
householders thought surely the birds
would find it. Their birds, as they
fondly called them, would know where
to look, even If the usual feeding sta
tions were covered with foot of snow.
But their birds" came in, looked around
and flew away, much to the disappoint-
ment of their good friends.
"How could they be so dumb?" thev
said. Surely they know we would have
something out for them on such morn
ing as this"
II the birds did, they gave no indi-
cation of it, but flew away as if
hawk were after them.
Their friends would have done better
to have filed the regular station the
evening before. No matter how much
snow collects on feeding station, the
guests are able to dig down through it.
In deep SHOWS it is good thing to
shovel sort of bathtub-like depression
into which to throw slices of bread
and other foods.
X
Bread crumbs, famous as the average
mans standard idea of what to offer
bird life on snowy morning, are not
as good as the whole slice of bread.
Raisins are among the best foods to
put out on snowy days. They are best
placed in a smoothly swept spot. These
are excellent warming food and are
particularly appreciated by the very
early robins. One year, by the way,
We saw robin on Washington's Birth
day.
Seed-eating birds can survive if weeds
stick up out of the snow. This is one
reason why no one should become too
exercised about cutting down all the
weeds. Unfortunately, weed seeds offer
no sustenance for the robin We would
advise every one interested in birds to
keep on hand untouched a few boxes
of raisins for the first robins If they
should happen to arrive in a snow
storm, the raisins would be just the
food for them. There is no more nlelan-
choly sight than the shivering first
robin.