607
no. 5^

Cop 4

IT A If 0 M

TO

BIROS

VIR6INIA i
ILLINOIS

STORy

S^-S}^,

MUXC tiM

STATE OF ILLINOIS
Hon. William G. Stratton, Governor

DEPARTMENT OF REGISTRATION
AND EDUCATION

Hon. Vera M. Binks, Director

ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM
Thorne Deuel, Museum Director

Springfield

BOARD OF MUSEUM ADVISERS

Hon. V. Y. Dallman, Chairman

Illinois State Register

Springfield

M. M. Leighton, Ph.D Illinois Geological Survey, Urbana

Hon. Robert H. Becker, Outdoor Editor Chicago Tribune, Chicago

SUMtAfHS

^/^

The Cardinal

(Cardinalis Cardinalis)

STATE BIRD OF ILLINOIS
From a painting hy Mrs. Frances Summers Ridgely

STATE OF ILLINOIS
Hon. William G. Stratton, Governor

DEPARTMENT OF REGISTRATION

AND EDUCATION ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM

Vera M. Binks, Director Thorne Deuel, Museum Director

STORY OF ILLINOIS SERIES, NUMBER 5

INVITATION

TO

BIRDS

A few of the common birds of Illinois —
an invitation to know and enjoy them

by

Virginia S. Eifert
Illustrations by the Author

Springfield, Illinois

First Printing 1948

Second Printing (Revised) 1950

Third Printing (Revised) 1952

Fourth Printing 1953

(Printed by authority of the State of Illinois]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Invitation to Birds 3

These Birds are Illinois 4

Bibliography of Bird Publications 5

Attracting Birds 6

Bird Baths and Bird Feeders 6

Bird Houses 7,8

Feeding the Birds 9

Common Birds of Illinois, illustrated 10-62

Birds Protected by Law in Illinois 63

Index 64

(81252)

INVITATION TO BIRDS

Once upon a time not so very long ago, birds were not looked
' upon as they are today. It was considered fine sport to kill robins
and bluebirds. One was a sissy if he enjoyed merely looking at them.
Boys felt it was a manly accomplishment to kill as many song birds
and rob as many birds' nests as possible. These boys probably grew
up to be men who went hunting any time they pleased and often
brought home larks or thrushes for the table. Doubtless their wives
thought it very fashionable to wear bird wings or entire birds on their
hats. Birds were fair game, and only a very few people — generally
considered odd — went out for the purpose of looking at them, learning
about how they lived, and enjoyed it.

Gradually times changed. The Boy Scouts made it highly un-
popular for any boy to kill a bird; collections of mounted birds and
their eggs went out of style. The National Audubon Society warred
upon the slaughter of birds for the millinery trade, and slowly the
fashions changed. National and state laws made it illegal to shoot
a song bird or beneficial hawk, and limited the hunting season for
game birds to a few weeks during the autumn migration. Somehow,
birds all at once became one of the most fascinating and exciting of
hobbies. The study of birds has changed, too, from merely looking
at a bird, writing its name in a little notebook, and then looking for
another bird. Now bird study includes, beside the making of lists,
the intense probing into the bird's relation to its surroundings, how
it carries on the affairs of its own life, and the part it plays in the
whole mechanism of nature.

More than this, many people who are not interested in or able
to make such intensive studies, feel a kindliness toward birds which
is expressed in several ways. Bird houses are put out, bird pools are
kept filled with fresh water, food is provided all winter long, cats are
kept away from nests, the songs of wrens and catbirds are enjoyed,
and the First Robin and the long strings of geese heading north are
looked forward to each year.

Birds seem to sense this friendliness, and in spite of the fact
that cities appear unsuited for bird life, birds seem to be rather uncon-
cerned with the bustle of populated areas and are to be found almost
everywhere. There is scarcely a spot in all Illinois, even in the heart
of Chicago, where there are not birds.

Because it is pleasant to know something about the things we
see, this publication was prepared as an invitation to look for and
enjoy the birds around us. It is not technical and contains relatively
few scientific facts. It is, simply, an invitation to become acquainted
with some of the birds which are close at hand. Only a few are given
here; more than two hundred others are to be seen in Illinois.

To become better acquainted with the birds shown in this book,
along with many others, look at them in the Illinois State Museum.
Here they may be seen realistically mounted, close at hand, for as
long as it is necessary to impress them on your memory.

Material for "Invitation to Birds" has been taken from several
sources. Most of the illustrations are reduced in size from the
originals which were used in "Birds in Your Backyard", published by
the Illinois State Museum in 1941. The European tree sparrow, purple
martin, and starling pictures were used in issues of "The Living
Museum" (sent free each month on request to residents of Illinois).

THESE BIRDS ARE ILLINOIS

Just as the desert, the mountains, the plains, and the shores
have birds which are part of the picture of each region, so IlHnois
has birds that are typical of the state. Because the tip of southern
Illinois is in the same latitude as Norfolk, Virginia, and the northern
boundary is only a trifle south of the southernmost tip of Maine, we
have an unusually large assortment of birds. Many come here to
nest; others stay the year around; still others follow the Mississippi
flyway through Illinois on their way to their northern nesting grounds
or to their wintering grounds in the south. Therefore, in a year's
time it is possible to see well over two hundred and sixty species of
birds. In one day in May the keen observer with good binoculars
may easily see a hundred birds within a short radius of his home.
Singly or by hundreds, there is in the birds of Illinois much of the
picture of the state.

The southern tip of Illinois is a rich lowland where the last of
the bald cypresses lift their plumy, ragged heads into the hot sun-
shine. Over the swamps and over the nearby cotton country and the
hills, the turkey buzzards float — they are as much a part of the
picture of southern Illinois as the cypresses themselves. Buzzards
against the sky; thousands of Canada geese bugling on Horseshoe
Island near Cairo; the flash of a pileated woodpecker in the deep
forests along the Mississippi or the Ohio; the four-note piping of
Carolina chickadees ranging from the Ozark foothills almost to the
central region; summer tanagers rose-red in the hill woods. In the
bottomland marshes are white egrets; European tree sparrows chatter
in their colony west of the Cahokia mounds. In the hills of southern
Illinois there is the loud calling of a chuck-will's-widow in the night,
and the shadow of dark wings blotting out stars.

The picture of birds in Illinois changes in the central section,
just as the landscape changes to the rolling prairie which lies between
the hills of the north and the south. Central Illinois is full of the
singing of meadowlarks, the chanting of dickcissels, the whistling of
cardinals, the clacking of crows, the tinkling of prairie horned larks.
There is the flutter of whip-poor-will voices in oak woods along the
rivers; the small voice of the Bell's vireo in every tangle of black-
berries and haw bushes from the Mississippi to the Wabash; the sing-
ing of Carolina wrens along a winter stream; the matter-of-fact nest-
ing of robins on the front porch or in the nearby elm. It is the chats
singing in the uplands, the tweeting of prothonotary warblers along
the rivers, the pattern of chimney swifts upon the sky. It is ten
thousand mallards wintering on a lake; house wrens in every garden;
English sparrows and starlings taking over business districts and
window ledges from Cairo to Chicago.

Northward the bird picture subtly changes again. Cliff swallows
nest on the sheer walls of Buffalo Rock, the voice of the water thrush
echoes in a Starved Rock canyon, an eagle soars above the Palisades,
gulls fly above the Navy Pier. Northern Illinois is a picture decorated
with a thousand mergansers on the Grant Park lagoon, and snow
buntings in a weedy dumping ground. It is a snowy owl or a flock
of redpolls from Canada, or an old squaw duck from Hudson's Bay.

But although some of the birds of the far north come into Illi-
nois during a severe winter, or western birds cross the Mississippi
to bring a flavor of the plains to Illinois, or birds of the far south or
the east coast come in, these do not paint the true picture of our state
as we see it year after year. It is those others — the familiar meadow-
larks, dickcissels, redwings and robins, the bluebirds, catbirds, whip-
poor-wills, mallards, the cardinals, buzzards, geese, wrens, which most
closely and delightfully are part of the section of America known as
Illinois.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BIRD PUBLICATIONS

FOR OUTDOOR USE:

A Field Guide to Birds. Roger Tory Peterson. Houghton, Mifflin Com-
pany, Boston. 1947. If this book is available, none other is necessary for
complete identification of birds in the tield.

Audubon Bird Guide, Eastern Land Birds. Richard H. Pough. Doubleday
and Company, Garden City, New York. 1946.

FOR ARMCHAIR BIRDING:

Audubon's America. Donald Culross Peattie. Houghton, Mifflin Company,
Boston. 1940.

Audubon Magazine and Audubon Field Notes, 1006 Fifth Ave., New York.

Bird Flight. Gordon Aymar. Dodd, Mead, New York, 1935.

Birds Across the Sky. Florence Page Jacques. Harper and Brothers, New
York, 1942.

Birds in Your Backyard. Virginia S. Eifert. Illinois State Museum.
Springfield. 1941. Last printing, 1945.

Birds in the Garden. Margaret McKenney. Reynal and Hitchcock, New
York, 1939.

Birds of America. John James Audubon. Any edition available.

Birds of America. T. Gilbert Pearson. University Society, New York, 1923.

Book of Bird Life. Arthur A. Allen. D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc. 1931.

Book of Birds, The. Two volumes. National Geographic Society, Wash-
ington, D. C. 1937.

Canadian Spring. Florence Page Jacques. Harper and Brothers, New York.
1947.

Canoe Country. Florence Page Jacques. Univ. of Minnesota, 1938.

Geese Fly High, The. Florence Page Jacques. Univ. of Minnesota, 1939.

Guide to Bird Songs, A. Aretas A. Saunders. University of the State of
New York, Albany. 1929.

Guide te Bird Watching, A. Joseph J. Hickey. Oxford University Press.
New York. 1947.

Modern Bird Study. Ludlow Griscom. Harvard University Press, Cam-
bridge. 1947.

Natural History of the Birds of Eastern and Central North America. Ed-
ward H. Forbush and John B. May. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1939.

Prairie Wings. Edgar M. Queeny. Ducks Unlimited, Inc., New York. 1946.

Some Common Birds Useful to the Farmer. F. E. L. Beale, Cons. Bui. 18,
U. S. Dept. of Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Wash., D. C, 1948.

BIRD HOUSES AND FEEDING TRAYS:

Bird Houses. Roger T. Peterson, Circular 29. National Audubon Society.
1000 Fifth Ave., New York 28.

Bird Houses, Baths and Feeding Shelters: How to Make and Where to
Place Them. E. J. Sawyer, Cranbrook Inst, of Science, Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

Homes for Birds. Kalmbach & McAtee. Cons. Bui. 14, U. S. Dept of
Interior. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wash., D. C, 1942.

How to Attract the Birds. Robert S. Lemmon. The American Garden
Guild, Doubleday 86 Co., 1947. Planting — Feeding — Housing — Bathing — for
all the country.

Ready-made Birdhouses, Feeders, and Food may be obtained from National
Audubon Society, 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York 28, N. Y.

ATTRACTING BIRDS ^'

W. BRYANT TYRRELL

A feeding station will bring many varieties of birds as
regular visitors to your garden. Feeders should be erected well
away from the house, preferably near trees or bushes but
safely out of reach of cats.

A Suet Stick (1) hung from a branch will attract the
climbing birds, as the chickadees, nuthatches, creepers and
woodpeckers. The advantage of the Suet Stick is that it is
not easy for the larger and more quarrelsome birds, as the
bluejays, starlings and English sparrows, to feed from it. The
stick should be about 16 inches long, with several holes filled
with suet.

The Open Feeder (2) is a simple, attractive and efficient
feeder, which is open on three sides. It has ample space for a
good supply of seed, and a wire basket for suet.

The Combination Feeder (3) is a rather large though
attractive feeder which is open on two sides, with a spacious
hopper on the third. This feeder when filled with seed and
suet will not need attention more than once a week, except in
the most severe weather.

If you are bothered with squirrels, the Trolley Feeder (4)
is the most effective means of keeping them from your feed.
There are two pulleys mounted on top of the feeder which
allows it to run along a wire. Do not use a rope, for the
squirrels can run along it.

There are two styles of the Bungalow Feeder (5), the
smaller style which hangs, and the larger ones which are
erected on a pole. There are three wire baskets on this feeder,
the two outer ones for suet and the center and larger one for
seed.

BIRD BATH

A naturally hollow-
ed out boulder sup-
ported by a stump,
sturdy wooden or
concrete post will
serve. It should be
in the open and high
enough from ground
to be safe from hunt-
ing cats.

from"rm!L1««''^r„^f"^ "^^ illustrations at the right are reprinted
rrom Canadian Nature by special permission.

DIMENSIONS AND LOCATIONS FOR
BIRD HOUSES

Species

Floor

of
cavity,
inches

Depth

of
cavity,
inches

En-
trance
above

floor,
inches

Diam-
eter
of en-
trance,
inches

Height

above

ground,

feet

Location

Bluebirds

5 by 5

6 by 8

4 by 4
4 by 4
4 by 4

4 by 4

4 by 4

5 by 5

6 by 6

6 by 6
6 by 6

6 by 6
6 by 6

6 by 6

8
8

8-10
8-10
8-10

6-8
6-8

6
6

6
6

6
8-10

12

6

(•)

6

6-8
6-8

2-6
2-6

1-5

n

1

(t)

(*)

6-8
10

{*)

n
u

u

I

1

li

(*)

2i

(t)

(*)
2

11

5-10
6-15

6-15

6-15

12-20

6-20
6-20

10-15

8-12

16-20
1-3

**********

8-12
8-20

12-20

Open sunlit orchards.

Robins _ _ -

Shade trees or under eaves of shed or

Chickadees ..

porch roof.
Rustic homes in old orchards and

Titmice

borders of woodlands; suet and nut

Nuthatches - - .

House wrens

Carolina wrens

Tree swallows

Barn swallows

Purple martins

Song sparrows

********************

Phoebes

meats placed on trays in trees es-
pecially attract these birds.

Shady or partly sunlit spots about

door yards or orchards.
Borders of woodlands or in brushy

areas.

Dead trees near bodies of water.
Shelves placed under eaves of build-
ing.
On poles in open spaces near water.
Covered shelves in thickets.

i^:^*****>^******* ****** *****************

Bridges or barns near bodies of water.

Crested flycatchers.
Woodpeckers

Orchards, open woods or in trees in
pastures.

• One or more sides open.

t All sides open.

BLUEBIRD
HDUSE

lAATKRlVJi

WOOD - PJWE

Roa^b dimCnSionJ

BACK ■ 6t' X 7i ■'
TOP - a-s8"
SWES(^5i\B'

BOTTOM -S'*S"
SUPPORT- ZiM"
PER.CM-Vdiam.x2J"
S) J "Brads

y(i\e -for

v*nti

MATER1AL.S

WOOD -i k8"x S' nUE

Roup'h dimensions

PROMT ■1i\f>"
BACK G'i'.ca"
END5 ©'"■f'i'xlO"
BOTTOM CVV"*"
TOP @«^ GrxCt"
SUPPORT Z"xl6"
Make loiV meajurerneo+
ltne'+hi*ist oi board
i -fS Round head bras* screms

Wrem'5 Me51

This page reprinted through the courtesy of Canadian Nature.

7

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V"J

* —

R3BW

SHa,TER
Note - Onlv one

<2r>d and back"

are cloaed ia
MATERIAL

"WOOD - PINE

2^ - e\8r'
TDP -8"x\0y'

BcrrroM - 7V ai

END - 6i" X 6"
SUPPORT- 2V 9

M60DPECKER House

Dimensions injidc -

Di'amel-er of -^"^
Entrance 2"

N/^URAL OBJECTS

USED FOR
NESTS

coco>nrr nest

HOLLCWLOG

SOLID LOG SK//£d IN KAIXES&GOUQED

This page reprinted through the courtesy of Canadian Nature.

FEEDING THE BIRDS

To a bird in winter, food means life. It is as simple as that —
food, or death. To be able to survive in zero cold and in drifting
snow, a bird must be equipped to live on food that can be found even
at such extreme times. This usually amounts to left-over seeds from
the autumn, frozen fruits still hanging on tree or bush, or living
creatures themselves. And so as autumn sends the insect-eaters south
and leaves only the hardy birds to adapt themselves to winter, we
find a bird population which endears itself to us because of its very
hardiness and good nature in the face of adversity. They must find
a meager living somehow, and most of them do. They are insulated
with extra-warm layers of downy feathers to keep the body heat at
approximately 110 degrees, and as long as there is enough food to
stoke these body fires, the birds will not die of cold.

Under ordinary conditions they manage with ease. They and
their forebears have been doing it for thousand of years. In times of
blizzard, ice storm, or extreme cold, some perish, but that is the way
of Nature in eliminating the unfit. This, too, has been taking place
for thousands of years.

But many of us feel sorry for birds in winter. We want to help
them by putting out food. This is an excellent thing from our own
standpoint because birds are easily observed and enjoyed when they
are feeding, especially when the food is placed near the house. Bird-
feeding equipment (see page 6) need not be expensive or elaborate.
Hungry birds want food, not gadgets, and come to a porch railing or
to a simple home-made shelf often more readily than to more elabor-
ate feeders.

Food, too, is simple. Whole corn for cardinals and jays, sun-
flower seeds and dried melon and squash seeds as a special treat for
those that can manage them; cracked feed and millet for the smaller
seed-eaters, though the English sparrows usually clean up the day's
ration of this in record time. Suet tied or fastened securely to tree or
post invites woodpeckers, titmice, and nuthatches, and is well liked
by these birds as a substitute for grubs and insect eggs. Peanut butter
is a favorite of finches, chickadees, robins, and blue jays. Birds also
like water as much in winter as in summer; a supply of warm water
several times a day will be gratefully accepted for bath and drink.

But simple as all this may seem, there is a catch to it. If we are
going to feed the birds, we must do it regularly or not at all. Birds
congregate in an area in which they are fed, often in greater numbers
than is normal for the supply of natural food. If, when a blizzard
comes and all the natural provender is covered, and the kind hand of
generosity in the house fails to provide daily food, the damage by
starvation and freezing may be greater than if the birds had been left
to their own rather satisfactory devices from the beginning. There is
a certain moral obligation entailed in feeding birds. When this is
faithfully observed, in fair weather and foul, then the pleasure of man
and bird becomes mutual.

Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)

The great blue heron is a huge bird with a seven-foot wing spread
and a masterful flight — a lean, wiry bird with a fish spear for a beak
and fishing-poles for legs. The heron is an excellent fisherman. All
spring and smnmer and far into the autumn it wades in the shallows
of lakes and rivers and marshes, in search of frogs, fish and crayfish.
There the heron stands for long, patient hours, motionless, waiting.
To the fish and frogs, the two lean legs are only sticks in the water;
the creatures swim about in unconcern until suddenly the fish spear
stabs down and catches one. When a fish is caught, it is deftly twisted
around until the head points down the heron's long throat — in this
way, the fins will not rasp the throat — and with a quick gulp is gone.

When a heron has young in a nest high in a tree somewhere near
the swamp, the fish are swallowed but not far enough to be digested.
At the nest, the parent bird with a pumping motion brings up the partly
softened fish for the young to devour.

Herons fly with neck drawn in and legg trailing. Cranes fly with
the long neck outstretched — this is a good way to distinguish them.
Herons of several kinds are common but cranes in Hlinois are rare.

10

American Egret (Casmerodius albus egretta)

Out in the summer marshes where the mudflats steam in the sun,
white bird^ with long necks and broad wings come to feed. They are
the egrets, slender white herons which each summer come north to Illi-
nois shores. Most egrets nest in southern swamps, but each year a few
more come north to nest in willow tangles along the Mississippi and
the Illinois,

Thesie birds are pure white. They stand tall on their long black
legs and pose with slim necks pulled in until a fish or frog is located
in the water. In careful, slow movements, the long neck stretches out
and the bird stalks in slow-motion until it is within striking distance.
Then — a sudden flash of a long yellow sword-beak — and the fish or frog
is caught, twisted about, swallowed.

Not many years ago, egrets almost were extinct. It was fashion-
able for ladies to wear egret plumes, or aigrettes, on their hats, and to
satisfy this whim the hunters slaughtered thousands of adult birds at
a time when young were in the nests. The National Audubon Society
finally brought about laws protecting thes-e birds, and wardens were sta-
tioned in the swamps to prevent illegal shooting. Today the egrets are
abundant over most of the countr}% and in Illinois are most common
in late summer.

11

Canada Goose (Branta canadensis)

Far north in Canada the geese nested. Here on the chill, damp
tundra during the short summer the goose built a warm nest lined with
downy feathers from her own body. Whenever she left the nest, which
was not often because the raveng were quick to pounce on the eggs if
they saw them, she pulled the feathers completely over them. The gos-
lings, too, were closely guarded, although even then the Arctic foxes
sometimes made off with one. As late summer came, the young were
grown and all moved with their parents to the flats where crowberries
grew. Here the geese grew fat and waited for autumn.

One night when the wind from the Arctic suddenly was icy, the
geese with a tremendous honking got up in a great flock, which divided
itself into V's which were family units, and headed south. Miles they
flew, hundreds of miles, with short stops on bodies of water. Then on
an October day the long line of geese marked a moving pattern across
the sparkling sky of Illinois. The geese were coming. The sun picked
out the long black necks, the white cheek patches, the strong wings,
the black tails. Calling, calling, they circled over the lake and came down,
as they did each year, on the middle of the lake. For several weeks they
would stay, flying out to feed in the soybean and corn fields, and then
would go on, southward, perhaps to winter on Horseshoe Island near
Cairo, Illinois, a famous goose refuge, or to go on still further down
the Mississippi to the Gulf region.

12

NIallard (Anas platyrhynchos platyrhynchos)

Last autumn when the temperature of the Alaskan tundra nightly
dropped and ice formed on open pools, the mallard ducks which had
nested there in that endless expanse of heath and crowberry, headed
south. All over the miles of chilly tundra from the Pribilofs to Hudson's
Bay and Greenland, mallards beat their strong wings to flying level and
departed. As they came down the Mississippi River valley they were
shot at and many fell, for this was the hunting season and mallards are
chief of the ducks bagged. Ever since man acquired the taste for roast
duck, the mallard has been taken for food.

By late October and November, the water courses of Illinois knew
the sudden thousands of mallards dropping out of the sky. Eivers and
lakes knew them, but usually the mallards liked shallow water where they
could tip up or dabble about for food. Several times during the day the
detachments would get up from the water and fly out to fields where corn
and soybeans had been dropped after the harvest, and here the ducks
fed lavishly on the rich food.

As winter approached, many thousands went on, but others stayed
in regions where the supply of food wag good. When the water froze,
the ducks sat on the ice. their orange legs bright against its blue-white
coldness. Now as spring approaches, the mallards are brilliant — bright
green-satin heads, a white ring around the neck, a russjet breast, quirly
black tail feathers, a blue patch on each wing. The females are a mottled
brown, but they, too, have that distinguishing mark, the white-bordered
blue patch or speculum on the wing.

13

Left to right: Redhead, Ringneck, Canvasback, Lesser Scaup

(male and female).

Deep-Water Ducks

Far out on the choppy waters of lake or river in winter, the big
flocks of deep-water ducks bob with the motion of the waves and seem
unconcerned with cold. They come in November and often stay all
winter, or as long as there is any open water in which to dive for their
food. Some ducks, like the mallards and teal, find food in shallows, but
the deep-water ducks often dive many feet into the depths for small fish
and other water life, and small water plants.

Black and white is the coloration of most deep-water drakes, and
the way to know them is to learn their individual arrangements of the
black and white pattern. The scaup (Aythya affinis) is '^'black at both
ends and white in the middle". The ringneck (Aythya collaris) is like a
black-backed scaup. The American merganser (Mergus merganser amerv-
canus) is long and large, with much white against the sharp black on
head, tail, and wings. The American goldeneye ( Glaucionetta clangula
americana) is black and white with a white spot between eye and beak.
The little black and white bufflehead (Glaucionetta alheola) has a puffy
head marked with a huge patch of white on black, and the little ruddy
duck (Erismatura jamaicensis ruhida) has a white cheek patch on a
black head.

With the other black and white divers often are the canvasbacks
(Aythya valisneria) with their copper-colored headsi and sloping fore-
heads, and the similar redheads (Aythya americana) which are distin-
guished by grey backs and puffy, rounded, coppery heads.

14

Cooper's Hawk ( AcdpUer cooperU)

Since early day^, the hawks have been hated and shot and poisoned
without benefit of much justice or wisdom. In the old days, a hawk was
a hawk and none was considered good. Now, however, Illinois ha.s be-
come one of the states with a law which makes it il'legal to shoot any
but the three hawks which are recognized as killers of human property —
poultry. These are the sharp-shinned, the Cooper's, and the goshawk.
The other big and little hawks which are known as mouse-eaters, rat-
and-grasshopper destroyers, and benefactors of the farmer (which in-
deed they are) are to pass unmolested.

Yet even the killer hawk? with their blood-thirsty ways which are
so disastrous to the poultry farmer, have their place in the wild. In
Nature there seldom are too many birds of prey in proportion to those
preyed upon. In this way, the sharp-shinned and Cooper's hawks seldom
take too many birds or animals, only enough to satisfy their hunger and
to feed their young. The big bluish goshawk is rare over most of Illinois.
It only comes here in winter and is not the menace which the other two
are considered to be.

These three hawks are known by their very distinctive outline in
flight— short, rounded wings and a long tail. They are very swift in
flight, especially when dashing down to take a young chicken, and they
have blood-tliirsty dispositions which make an eagle seem almost mild.

15

Red -Tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensls)

Floating back and forth against an autumn sky, the red-tailed
hawk alternately shows its broad brown wings and copper-red tail, and
its white underparts marked with a black band across the chest. A black
mark at the bend of each wing, seen from below, is a further identifying
point. Around, around, circling, soaring, the big hawk is master of the
air and lord of sky and earth.

The red-tailed hawk, together with the other hawks with broad
wings and tails, is known as a beneficial hawk. This means that from
the human standpoint they are to be tolerated because they eat more
of the creatures which pester man, than they do of those which he wants
for himself. A hawk which eats a mouse ig to be preferred to one which
eats a chicken, or so they are judged.

But they are all wild creatures which are successful in their lives
because they find food to satisfy their needs, build big nests of sticks
high in a tree, rear their downy, squealing young, and spend long hours
floating between sky and earth. Hawks may be seen the year around, but
are most abundant during the migration period in April and October.

16

'^:

Sparrow Hawk (Falco sparverlus)

Among the hawks which spend all or part of their time in Illinois,
the little sparrow hawk is perhaps most common and is most easily seen
along every highway and country lane. This bird often comes into cities
and may be seen catching sparrows in business districts and residence
areas where it seems as much at home as in the country.

The sparrow hawk is sharply marked and distinctive. It is bright
red-brown on back and tail, slate-bluish on crown and wings, with a
black mustache-mark curving on each cheek. "When the bird is at rest on
post or wire, the tail pumps up and down. In flight, the long tail and
long sharp wings (sharp-shinned hawks have rounded wings) and the
unique habit of hovering for minutes at a time, distinguish it from all
other hawks.

These little mouse-eating hawks nest in an old woodpecker hole or
an owl hole in a tree. Both parent birds take turns at feeding the hungry
young, which one day in late spring come forth to sit in a stub-tailed
row on fence or bough.

In Egypt the sparrow hawk was considered a sacred bird, sym-
bol of the sun god, and was carved in splendid, massive statues which
are as recognizable as hawks today as they were to the people of Egypt
thousands of years ago.

17

Bobwhite or Quail (CoUnus virginianus)

Down in the grass and weeds, the plump little bobwhites listen and
watch as men or animals approach. The birds either walk softly in zig-
zag trails, away from the sounds, or they huddle watchfully in a thickety
place, waiting. Then just as the danger is upon them, they burst into the
air with such a racket of wings "as of lions roaring"^, that it is a nerve-
less man or fox that does not fall back on his heels in alarm. By the time
he recovers composure, the bobwhites are all but out of gun range and
are safe for the moment.

This means of escaping has enabled the bobwhite or quail to hold
its own and multiply in Illinois. It is a mottled brown bird, a little woods-
chicken with black marks on the face. The throaty piping calls are
familiar notes across the fields; the flocking call, less often associated
with the bobwhite, is one of the loneliest sounds to be heard out of doors.

In a tangle of grass, along a fence row, or under a heel Ere, the bob-
white makes a roofed-over nest in which the dozen white eggs are laid.
The downy 3'oung are able to run almost as soon as they are hatched, and
scatter to safety among the leaves and grass.

18

KlllQCCr (Charadrius vociferus vociferus)

Across the rainy skies of March there comes the high-pitched cry-
ing of a killdeer — now springtime surely must be at hand. The killdeer,
on its long wings that flash white below, comes flying from the south
very early in the season and stays until the ground freezes in autimm
and all worms are frozen in the mud.

The killdeer is a bird of the mudflats and grassy fields. On the flats
it marks the mud with a maze of three-toed footprints as it hunts for
insects and worms all day long. In grassy meadows or in a gravel road,
often in a place in great danger from passing wheels or animals, the kill-
deer lays its eggs. It makes no nest ; the eggs simply are laid in a hollow
of gi-avel or grass and somehow manage to escape disaster. They are
pebble-colored and are remarkably well concealed in full view.

The young are fluffy little black and white chicks that almost im-
mediately are able to run on long pink legs. By the end of the summer
they join their parents on the mudflats, where they squeal and yip all
day and sleep there all night long.

The killdeer is marked with two black bands across a white chest,
has a white eyebrow, a reddish tail, and brown back and wings. It is the
most common of the plovers in Illinois.

19

Upland Plover (Bartramia longicauda)

Perhaps it is running in the pasture, a long-legged, long-necked
brown bird with a slinking gait and wary eye. Perhaps it perches high
on the top of a telephone pole or on a fence post — a gawky bird with
long legs that seem out of place on such a lofty perch. Or, perhaps, out
of the springtime sky, there comes a strange, drawn-out, eerie whinny
that is almost like the wind, yet is not.

The whinny announces the approach of a lean, sharp-winged bird
that comes flying out of nowhere, utters again that strange call, drops
down on a post or on the ground, raises long wrings high, claps them
briskly against its sides, and stands in wide-eyed contemplation of the
world. There — the upland plover.

The plover is a puzzle. It seems to belong along water courses or
in a marsh where other plovers gather, but instead prefers the grassy up-
lands. It likes to perch on a pole, where the bird is ungainly and awk-
ward, and is very easily observed from a passing auto. The plover once
was extremely abundant in Illinois ; millions came in flocks to the prairies
when spring was at hand. Now, however, it is not common, but still is
to be found in most of the prairie lands of Illinois.

20

The Gulls

When autimin comes, the first of the gulls appear on the waters of
Illinois. They nested northward in the Great Lakes region, but now all
winter and far into the spring they bring a sea-coast look to inland
rivers and lakes.

Usually most common are the ring-billed gulls (Larus delawarensis)
but with them are the herring gulls which are much bigger. The ring-
bill has greenish yellow legs ; those of the herring gull (Larus argentatus)
are pale pink. Both, however, have the white body, grey wings, and black
and white wing-tips which are so characteristic of gulls.

But it does not matter too much on a day in late winter, when the
sky is brilliant blue and the lake ice is breaking with a rumbling and
a crashing — it does not matter, really, if it is a ring-billed or a herring
gull. For there against that splendid sky the gulls soar on set wings.
They appear to be pure white, almost translucent in the sunshine, almost
moth-like in their effortless flight. From their lofty setting in the air,
their eerie calls drift do^^'n. Then the gulls may change their courses,
come dropping down to follow along the line of shore to pick up dead
fish caught in the ice. Or sometimes, like queer, high-tailed ducks, they
come down to sit on the water.

21

Nlourning Dove (Zenaldura macroura)

"The way to make a perfect nest", said the magpie to the assembled
birds, "is to take some sticks "

"How lovely/' murmured the dove and flew off to get some sticks
which she piled in a carefully careless heap in a tree. And that is the
reason why, the old story goes, the dove never learned to build a very
strong nest. They do the same today — two white eggs are somehow bal-
anced on the frail handful of twigs. To keep from falling overboard, or
through the bottom, the young doves cling with their pink feet to the
twigs. The parent doves teed the young, watch them as they take their
first flight, and then, when they are able to fend for themselves, the doves
build another nest just like the first and start all over again.

The mourning dove is the only wild dove in Illinois. Long ago,
however, the passenger pigeon, which looked something like the dove,
swarmed by millions in Illinois. Now these are all extinct, but the quanti-
ties of mourning doves, which do not travel in great flocks as the pigeons
did. continue to hold their own. They are one of the earliest arrivals in
spring and often are seen in protected places throughout the winter.

22

Screech Owl (Otus asio)

As the quiet cold of the long winter night approaches, a small brown
owl in the half hollow of an old maple beside the busy street squinches
its eyes, blinks in the light, and climbs up in the comfortable hole where
it spent the day. The screech owl is a city owl, though it originally dwelt
only in woods ; now it is fond of those typical rotted-out holes most maples
acquire in towns. All day long the sleek little owl appears to be just a
knotty place in the tree. At a distance the feather pattern looks like bark.

Now in the gentler light of late afternoon, the owl fluffs itself, comes
up to the edge of the hole, and watches folk walking home from work,
but few of them look up and see the owl. As dusk nears, the rounded,
soft-feathered wings are spread and suddenly a shadow flits away from
the tree and goes off among the wintery backyards and back alleys in
search of mice. There is a quavering, chilly little sound, mournful and
wild, as the hunting owl stops on a clothes-line post and looks about.
There is a tiny pattering of mouse-steps across the hard snow by the gar-
bage can, a swoop, a small squeak, and the owl is back on the post. It
dines in silence, eats bones, tail, and teeth, and giving a cat-like purr
of contentment, flits off on silent wings to the tree-hole to digest the meal
of mouse. Later, a small pellet containing the undigested remains of the
mouse will be spit up and will lie on the ground as indication of an
owl's dinner.

The Nighthawk and the Whip-Poor-Will

Long ago before there were cities, the nighthawk (Chordeiles minor)
lived in the barren uplands and cruised the hill-sky ; the whip-poor-will
(Caprimulgus vociferus) lived in the woods where its whimpering cry
sounded from dusk until dawn. Both the nighthawk and the whip-poor-
will spent their daytime hours asleep on or near the ground.

The nighthawk laid its blotchy, purple-grey, and buff eggs among
the gravel and lichens of a stony hilltop or a barren upland; the whip-
poor-will's polished, mottled brown eggs were laid secretly on a polished
brown oak leaf among the thousands lying on the ground of the spring-
time woods. And at dusk both the nighthawk and the whip-poor-wills
flew about in the sky, their wide mouths catching night-flying insects.

Today the nighthawk has come into town. Instead of laying eggs
on a stony earth, many city nighthawks choose the graveled tops of high
buildings on which to lay eggs and rear the young. The adults sleep
on the tops of buildings or on a telephone wire during the day, and late
in the afternoon flv about with sharp flappings over the town and be-
tween tall buildings. The nasal shout of the nighthawk is a familiar
sound all the short summer night, especially soon after dusk and before
(lawn. But the whip-poor-will today, with its fluttering call, still stays
in the woods. Except in migration the two are seldom seen together,
and then the nighthawk with its forked tail and white patches on the
wings can easily be told from the browner whip-poor-will with its rounded
tail and unmarked wings.

24

Chimney Swift (Chaetura pelagica)

Somewhere over the unknown jungles of South America the sky
in winter has the sharp wings and rapid flight of thousands of little
grey chimney swifts. Here they dart about all day in search of insects
and at night stream down into the sheltering trees) to hang by their claws
from the bark.

It is a long way from this remote scene to the towns and villages
of the United States where the swifts spend the summer. About the first
of April there suddenly is heard in our sky the high-pitched twittering
of the swifts, back again after a long and speedy journey from the jungle.

All day they make wide circles in the sky, and at sunset stream
down with a dry rush of wings into chimneys which in April still have
smoke in them, and here the birds cling against the rough bricks and
sleep all night. Because swifts never come down to the ground, their
feet have become small and useless, except for clinging.

The chimney swifts are small grey birds with narrow wings and
stiff tails which are used as bracers in the chimneys. Swifts are insect
catchers and do a great service to the world in cleaning up some of the
thousands of insects in our sky. In spring the swifts fly past a dead tree
and with their beaks break off small dead twigs which are glued with the
bird's own saliva into a small nest down in the chimney. Here the two
white eggs are laid and the young reared, and in autumn all the swifts
head back again to the jungles of Brazil.

25

Ruby-Throated Hummingbird (ArchUochus coiuhHs)

When the first red flowers bloom in the Illinois springtime, the
ruby-throated hummingbird arrives from its winter home in Yucatan.
Now like a green and scarlet jewel, the tiny bird whirs from the dangling
red flowers of wild columbine to the scarlet of coral honeysuckle. And
when red tubular flowers are scarce, it comes to the lavender wild phlox,
to the bluebells, to the irises and peonies in the garden.

But always, as long as it stays in this region, the hummer seeks
out the red and orange tubular flowers. Perhaps the nectar at their bases
is sweetest; perhaps the brilliant little bird prefers flowers that match
its own color. At any rate, when the columbine is gone, there always is
the honeysuckle all summer long, and bergamot, and the jewelweed, and
the great orange tubes of the trumpet vine. At last, late in the season,
the hummers come to the beds of scarlet salvia in parks and gardens.
And when the last salvia blossom is scorched by frost, the hummers whir
away, southward.

They speed south at the rate of some 500 miles a day, swoop like
low-zooming bullets in the trough of the waves on the Gulf of Mexico,
and somehow make a non-stop trip in one night across the Gulf to the
palm-fringed shores of Yucatan.

The ruby-throated hummingbird is the only member of its family
east of the Rockies. Hummingbirds are found only in the Americas, and
are most common in the tropics and in the western states.

26

Eastern Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon alcyon)

On beating wings the kingiisher poises itself above the water, then
drops like a spear, straight down, sometimes goes underwater, and corties
up with a fish. Shaking water, the bird flies to a nearby tree. Here the
fish is deftly twisted about so that it is pointed head first down the king-
fishers throat and is swallowed.

The kingfisher is first of all a fisherman. Fish are its sole food^^^
they and frogs — and are caught by diving on them from above. For this
purpose, the kingfisher is constructed with a large head and a long, fish-
spear beak. The head itself is crested with a large blue topknot which
makes the bird seem almost topheavy.

The eastern kingfisher is grey-blue and white ; the male has a blu>e-
grey band across its white chest, and the female has a brown band in
addition to the blue one.

The feet are oddly made. The toes are partly joined to make a
shovel-shaped foot, for the kingfisher digs a long burrow in a clay bank
and at the end hollows out a nest-hole where the eggs are laid. Far in-'
side the bank the young kingfishers eat fish brought to them by their
parents, and, until they emerge, rest on a nest of fish bones left from their
dinners.

27

I'lickcr (Colaptes auratus)

A brown woodpecker with a white patch on his back, that's the
flicker. A loud-voiced, yammering woodpecker performing a laughable
dance in a tree on a fine spring morning — that, too, is the flicker. And
so is that intent brown woodpecker which hops across the lawn to the
nearest ant hill, thrusts a long beak deeply into it, and, as if sipping
a chocolate soda, licks up the ants.

The flicker is one of the commonest of woodpeckers. It is at home
equally in town and in country, in city trees as well as in parks or woods.
Its shrill calling, its dancing and bobbing and antics, all are part of
spring, as much as the robing and violets and new leaves on the cotton-
woods.

The flicker, like the red-head, has changed some of its woodpecker
habits. Getting ants from the ground is only one of them. Sometimes in
choosing a place to nest the flicker will be different — will ignore a
proper hole in a tree, and instead will nest on a sandy beach or in a
com fleld, or will industriously bore holes in a barn.

The flicker is brown above and pale, yellow-cream below marked
with prominent black spots. There is a black band across the throat, a
red patch on the back of the head, a white patch on the back, and bright
yellow under the wings, a color which flashes magnificently in flight.

28

Red-Headed Woodpecker

(Melanerpes erythrocephalus erythrocephalus)

The red-headed woodpecker is a bird which in part seems to have
forgotten some of the traditional habits of the woodpecker tribe. Most
members of this family are birds which live on the trunks of trees, but
several, like the red-head, have taken on new habits which have come
with civilization.

Instead of perching on the side of a tree— clinging with toes espe-
cially constructed to hook into the bark— the red-head often likes to sit
on a telephone wire. Here, with tail dangling, the woodpecker waits for
passing insects and, in flycatcher fashion, darts out and turns a ridiculous
flip-flop in the air. He comes back with a slightly dizzy look and perhaps
a butterfly in his beak. The red-head frequently comes down to feed on
the ground, sometimes in the middle of a highway to pick up spilled
corn, and here the bird with its slow take-off sometimes is struck by
passing cars.

The red-headed woodpecker still nests in proper woodpecker fashion
in holes he bores in trees. The eggs, like those of woodpeckers, are white
and round, and the young when they emerge from the nest hole have
grey, not red, heads. By the end of the year, however, a few tiny red
feathers appear, and by the next spring the woodpecker has the crimson
head and black and white pattern which is so unforgettable.

29

Downy Woodpecker (Dendrocopos pubescens)

That little black and white bird with the red dot on the back of its
head — that little bird hitching itself up the trees and busily poking its
sharp beak into crevices of bark — that is the little downy woodpecker.
It is perhaps the most common of the woodpeckers both in town and in
country, a bird alike of city trees and of weed patches. In the latter
place in winter the little bird climbs the dry stalks of wild parsnip and
horseweed, beats a thin tattoo with its chisel beak, and digs in to find
a sleeping grub or borer. And a morsel like that is a welcome bite on a
bitter day in winter.

The downy woodpecker is a small edition of the hairy woodpecker.
The downy is six inches long, the hairy nine inches, proportioned accord-
ingly. The beak of the hairy is stouter, stronger, the whole bird marked
more strongly, yet very similarly to the downy.

Both are part of the winter woods and weed patches. The strong
beak chisels a hole, the long tongue with its barbed end is thrust deeply
inside, the impaled grub is hauled forth, is eaten. All winter the wood-
peckers, in feeding themselves, help to rid the trees of their insect
enemies.

30

Eastern Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus)

The kingbird is a bird of open country, a flycatcher of the road-
sides, a chaser of crows and pursuer of hawks. The kingbird is a self-
appointed committee of one to chase every crow or hawk to a suitable
distance. The smaller kingbird, dwarfed by the flying hawk or crow,
darts under, around, down on top of the escaping bird, seems determined
to pull feathers from its head or back, yet never quite strikes. Shrieking
and tormenting, the kingbird sees to it that its enemies are routed, then
comes flving back, the vivid scarlet patch on the black crow^n all a-glow,
and screeches a final note of triumph from the vantage point of a barbed
wire fence.

The kingbird, both male and female, is black above and white be-
low, with a squared-off tail neatly marked across the end with a band
of white. The scarlet crown-patch on the head is not often seen, but
the remainder of the coloration is distinctive and easy to remember. It
is perhaps most often seen on the fences and wires along highways where
it darts out to tumble after a passing butterfly or other insect, and keeps
a sharp lookout for crows.

31

Prairie Horned Lark (ErpmophUa aipestHs)

At last there comes a day when winter steps back and a hint of
springtime is in the air. It is not really spring, not yet. But the thing
which suddenly brings springtime closer is a faint tinkling in the Feb-
ruary sky. There appears to be nothing. The tinkling is a sweet scattered
voice sounding here and there remotely over the blue. The voice is from
birds — the prairie larks are flying.

The prairie horned larks spend the winter from Illinois to the Gulf.
They walk about in quiet flocks in stubble fields and glean bits of grain
and weed seeds from the rows. In the early days of February the larks
start north. They are perhaps the first birds to come through Illinois
on the northward migration, first to head into the teeth of the north
while the wrath of February and the deceit of March still lie ahead. Some
may go as far as Manitoba to nest ; others may stay in Illinois fields.

Prairie horned larks are quiet, dust-colored birds that live in open
country. There are black markings on face and throat; a pair of small
black feather horns stand erect on the head when the bird sings from a
clod of earth or a bean stack. There often is a wash of pale yellow on
the white throat ; the tail is black beneath ; the eyebrow is white. Horned
larks are ground dwellers which walk with a long stride; they almost
never perch in trees. The nest is made on the ground at the edge of a
field and the eggs are laid very early in spring.

32

Purple Martin (Progne subis subis)

By the end of March the purple martins have come up from their
wintering grounds over the flood plains of the Amazon and over Brazilian
jungles, and have arrived matter-of-factly in Illinois. The martins' gut-
tural chattering and their excited gurgling and tweeting as they fly
about or sit on telephone wires is a new note in the catalog of arriving
bird voices.

These large purple-black swallows since early times have lived close
to the homes of men. Originally, perhaps, they nested as some martins
still choose to do — in rock crevices, on cliffs, and in old woodpecker holes
in dead swamp trees. But even in the days of the Indians, it is said_,
martins nested in great hollowed gourds hung up for them on a pole
or sapling in the Indian villages. Even then the cheerful commotion and
pleasant ways of these swallows somehow belonged to men.

Martins are insect-eating birds — their chief food is mosquitoes and
flies caught on the wing — so they spend long liours in the air. Over
many thousands of years in which martins seldom came down on the
gi'ound to walk about, their feet have become so small and spidery that
they are almost useless for anything but perching. Nevertheless the birds
come to the muddy pond shores in spring to gather bits of mud and grass
to add to the nesft ; the birds hobble painfully about, fill their beaks,
and then in apparent relief take to the air.

33

ijluC Jsy ( Cyanocitta cristata)

Clanging and tootling through the woods on a morning in early
spring, there comes a flock of blue jays out for fun. They are full of
the delight of a warming sun, and they are in an excitable state of mis-
chief which must find outlet somewhere. So thev stream through the
woods, swoop down in a body to worry a squirrel who flashes his tail at
them in anger, dash oft' to watch the progress of a farm dog along the
creek, discover an owl asleep in a sycamore. Ah, here is fun !

There is nothing like a sleepy owl to please a blue jay, and when
there is a crowd of them, the fun begins. Screaming, they dart down
almost upon the owl, who shrinks into his feathers and glares at them.
They sit about in the tree, utter irritating noises, yell tiresomely, until
the owl has had enough and suddenly flies off. Joyously, like a stream-
ing train, the jays follow after, and repeat their game in the next tree
until the owl at last manages to escape. Then the jays head oft to find
something else to amuse them on this beautiful spring day.

Bluejays, although they often are unpopular because of some of
their less pleasing habits such as robbing birds' nests or eating chicken
feed, are among the most beautiful birds in America. No other American
jay has that clear lavender and blue coloration set oft with black and
white, with a crested head and a well marked face. For this alone, if
for nothing more, the blue jay has a permanent spot among our best
known birds.

34

Black Capped Chickadee (Pams atricapUius)

A morsel of a bird with a black cap and bib, the chickadee some-
how manages to survive the most ferocious winter storms and zero cold,
flits merrily among the grim bare trees, finds enough food in a snowy
world, and seems to like it very well. Chickadees stay with us through-
out the year and seem happiest — or perhaps we are happiest to see them
then — when the wind is ruthless as a knife and the air is so sharp it
hurts to breathe it. In such an atmosphere the chickadee murmurs its
busy little "dee-dee-dee-dee !", finds food that maintains its body tem-
perature at 114 degrees, and manages very well indeed.

Winter birds must live on an available food supply. In the case of
the chickadees, they must find tiny sleeping insects and insect eggs
tucked into crevices of bark — enough to keep up that supply of body
heat through the short day and the long and bitter night. \Vith enough
food and with that extra-Avarm downy layer of feathers which lies be-
tween the skin and the outer feathers, no chickadee is apt to freeze.

In early spring the chickadees fill a tree hollow with quantities of
soft feathers and fluff, and in the midst they lay their little chocolate
and pink eggs. By the time the eggs hatch, it is high summer, and hot.
The young chickadees, however, survive the smothering of a hot feather
bed as well as their parents survive winter, and come forth at last into
the light of day.

35

Tufted Titmouse (Parus blcolor)

A small, lively, grey bird with a crest on its head — that's the tufted
titmouse. It is found in town and in park and in woods, wherever there
are trees, and on a day in early spring its voice is rollicking and gay.
It puts a tune in a chilly day, puts life in the bare trees, puts gaiety
and brisk wings wherever it goes.

Perhaps the most distinctive thing about the titmouse is its cheer-
ful whistle. It may be heard from a great distance and even makes the
dogs take notice. It is a whistle which is easy to imitate — and usually
at sound of it, all the titmice in the neighborhood, with fluttering wings
and fussy squeakings, gather around to see what is making that odd yet
strangely familiar sound.

The titmouse is related to the chickadee. The two stay throughout
the year in Illinois and are among the most sociable of birds. In winter
they often travel about together; they frisk about, explore twigs and
bark for sleeping insects or insect eggs, and keep the woods merry with
their whistling. Winter gives the titmouse a chubby, well-fed appearance,
for the feathers are fluffed out to create more body warmth in frigid
weather. The titmouse is unlike any other bird. Only one other grey bird
in this region, the cedar waxwing, has a crest on its head, and no other
bird has that delightful call.

86

House Wren (Troglodytes aedon)

The Latin name for wren means "cave-dweller", because long ago
all wrens lived in little caves and crannies on the faces of cliffs and
canyons, or in hollow trees and deserted woodpecker holes. But when
the kindly hand of man offered bird houses for the use of wrens, most
of them gave up their cave-dwelling habits and moved into ready-made
dwellings near the haunts of men.

But often the wren houses offered for their use do not satisfy. The
finicky, tilt-tailed, sputtering house wren goes flipping about, bright
eyes peering everywhere, and sometimes perversely nests in an old tin
can. Often, too, the thankless but wise wrens seem to prefer a battered,
leaky old bird house to the finest of new creations. That is why it is
better to leave bird houses unpainted or stained a weathered brown.
Something too new or conspicuous alarms the birds.

The house wren is one of six wrens which come to Illinois. There is
the long-tailed, greyish Bewick's wren (Thryomanes bewickii), the per-
manent resident Carolina wren (Thryothorus ludovicmnus) with its
white eyebrow, the short-billed marsh wren (Cistothorus platensis stel-
laris), the long-billed marsh wren (Telmatodytes paliLStris), both of
which live and nest in swamps, and the tiny, plump winter wren (Troglo-
dytes troglodytes) which is sometimes seen in migration.

37

Catbird ( Dumetella carolinensis )

For nearly five months of each year — from late April to late Sep-
tember— the catbird is part of the garden, the farm, the thicket. The
rest of the year is spent in Mexico or Central American jungles. The
catbird travels a long way each year just to build a nest in Illinois or
other northern states, where one brood is reared before the long journey
back is made all over again.

The catbird is a dark slate-grey bird with a black cap and a red-
brown patch under the tail. The black eyes are bright and intelligent
and seem to spy out everything. The voice is a jumble of squeaks and
sweet music, of cat-calls, of musings, of mockings. Hidden in a bush, the
catbird gurgles and giggles, peeks out \\ith a clownish eye, mocks the
neighbor's cat or imitates the rusty gate.

The nest is placed in a tangled bush and contains four or five green-
blue eggs which are much deeper in color than those of a robin. The stub-
tailed young soon hop forth into the garden and come almost at once
to the bird bath that their parents have been using wholeheartedly ever
since their arrival in spring. Catbirds love a good bath and the young
start at an early age to acquire the habit.

Sleek, sly, full of personality, the catbird is a pleasant part of any
garden in city or country.

38

Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos polyglottos)

That flying bird with the big white patches on its wings — that's
the mockingbird. It's the one that sings so gaily from hedge or telephone
pole, and then goes flapping upward, madly, wildly, wings flopping, and
plunmiets down again, singing still. It's the one that tootles and sings
at two o'clock on a moonlit night, and tosses melodies to the stars.
It's the bird with the long grey tail margined with white, with the black
and white wings, the snappy grey eyes — the bird with the nest in the
hedge, the boldness of a blue jay and the shyness of a thrush. That's the
mockingbird.

Mockingbirds often come into towns, but they are more frequently
found in open country, especially along osage orange hedges, brushy
places, farms, sunny uplands, pastures. The mockingbird, once rare in
the northern states, is becoming common and is scattered abundantly
over most of Illinois.

Here the magnificent song of the mocker, a rolling, trilling, carol-
ing song full of imitations and improvisations without end, is heard
through spring and summer. It is a song which is the same as that heard
in the south — it is as much a part of Illinois hedge rows as it is of mag-
nolias, crepe myrtles, and cottonfields.

39

Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum mfum)

The brown thrasher, the catbird, and the mockingbird all belong in
the same family of birds, along with their cousins, the wrens, and all
have wonderful songs that are full of life and good feeling and musical
ability. The catbird has a jumbled song and seldom repeats anything he
says; "the brown thrasher usually repeats everything twice over; and the
mockingbird, when he says something he likes, repeats it endlessly, on
and on and on.

The brown thrasher often is miscalled the "brown thrush", but the
thrasher is far from being a thrush. The thrasher is cinnamon brown
above with a long tail, a long, curved, yellow-brown beak, a fierce yellow
eye, and long brown streaks traced on a cream-colored breast. A thrush
is plump, has round brown spots on an ivory breast, a short tail, brown
eyes, and a short brown beak. And no thrush has the burst of music
which comes from the brown thrasher on a morning in April.

Very early in April or sometimes by the end of March the thrashers
suddenly appear from the south. Now their glad voices challenge each
other all over town. Soon in the lilac bush or in the rose tangle there
will be a bulky nest with five speckled brown eggs. Then the songs of
the thrashe-r grow less, until by summer they are seldom heard and never
with the brilliance that is so much a part of an Illinois spring.

40

Robin (Tardus migratorius )

It is a grim day in late winter with a bite in the air and a cold
wind blowing out of the north again. Nowhere is there the slightest sign
of spring, for January in Illinois is stern midwinter. And yet — and yet
— perhaps spring cannot be so far away. Because there is a robin, a
plump, russet-breasted robin with white-rimmed bright eyes who shouts
impatiently into the weak January sunshine, claps his wings, and runs
importantly on the lawn. One robin — spring !

That robin in January very likely spent the winter in the neighbor-
hood. Properly he has no right to be called the "First Robin''. But in
southern Illinois there are others wintering, marking time until early
spring. On the first thawing days a few of these head northward — these
really are the First Eobins and they are welcomed with joy.

They are hardy creatures. They fluff themselves when the usual hard
freeze follows the thaw; they are cheerful, chubby, and somehow find
enough to eat.

The early robins usually continue northward toward Canada, and
if they time themselves properly, they may be called First Robins all
along the way. Later arrivals in Illinois are those which will build a
mud nest in April and spend the season here, rearing broods of young
and pulling fat angleworms from the lawn.

41

Eastern Bluebird (Siaiia siaits)

To the Indians, the bluebird was the sign of spring. Not only did
the bird arrive suddenly when winter still seemed at hand, but it carried
with it the symbols set there by the Great Spirit— the blue of the spring-
time sky, the red-brown of thawed earth, and a bit of white to show
where snow still remained.

Today the bluebird is as certain a sign of spring as it was to the
Indians and to the people of Plymouth. It was they who saw the Ameri-
can bluebirds for the first time, in that raw springtime long ago on the
Massachusetts coast, and who called it the "blue robin" because it re-
minded them of the English robin they had left forever behind them.

A sign of spring — the bluebirds are back. They seem too frail to
withstand the sudden return of winter which inevitably comes on the
heels of a thaw. Yet the intensely blue feathers are fluffed, and somehow
the bluebirds manage to find food in the frozen grass. When at last the
sun grows warmer, the bluebirds prospect about in the orchard to find
a likely old woodpecker hole or hollow fence post. To this they carry a
few soft grasses and lay their pale blue eggs. The young bluebirds show
their kinship with baby robins and thrushes — they all have speckled
breasts.

42

Wood Thrush (Hylodchla mustelina)

Once there was a wood thrush who lived in a city park. Close to
the picnic ground the bird built her nest, and every day during the
picnic season she ran about under the tables to pick up scraps left from
outdoor dinners. There was a good deal of competition here because the
blue jays, the red-headed woodpeckers, the sparrows, and the grackles
all came regularly and were much bolder than the thrush in getting
bites to eat.

But the thrush did very well, and when she built her nest in May
she gathered up paper napkins to put into the nest foundation. Here,
plastered with mud and twined with dried grass, the napkins fluttered
in the wind, and a long trailing tatter of paper hung down from the
bottom of tiie nest. It made the nest very noticeable, but the park police-
men were watchful and no one harmed it. There were five polished, deep
green-blue eggs; the spotted young soon reared their heads for food
brought froni the picnic grounds. It was not very long before the young
thrushes on their pink legs were running about early in the morning
to pick up their own bits of sandwiches from under the tables.

The wood thrush is common in our parks and woods. It is a richly
colored cinnamon brown bird built like a robin (whose cousin it is), with
an ivory breast marked with round black spots. The song of the wood
thrush is a series of bell-like fluting tones like nothing else to be heard
from the midst of the city park to the depths of the river woods.

• 43

Cedar WaXWing (Bomhydlla cedromm)

The snow lay thickly on the ground and only the shrivelled fruits
of high-bush cranberries and privets held food for fruit-eaters — but the
cedar waxwings had found them and were perching and fluttering as
they ate. Cedar waxwings are unpredictable birds. They drift about in
flocks, now abundant, now rare, sometimes stay all winter, sometimes
are not seen until spring. They appear where there is fruit to eat, from
the last-of-the-year fruits on shrubs to the abundance of cherrj^ time.

The waxwing appears to be a delicate, fragile bird tliat seems
doomed to perish in the severe weather in which, however, it survives
with little trouble. But although the delicately-colored, dove grey and
brown feathers seem unusually soft, the waxwing is a hardy bird. It
is known by its thin, erect crest on the head, black marks on the face,
waxen red tips on the wing feathers, a yellow band across the tail and
yellow on the breast. It is one of our two crested grey birds. The other
is the tufted titmouse, a bird very different both in temperament and
activity from the waxwing. The titmouse is nervous and fussy; the wax-
wing is slow and suave, easy-going and quiet. Its only song is a soft hiss.

44

Migrant Shrike (Lanlus ludovidanus)

In a low, swooping glide which carries it close to the ground, the
shrike leaves its perch on a fence wire, drops down, and captures a field
mouse running between the rows of corn. With an upward swoop that
flashes black and white wings, the bird with its mouse lands on a twig
in the osage orange hedge. At once there are shrill baby-cries from a
nest hidden there in the thorns. The mouse is torn apart and crammed
into five hungry baby shrikes.

The young are hungrj,- and there is a place for every mouse the hard-
working parent birds can bring in, but at another time the mouse may
be thrust on a thorn and left until wanted. It is because of this habit
of hanging up its meat that the shrike has been called butcher bird.
Here in a song bird are the habits of a hawk.

The shrike is a robin-sized bird of grey, black, and white, with a
black mark through the eyes and striking black and white wings. It is
indeed a songbird, and sometimes on a day in spring the shrike mounts
to a high perch and sings, with mimickings and mockings, a song that
is but rarely heard.

The migrant shrike is a midwestern form of the more southern
loggerhead shrike. Sometimes in winter the rare northern shrike with its
barred grey breast is seen in Illinois.

45

Starling (Stumus vulgaris vulgaris)

Long ago and far away in the land below the Himalayas, there lived
certain birds who liked the companionship of men so well that they
dwelt in and around their homes. Brahmans in that land honored these
birds — members of the starling tribe — by giving them the use of certain
pagodas. So after centuries of such privileges, it is no wonder that the
starling today still likes to perch upon tall buildings in American cities
— upon domes and in towers and upon window ledges.

The tribe of starlings began, it is said, in very ancient times in
pleasant valleys of the Himalayas. From there the families spread down
the valleys into China and the Orient, while others traveled into the
Arctic and into Europe, and spread from the Tyrol to the Thames and
from Greece to Granada. They were well known in Greece a thousand
years before Christ was born and were one of the first of all birds to
be named. Psar, the Greeks called them. Sturnus, said the Eomans.
From the Romans came the Latin name, Sturnus, which still designates
the family, and the common name of starling comes from the Greek.

On a day in March, 1890, eighty European starlings were brought
from England and released in Central Park, New York City. In a short
while they had increased tremendously. In a few years they spread west-
ward, and about 1929 were seen in Illinois. Rapidly, they took over the
state and today are among the most abundant birds. Their splendid
massed flights, their odd habit of mimicking other birds' songs, their
hunger for almost anything edible, their long beaks which are yellow in
spring and early- summer, their short tails and stubby bodies, all dis-
tinguish the starling from our native birds.

46

Bell's VireO (Vireo belli belli)

It is a small bird, one that is not especially beautiful, not brightly
marked, not easy to see, and its song is small and unmusical. Yet the
Bell's vireo is one of the most sought Illinois birds by visitors from the
East. This is because Bell's vireo is a western bird which reaches what
is believed to be its normal eastern boundary in Indiana, and the Eastern
ornithologists, always eager for the sight of a new bird, are anxious to
see it. And the vireo usually leads them a chase.

The bird is typical of the open prairie country of Illinois. Here
where the sunny uplands are dry and hot. or along the willow tangles
of a marsh, or along a thickety road or osage orange hedge, the gabbling
bit of song is heard. For a long time it may seem to be a Voice Without
a Body. The little vireo is grey-green and inconspicuous: it moves thinly
through the leaves, peers forth, hides easily behind a single leaf. "Gabble-
gabble-gabble"', says the little bird, huskily, with a rolling quality to its
odd ditty, and slips away. It may take years to see it, yet it may nest in
the hedge across the road or sing every day in the nearest blackberry
tangle.

Like other vireos, the Bell's weaves a strong basket of a nest which
is suspended from a fork in a low bush. The nest is so sturdy that it
often outlasts the rigors of winter, and indicates, when the vireos come
back in spring, just where they nested before.

47

IVIyrtlc W^arblcr ( Dendroica coronata coronata)

At five o'clock on a perfumed May morning, when the air is clean
and fresh after the night, and birds swarm in every tree, there comes to
our woods and city trees and parks a wonderful gathering of birds.
Sometimes on such a day. more than a hundred kinds of birds may be
seen from dawn to dusk. And the number of warblers alone may reach
past thirty.

For up from the tropics there have come hordes of tiny, brightly
colored, piping, chattering birds on their way to their nesting grounds.
Most of them go on to "Wisconsin, Michigan, and Canada to nest, but
some stay in Illinois. Most of them, therefore, arrive only in late April
and May.

There are so many. They are all so different, yet so similar, so
nervous in their flittings, so confusing in their thin songs — field glasses
and a well-illustrated bird guide are needed to identify them all.

But among all that delightful, provoking throng are hundreds of
myrtle warblers. They are the first warblers to arrive in spring and in
autumn they stay after others are gone. They are patchy birds, colored
in lemon yellow, white, slate-blue, and black. The yellow rump is a spot
to look for in identifying myrtle warblers.

48

Northern Yellowthroat (Geothiypis trichas)

Some of the warblers which come through Illinois in a delightful,
confusing passage of bright birds in spring and autumn, do not continue
northward to nest. Half a dozen kinds stay in Illinois, and one of these
is the northern vello\vthroat.

It is a spunky, cocky, inquisitive, beautiful little morsel which is
found in the weedy jungles along dusty lanes, in cocklebur patches behind
the bam, along grassy streams, or in marshes. Wherever the country is
overgrown with safe tangles, the yellowthroat is found.

It is not easy to see, not at first. We may hear a clipped-off "weechity-
weechity-weechity !" sputtered a dozen times, a hundred times, before
the singer is finally tracked do^^^l. But more easily, if we wait a bit, the
curious little yellowthroat vnW come slipping and peeking and flitting
through the protection of stalks and stems, and finally, -wdth a bright and
attentive black eye, mil peer out at us.

There — a bit of a bird, green-brown above, bright yellow below, a
grey head, a white eye-brow, and a sharp black mask over the face. The
mask is a point not soon to be forgotten. There's the yellowthroat, and
in a moment it is gone.

The yelloA\'throat lays three to five speckled eggs in a small nest
hidden in weeds, in the grass, or under a cocklebur leaf.

49

European Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus montanus)

In the 1870's it was a hobby of many people to import birds from
Europe and liberate them in the hope that they would become naturalized
in America. With perhaps four exceptions, most of these unfortunate
birds died. But the English sparrow, the starling, the pigeon, and the
European tree sparrow not only lived but multiplied. The first two became
pests, but to this day the European tree sparrow remains rare and local-
ized. It is found in the St. Louis-Alton region and at Horseshoe Lake,
Illinois, on Eoute 111 east of East St. Louis, and in rare, scattered spots
elsewhere in central Illinois.

For many years the European tree sparrows lived and multiplied
moderately in South St. Louis where they were originally liberated, but
when the English sparrows came westward, the weaker cousins lost
ground. They scattered through the region and became rare and hard to
find. Today they are still rare but are gaining ground.

The European tree sparrow at first glance resembles its tough and
unpopular cousin, the English sparrow. But the tree sparrow is smaller,
more slender, is far less pugnacious and its notes are more musical. The
markings are somewhat similar, but the bright white cheek patch of the
tree sparrow, marked with a sharp black spot, is enough to set it apart
from the English sparrow. This black spot on a white cheek is the thing
to look for when looking at English sparrows in the hope of finding the
European tree sparrow.

50

Eastern Meadowlark (Stumeiia magna)

Tt is June and a meadowlark sings in the wheat. On bowed wings
he flits with a harsh sputtering and a flashing of white tail feathers to a
fence post across the field. Into the sun the lark thrusts his golden bosom
with its great black V, so that he glints in hi^ pride as he opens a long
beak widely to sing over and over again. Along the fence row are the
flat rosettes of snowy Queen Anne's lace, emblem of June. The scent of
ripe wild prairie strawbemes fills the warm air of the sunny roadside.
It is the time when pale pink wild roses blossom fleetingly along the
railroad tracks and highways ; when insects sing in the grass all day and
all night, a time when the clover is in bloom. Meadowlarks, flowers,
clover — these all are June.

But the first meadowlarks of the springtime are more \\elcome than
any in June — by summer they are common and one hardly gives them a
second glance. But in March — a meadowlark in March sings the kind of
song that makes the listener tingle with the sudden impact of spring.
This is it ! This is spring ! This is the first meadowlark.

In the pleasant days of May and June when meadowlarks no longer
mean springtime, a nest full of eggs is carefully brooded in a shelter
beneath a hummock of grass. The songs are not so fluent now : by mid-
summer they are all but silenced, until autumn gives the larks a thought
of the vanished spring, and they sing before they fly south.

51

UNIVERSITY 5)f

Redwinged Blackbird (Ageiaius phoeniceus)

The redwings are back ! On the bare willow that blows in the late
February wind, the first redwinged blackbird of the season teeters and
sways and clacks, displays bright scarlet and golden shoulders, spreads
his tail, and forces out a gurgling song. The full burst of song will come
later, beginning usually two weeks after the first males arrive. By that
time the bronzy females are here, and now the marsh comes alive with
the wings and songs of blackbirds.

The marsh is filled ^nth redwings. Their jumbled chorus begins
before dawn and continues all day until sunset. It sounds as if there were
ten times as many birds as there really are. And now as the new green
shoots of cattails come up from the mud and water, the redwings weave
new nests of old cattail leaves and anchor them to the old stalks that still
stand erect. The nest is deep, woven well and strongly, and in the bottom
are the pale bluish eggs of the blackbirds, eggs that bear strange, mystic
scrawlings in black, spring symbols whose true meaning only redwings
know.

By late summer the redwings are scattered. Where they were abun-
dant in spring, they now are almost completely gone. But in other places,
in smartweed lowlands or in swamps near the rivers, the redwings gather
as autumn comes. In massed flocks of thousands, they head southward.

52

Baltimore Oriole (icterus gaibuia)

When cherry trees are white with bloom there comes a bird of fire
that iiits on brilliant wings through the blossoming trees. The Baltimore
orioles are back and spring is really here.

They came from warm jungles far to the south. Back there, perhaps
on the forested slopes of Mount Turrialba in Costa Rica, perhaps in
Maya land, or in the forests of eastern Mexico, the orioles spent the
winter. For orioles are tropical birds whose ancestors long ago lived in
the semi-tropical forests of North America. Migration seems to have
begun when the northern glaciers changed the climate of this continent,
but each spring the orioles come back to the haunts of their ancestors.

That gaudy orange-gold and black of the oriole seems to belong to
the deep purple gloom of the jungle, rather than to an Illinois orchard,
yet here in the north the bird seems delighted with new leaves and bright
cherry blooms, with growing gardens and the cool hospitality of elms.

Here in an elm the orioles often choose to build the long, pendant,
woven nest where the white eggs scrawled with black are laid in perfect
safety high above the ground.

The Baltimore oriole often is found in town, but its cousin, the
orchard oriole, russet-brown where the Baltimore is orange, is almost
always found in orchards and on farms.

53

Bronzed Grackle (Quiscalus versicolor)

Grackles show the changing season. When the first flock of these
long-tailed, clacking blackbirds comes streaming across the late afternoon
sky on a day in early March, and settles, talking and creaking, in the top
of a poplar, it is a sure sign of spring. It is as certain as robins, as
definite as dandelions. And in autumn when leaves begin to drift from
the trees, when the scent and sound of autumn is in the air, and sunset
every day comes just a little earlier, the grackles begin to gather in ever
growing flocks. Sunset after sunset, they flock across the sky, gather in
trees in town to talk and flutter all night. They begin this flocking in
August when the young are grown. The blackbirds linger until there
comes a night when frost is keen in the air and will whiten every living
tiling by morning. Then quickly and completely they depart — it is a
complete and sudden departure to parts south, with only a very laggard
individual now and then staying through the winter.

The bronzed grackle is the common blackbird of the middle-west.
It is a long-tailed blackbird with a brilliant gloss of purple and gi'een
on the head and back, with bronze on the shoulders, and a cynical,
startling white eye. The purple grackle is found in the east.

54

Csrdinsl (Richmondena cardinalis )

Perhaps nothing else so colorful or so elegant in the bird world
chooses to stay the year around in Illinois — there is nothing like the
cardinal, and in Illinois it is a common bird. With its crimson feathers
which grow their brightest in spring, a black area around the scarlet
com-cracker beak, a strong crest on the head, and the keen lines of a
wild bird, the cardinal is a splendid creature. It is this bird, of all others
which live in Illinois, which was made the State bird.

With head upflung against a brilliant sky, so early in the spring
that spring has made no appearance at all and the air is cliill and the
snow dirty on the ground, the cardinal sings. The whistling of a cardinal
on a surly day in February can do' more to raise the sagging morale of
winter-weary Illinoisans than perhaps anything else out of doors. Louder
and more enthusiastic grow the whistlings, for the females whistle as
well as the males.

Cardinals, it is believed, mate for life. Now in spring they begin to
gather shreds of grapevine bark to weave in a nest that is hidden in
the lilac bush or the rose tangle, and here the eggs are laid. Sometimes
three nests with three broods are produced in a season, to make it possible
for cardinals to be found everywhere in Illinois. And when winter comes,
the cardinal in the snow is a sight not to be soon forgotten.

55

Rose-Breasted Grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovidanus)

There is an old story which may be of Indian origin, or it may have
begun in the cabin of a pioneer family — ^or may have begun even before
these— that tells why the rose-breasted grosbeak has a crimson front.
Said the Indians, perhaps— the bird with the big white beak must have
been eating berries, and the juice stained its breast — see the red stain.
And a Quaker farmer might have varied it by telling his children that
the grosbeak stole cherries and the juice marked its bosom, but he forgave
the theft because grosbeaks also ate potato beetles.

But no matter how the rose-breasted grosbeak obtained his marking,
he is the only one of our birds to be distinguished by bright black and
white wings, back, tail, and body, a black head, and that rosy-red breast.
The beak is large and white, shaped much like the cardinal's scarlet beak.
The female is like an overgrown brown sparrow with white eyebrows.

In April when the grosbeak comes back from South America to nest
in Illinois woods, parks, and garden trees, it adds its strong warble to
the jumble of song which already fills the springtime air. Here is a
rolling, masterful melody, sung by each bird with a little variation, so
that each grosbeak is an artist in song. Even the females sing. The male,
sharing the duties of incubating the eggs, often sings to himself to while
away the time he must spend on the nest.

56

Indigo Bunting (PasseHna cyaneaj

Brilliant as the spot in a peacock's tail, an indigo bunting dashes
across the sunny road and flies to a telephone wire to sing. Against the
sky the little bird may appear black or very dark blue, but the color is
often an optical illusion. Actually the feathers are brown, overlaid with
a transparent layer which reflects light and produces blue. Therefore
the bunting's magniflcent color varies with the time of day and the
location in which it is seen. Black against the sky, purple-blue in the
shade, green-blue in the sun. And early in the morning, so early that
there is really no light at all, only a faint indication of it in the east,
the lights of cars on country roads catch the indigo buntings in the dust.
And now, strangely, they are almost white, a very pale blue-white in the
shaft of headlight and against darkness. They are like fairy birds, unreal
and fragile. Close at hand in daylight, however, the bunting is a bird of
iridescent blue-green, with a shading of intense purple on the head and
blackish on the wings.

But aside from the technicalities of its blueness, the indigo bunting
is a small, joyous bird that sings in the hottest summer weather, nests in
a tangle of blackberry briars, is mated to the brown, sparrow-like female
bunting, and is the only all-blue bird to be found commonly in Illinois.

57

Eastern Goldfinch f Spinas trisHs mstis)

When midsummer comes and the other birds long since have built
their nests, and the robins already have reared two broods, the goldfinches
begin to think belatedly of nesting. They take their time ; they have only
one brood in a year and there is no hurry — the summer is before them.
And goldfinches prefer to nest when the thistles are blooming. Here in
the midst of the spiny fortresses of the big thistle plants, the goldfinches
weave a little cup of a nest, soft and comfortable with old thistle down
and milkweed silk. Here the eggs are laid and the little young gold-
finches sit until they are big enough to leave their protected bed.

And by that time it is late summer. The milkweeds and the thistles
have been blooming all the long hot days and now the first seeds are
ripening. Here to the tall sturdy plants the goldfinches come and pick
open the pods, eat the seeds, let the silks fly off. Wherever there are weed
patches and ripening seeds, the goldfinches come. Even the dandelions
in June, seeding in heads of fluff, are descended upon by the little black
and yellow birds. And when they fly up with a tweeting and a bubbly,
bounding flight, it is as if the dandelions themselves had taken wing.

The goldfinches in autumn wear the dull yellow and brown feathers
of the females. All winter they stay in the weed patches but are incon-
spicuous as sparrows, except for that tell-tale flight. And when spring
oomes, the goldfinches blossom out in gold and black again, and bound
about in spring gladness on the winds of April.

58

DlckciSSCl (Spiza americana)

Once upon a time a long while ago, it is believed that all dickcissels
were birds of the Great Plains. In those days the dickcissels probably did
not come into Illinois nor further eastward, but some time later they
began a curious migration. They moved across the Mississippi. They
came into the new cornfields and clover fields of Illinois. They even went
eastward into western New York and Pennsylvania where they were
greeted as a great rarity.

Today the dickcissel is one of the commonest summer birds in
Illinois, but in the eastern states it is still only a rare and casual visitor.
The dickcissel, no matter what it did in more reckless journeyings, still
prefers open country where the sun is hot and the winds are strong,
where the blades of corn glitter in the sun, and where the chirring of
grasshoppers is loud all day and all night. Here on a fence post or on a
stalk of corn, on a wire or a clover head, the dickcissel throws back its
head and chants a monotonous clacking song. Over and over and over,
it is sung without variation a thousand times a day and resumed next
day with equal vigor, and so all summer long.

The dickcissel is marked very much like a miniature meadowlark,
with a yellow breast crossed with a black Y. There are white underparts,
a yellow eyebrow, a white streak down the wing, and bright chestnut-
brown shoulders. Down in the cool shelter of pink clover blossoms there
may be a nest where sky-blue eggs are brooded by the shy female.

59

Slate-Colored JunCO (Junco hyemalis)

Snow-birds, some people call them, but junco is a better name. They
are small, slate-grey, black, and white birds that come to Illinois at the
end of September or in early October and spend the winter here until
time to leave for their nesting ground in the northern pine country.
During their time with us they flit about in groups and small flocks,
glean weed seeds from the roadside and woodsy thickets, often live in
parks or cruise out to nearly feeding stands, and are among our most
delightful and most abundant winter birds.

The blue leaf-smoke of autumn brings the juncos down from their
summer home in Canada. Here they nested near some huge old lichened
boulder and then moved south as Arctic storms swirled into the cool
summer lands. Suddenly juncos are in Illinois. Their snowy-white outer
tail feathers, contrasting with the dark grey of the middle feathers, flash
in flight, and the little bone-white beaks click with small staccato notes
as the flocks dash from thicket to thicket.

When spring comes on, the juncos begin to sing. In the \varming
sunshine of March and early April they utter small jingling choruses of
song that increase as spring comes on, and then suddenly they are gone
to the calling north.

60

Field Sparrow (Spizella pusUla pusUla)

All day long in summer when the sun is hot and the waving prairie
grass glistens in the heat, the brown field sparrow sings its thin, high-
pitched song. It is one of the few birds to sing in hot weather, and, as if
to make up for the lack in most other birds, the field sparrow sends its
ringing whistles into the sunshine from early morning until sundown,
and from late March until September.

The field sparrow is a bird of open country. It is common in the
sunny uplands, thorny pastures, roadsides, comjfields, and clover fields
in Illinois. Here, in a low thorny bush or clump of weeds, or among the
tall grass, a little nest of dried grass wreathed around in a deep cup is
made to hold the eggs. The eggs are tiny, pinkish-brown, speckled with
darker brown ; they are well hidden although they are placed so low.

The field sparrow is slim, small, and brown, paler beneath, with a
whitish ring around the eye, two white wing-bars, and a small, pale pink
beak which is a guiding mark in identifying the field sparrow. It is much
smaller than the English sparrow, and has no marks on the whitish
breast — most native sparrows have streaks or other marks. Plain, shy,
flitting quickly out of sight from a perch on a mullein stalk, the field
sparrow is one of the familiar birds of Illinois.

61

White-Throated Sparrow (Zonomchia aibicoiUs)

Song of the deer country, wings of the spruce bogs, bird of the
northern wilderness — this is the white-throated sparrow. Illinois may
be far from the deer country, from spruce bogs and aspen woods and
blueberiy uplands, yet each spring and each autimm, as regularly as
the calendar, the white-throated sparrow comes to Illinois. On its way
north or south, it stays for a few weeks in our woods and gardens.

It is not a rare bird, not hard to find ; it comes f eaiiessly into the
wet spring gardens in the middle of a town, scratches industriously
among damp old leaves in woods and parks, flits among the blossoming
wild crab apple trees, pipes sweetly in the April rain. The white-throat
is as much a part of our autumn picture as it is of spring. In October
the white-throats whistle brokenly from the weed tangles, flutter among
the goldenrod, join the fox sparrows and tree sparrows along the wooded
roadsides.

The white-throated sparrow is larger than the English sparrow and
is distinguished from all other sparrows by the striped black and white
crown and bright yellow spot before the eye. The wings, back, and tail
are brown, the breast pale grey with a pure white throat patch. Sometimes
with the white-throats is the white-crowned sparrow, a larger, greyer
bird. Its crown has more white than black and the breast is all grey with
no white throat.

62

MANY BIRDS ARE PROTECTED BY LAW

The Game Code of Illinois protects song-birds, game birds, game
and fur-bearing animals and provides open seasons for certain of the
latter groups. These laws are found in Senate Bill No, 575, approved
July 16, 1941, Laws of Illinois, 1941, Vol. I, pp. 767-797 as amended
by Senate Bill No. 373, Approved July 21, 1947, Laws of Illinois,
1947, pp. 1039-1057. These Acts are administered by the Depart-
ment of Conservation. Senate Bill No. 373 provides :

"Section 21. This Act shall apply only to the wild birds and
parts thereof (their nests and eggs), and wild animals and parts
thereof, which shall include their green hides, in the State of Illinois,
or which may be brought into the State of Illinois, which are hereby
defined as follows:

All song, insectivorous, or non-game birds (except English Spar-
row, Passer domesticus; European Starling, Sturnus vulgaris; Crow,
Corvus brachyrhynchos ; Blue Jay, Cyanocitta cristata; Cowbird,
Molothrus ater; Rusty Blackbird, Euphagus carolinus; Bronzed
grackle, Quiscalus quiscula; Sharp-shinned Hawk, Accipiter velox;
Cooper's Hawk, Accipiter Cooperi; Great Horned Owl, Bubo vir-
ginianus; and Domestic Pigeon, Columba livia; Homing Pigeon,
Columba livia livia. GAME BIRDS — Ruffed grouse, Bonasa umbel-
lus; Bobwhite Quail, Colinus virginianus; Hungarian Partridge,
Perdix perdix; Chukar partridge, Alectoris graceca; Pheasants, P.
colchicus, P. c. Torquatus; Prairie Chicken, Tympanuchus cupido;
Wild Turkey, Meleagris gallopavo. MIGRATORY GAME BIRDS^—
Waterfowl, including little brown, sandhill, and whooping cranes,
Gruidae; Rails, including coots, gallinules, and sora and other rails,
Rallidae; Shore birds, including avocets, curlews, dowitchers, godwits,
knots, oyster catchers, phalaropes, plovers, sandpipers, snipe, stilts,
surf birds, tumstones, willet, woodcock, and yellow-legs, Limicolae;
Pigeons, including doves and wild pigeons, Columbidae.

It is unlawful to take any said wild birds and parts thereof (their
nests and eggs), and wild animals and parts thereof, including their
green hides, with such devices, during the protected seasons* and in
such manner, as defined by this Act."

If you thought it lawful to kill eagles, hawks, and owls, read what
this Act enjoins.

"Section 36. Eagles and Hawks — Owls.] It shall be unlawful
for any persons at any time to take any of the following defined
species: Red -tailed hawk, Buteo borealis; Red-shouldered hawk,
Buteo lineatus; Broad- winged hawk, Buteo platypterus; Swainson's
hawk, Buteo swainsoni; Rough-legged hawk, Buteo lagopus; Ferru-
ginous rough-leg, Buteo regalis; Marsh hawk. Circus hudsonius;
Osprey, Pandion haliaetus; Goshawk, Astur atricapillus; Duck Hawk,
Falco peregrinus; Pigeon hawk, Falco [columbarius]t; Sparrow
Hawk, Falco sparverius; Golden eagle, Aquila chrysaetos; Bald eagle,
Haliaeetus leucocephalus; all species of owls, except Great Horned
Owl."

There is no open season for hunting or "taking" Ruffed grouse,
Prairie Chickens, Chukar and Hungarian Partridge. (Sections 25, 26,
27, Senate Bill No. 575).

^ Migratory game birds are protected by Federal law as stated in Section 81 of
this Act.

* For open seasons on game birds and animals, see "Game and Fish Codes of
Illinois", Department of Conser\^ation, Spring-field, Illinois.

t Erroneously printed in the law, peregrinus.

63

INDEX

Attracting Birds 6

Bibliography 5

Bird Bath 6

Feeders 6

Houses 7, 8

Blackbird, Red-winged 52

Bluebird 42

Blue Jay 34

Bobwhite 18

Brown Thrasher 40

Bunting, Indigo 57

Butcher Bird 45

Cardinal 55

Catbird 38

Cedar Waxwing 44

Chickadee 35

Chimney Swift 25

Crane 10

Dickcissel 59

Dove, Mourning 22

Duck, Canvasback 14

Mallard 13

Redhead 14

Ring-necked 14

Scaup 14

Egret, American 11

Feeding the Birds 9

Flicker 28

Goldfinch 58

Goose, Canada 12

Goshawk 15

Grackle, Bronzed 54

Grosbeak, Rose Br 56

Gulls 21

Hawk, Cooper's 15

Laws 63

Goshawk 15

Night 24

Red-tailed 16

Sharp-shinned 15

Sparrow 17

Heron, Great Blue 10

Horned Lark 32

Hummingbird 26

Invitation to Birds 3

Jay, Blue 34

Junce, Slate-colored 60

Killdeer 19

Kingbird 31

Kingfisher 27

Lark, Meadow 51

Horned 32

Laws, Game 63

Mallard 13

Martin, Purple 33

Meadowlark 51

Mockingbird 39

Mourning Dove 22

Nighthawk 24

Orioles 53

Owl, Screech 23

Plover, Upland 20

Quail 18

Redbird 55

Redwing 52

Robin 41

Shrike 45

Sparrow, Eur. Tree 50

Field 61

White-thr 62

Sparrow Hawk 17

Starling 46

Swift 25

Thrasher, Brown 40

Thrush, Wood 43

Titmouse, Tufted 36

These Birds Are Illinois 4

Vireo, Bell's 47

Warbler, Myrtle 48

Waxwing, Cedar 44

Whip-poor-will 24

Woodpecker, Downy 30

Hairy 30

Red-headed 29

Wrens 37

Yellowthroat 49

64

STORY OF ILLINOIS SERIES

No. 1. Story of Illinois: Indian and Pioneer, by V. S. Eifert.

No. 2. Mammals of Illinois Today and Yesterday, by V. S. Eifert

No. 3. Exploring for Mushrooms, by V. S. Eifert.

No. 4. Flowers that Bloom in the Spring, by V. S. Eifert.

No. 5. Invitation to Birds, by V. S. Eifert.

No. 6. Man's Venture in Culture, by Thorne Deuel.

No. 7. The Past Speaks to You, by Ann Livesay.

No. 8. Common Insects of Illinois, by A. Gilbert Wright.

Cost: 25c each; 20c each in lots of 25" or more

Address all enquiries to the MUSEUM DIRECTOR,
Illinois State Museum, Springfield, Illinois

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA

507IL61ST C006

STORY OF ILLINOIS SERIES. SPRINGFIELD

5 1953