Bird Biographies

Most people are surprised to learn that about sixty species of birds may be seen in the north-central part of Eastern North America during the winter months. Many of us, if questioned, would affirm that sparrows, crows, and jays are the only winter birds to be found. If some one opens for us the door which leads out into the great bird-world, we may say, as did the writer of the old couplet:

“I hearing get, who had but ears,

And sight, who had but eyes before,”

and we may then find, even during the winter season, a surprising wealth of bird-life to enrich our own.

In spite of wings that will bear them immeasurable distances, birds seem to have unusual loyalty to their native haunts, and they stay in the North until hunger impels them to seek friendlier climes. Those that remain may be grouped according to the kind of food upon which they subsist during the winter: first, birds that eat animal food; second, birds that eat vegetable food; and third, those that eat the eggs or young of insects on tree-trunks and branches, or chisel them from the wood.

To the first group belong six species of owls and eight species of hawks, eagles, crows, gulls, shrikes, and about eight species of ducks. They feed on mice and other small rodents, on smaller birds and poultry, and on seafood such as fish, clams, mussels, and scallops.

The birds that live on vegetable food during the winter are numerous. Throughout the spring and summer months they may be useful destroyers of insects; but in winter they are able to subsist on what the woods and fields yield in the way of nuts, acorns, berries, and the seeds of grasses and weeds. Such are jays, red-headed woodpeckers, quail, grouse, and the following members of the finch or sparrow family: cardinals, pine grosbeaks, crossbills, goldfinches, snow buntings, juncos, tree sparrows, white-throated sparrows, redpolls, and pine siskins. Many of these are permanent residents, but juncos, snow buntings, tree sparrows, crossbills, pine grosbeaks, and a few others leave their homes in the far North when deep snows bury their food supply and resort to less severe climates. Winter wrens are found in some localities. A few robins, bluebirds, meadowlarks, and flickers, remain North during open winters.

The third group of winter birds consists of downy and hairy woodpeckers, chickadees, tufted titmice, brown creepers, nuthatches, and golden-crowned kinglets. They glean insect-eggs from the bark of trees as a large part of their winter food-supply and form an exceedingly important group. The enormous number of insect-eggs eaten by them every year is almost incalculable. Every part of a tree—the trunk, the large branches, and small twigs—is scrutinized by these industrious members of the Life-Saving Army of our forests.

Dr. Frank Chapman recommends beginning the study of birds in the winter, while the trees are leafless and the birds comparatively few in number. People who spread tables for them are frequently surprised at the number of species they attract and at the pleasure they experience in the companionship of their interesting winter visitors.