Show Out of Doors in the West Sketches of Natural History in the Rocky Mountain Edited by J. H. Professor of Nature Study in the University of I r WINTER ONE WELL-DRESSED WINTER VISITOR THE EVENING are these and yellowish-green birds seen in the poplar trees or among the locusts and box-elders They are generally busy opening the This is a frequent question or remark snow abounds in the Rocky Mountain Few people fail occasionally to observe these showy which are much larger than sparrows and of stocky with a very large This heavy billed bird is dressed in and olive It is the Western Evening These birds come Evening Grosbeak to us from their far northern just to enjoy bur colder season where storms are less fierce than under the northern skies where they pass their They come always in rarely before December and congregate in trees that retain their these they easily wrench open with their heavy devour the and scatter the husks upon the Their colors are but not loud tones of a lisping or gurgling or a short their flight swift and their trustfulness quite You can stand a long while beneath the trees in which they are resting without causing them to take they are especially liable to the attacks of flippers and air guns in vagrant r The male has yellow forehead and eyebrow black wings and large white patches on the rest of upper parts under parts and base of tail greenish-yellow and bright lemon The female is yellowish with whitish patch oh Chickadees v The birds are about seven breed high up in the mountains fj or in the far north their from 15 co ures ground in a pine are light w 11 V three or four clear green Port fi- In winter they are common in lor the breed m f land and other northern They and their ests where lichens abound on the colors closely resemble the hues of these moss-like decorations of rocks and Our All-Year Friends the We may be surprised to learn that our good the insect-eating is with us m winter as as at all other but when its comes from a tree across the snowy A fields it is most welcome and and when we know what the chickadee is doing for us all the year f whether in storm or we are doubly grateful for his lively In the es- in the chickadee is often a solitary little bird a fluffy bit of black and white in the bare r tree but he never looks or acts as if he were lone his rings out with all the pleasure of mirth and no matter how black the wintry have two The mountain species one shown in the is common in the the long-tailed often mingling with it in Flocks of less than a dozen are frequently encountered in the ravines and near water In Emigration I have often been amused at their and their skill while searching the branches for hidden The throat and top of the head of the mountain chickadee are jet with a white line above the side of the head back under parts grayish white sides dark tinged with It is unsuspicious and and of good service as an insect The long-tailed has an ashy back tinged with wings with white patch and tail feathers edged with sides and flanks pale t The chickadee's beak is short and making a sharP pick exactly fitted for getting the insect eggs and cocoons hidden away among the leaf In almost any ravine or mountain hollow of the plateau region a distant grove of quaking-aspens may be discerned by the tremulous flutter of their rustling leaves and the silvery white of their tall Upon such a grove in one's attention may be strongly arrested by numbers of mountain some of which have made nests in the knot holes of the white quaking-asp in some instances not more than four or five feet from the ground Then one can readily study the chickadees as they fly about and flash in and out of their knot-hole either building m the down or fur with which they line their or else carrying food for the little household Occasionally they sing a delightful little son of about four or sometimes the first and or sometimes the middle note being the The grayish white bodies with the black caps and white with gray and brown backs and shine everywhere through the for they may be present in consider-able Sometimes they upside down to the branches of and dart chirping So merrily that the grove sparkles and rings with their joyous The Horned This is a little song of ours that has horns not real of but some little dark feathers that the male bird causes to stand up from the sides of his like feathers on a lady's Yon might take this bird to be a sparrow from a short but it is very different from and is not related to the sparrow It has a yellowish white a black and a black line extending from the sides of the Its back is a grayish with a suspicion- of wine The tail is but shows white feathers in It is slightly larger than the English and its paler colors it at once from the detested little The horned lark is one of our commonest winter and is with us all the year It is I in when pressed for that it comes into the Then it settles in the snow-covered fields and feeds upon the seeds of the salt consuming great quantities of the seeds of these garden Near our school many flocks come to forage for seeds in and make bright and cheerful the snowy landscape by their their graceful their antics during and their curious habit of running over the ground or Wintering The horned larks do not spend the season of cold and storm in the not even those that breed for the snow among the mountains gets very and the tempests become especially Many of the birds remain in the foothills and on the mesas and where they find plenty of seeds and berries for their except when the is unusually This when the snow continued to lie much longer than cutting off the natural food supply of the many of the flocks have come into the It would be well to scatter crumbs and seeds on the fields and lawns for these little visitors to Is this is done they will become quite but as soon as the snow has disappeared they will take their departure again for the open In the winter I have seen the horned larks in greatest numbers near the shores o the and toward the desert regions on the west side of the Great Salt There tt birds whirl and circle about you in flight and W along the railroad track or the wagon roads for w scattered J k Song and They seem to nest almost anywhere on our benches and and it is only then that I have observed these birds poise in midair after the manner of the English to which they are closely After mounting to a great this bird suddenly just as the skylark the golden lightning of the sunken O'er which clouds are brightening thou dost float and Like an embodied joy whose race is just m white above and a longer one of lemon yellow reaching down to the tip of the the active shading to terminated by a broadband of bright and supported below by a wedge-shaped salmon-colored layer of under tail the brownish accentuated by a black bridle at its that passes from the eye to the back of the the black notched at the the pointed the wheeling the lisping twittered one call resembling the trill of the cicada but much and in addition to all Horned Larks A Gentleman in the Bohemian A Winter A large flock of Bohemian wax-wings had come to a group of orchard early in near the center of the Everyone was charmed with their prepossessing It was a delight to watch them sit and twitter and play in an apple facing one often making swift circling flights of a few and compelling each other to arise in Once I had the unusual good fortune of being right among as they flew and whirled and sang and picked or ate in the bright blaze of a winter sunlight above the white Flitting from tree to roof and clinging to the vines covering a porch not more than four feet from where I stood at the they were so gentle and sociable that they came quite and walking quietly under the limbs on which they alighted did not frighten then This lovely the most attractive of all the friends that spend the winter with is a bird as large as the It is more than any other bird of the temperate in food admirable in disposition and charming in manner and this fine bird is actually being slaughtered each winter all over the by boys with flippers and air and by certain savage who ought to know faultless glossy shades of quiet brown ad off by the gleaming red dots of ng a narrow sash across each with a bar of Waxwing these plumage the quiet and refined sociability characteristic of well-bred the apparent love of the society of their the willingness to make our own acquaintance does it not seem a shame and disgrace to our civilization that these lovely bird-visitors are being massacred in some places whole flocks are being daily exterminated in almost every county of the Rocky Mountain states And yet people are either unaware or indifferent what this bird massacre signifies to the character of their boys and to the beauty and productivity of this Food and Though here only in when such a bird can do no harm it still manages to do some good as a destroyer of the first insects that take or begin to in February and for these birds snap up the flying midges and moths with all the skill of They are searching the trees for any moving or exposed while to our eyes they are simply going through their fine military These birds are often from their crests and trim cedar quails but they are not related to the Some call them probably because they are not very shy and so are so to kill by persons of depraved The Oregon or The junco is principal one of several winter species that may visit retreating from the far north before the heavy snows of Juncos are 4 esters or mountaineers who are driven down from the mountains into the valleys when the severe snows Several species winter in the Great Basin During their visit they are social always sitting around in flocks in the open up together with a twitter and a flash of their white outer tail or singing in concert a pleasing The song is similar to that of the but and with a little more One of the the nests in our Chief The Oregon junco has the and chest black or dark making a black outline against the white under The middle of the back is dark i the pinkish the outer tail feathers The female is lighter The intermediate junco is slaty instead of black about the head and and the back is dull The Thurber junco is ash white on middle of belly and bright rufous on the There is nothing of especial interest in r the junco 's and only bird-lovers can understand what a difference his presence makes in a winter While jogging along on a high mountain Keyser says his eye caught sight of a gray-headed which flitted from a clump of bushes bordering the stream to a spot on the ground close to some As the act appeared he decided to and walked cautiously to the spot where the bird had dropped and in a moment she flew up with a scolding There was the set on the ground in the grass and cosily hidden beneath the overarching branches of a low The pretty couch four juvenile juncos covered only with and in spite of their extreme their foreheads ad lores showed and their backs a distinctly reddish so early in life were they adopting the pattern worn by their They Work for The junco is familiarly known as the Arriving with the first heavy frosts and it is a very friendly bird if fed upon crumbs near the but it will easily procure grass seed from the hay As soon as winter begins to it seeks the sunny and with other winter sparrows cracks the wild seed that it finds scattered over the newly-bared Besides eating weed seeds all winter the juncos consume vast quantities of them in March before leaving for their northern Their visit is an unmixed benefit to agricultural land-and they do no real since the little grain eaten by them consists mainly of waste Let us and feed the snowbirds In the case of it is strictly that of a feather all flock In the winter are always Every one has seen them people mistaking them for house most Tev Bu all wear a little black hood l or cowl like their backs are the color their breasts the color of their tails white edges they the white flash by you in as do also the vesper in flitting in and out of the brush and amo the The Lapland One of the distant Arctic residents that comes to in winter is the Lapland In the far it feeds on grass seed and the fruit of pines and When the northern storms get too fierce and the snow so deep as to bury their they retreat southward and visit our making our winter cheerful with their The head and neck of the are the under parts a line from above and behind the the sides of the neck and a patch at the back of the white a half collar of chestnut the back of the neck brownish black the feathers sharply edged with brownish outer tail feathers mostly next feather with a white streak in rest In winter the black and other markings are overlaid with rusty and The bird gets its name from the great development of the hind The legs are the bill black and tipped with Seton speaks of seeing on the plains of Manitoba flocks of tens of and refers to their voices as a tornado of The writer saw a flock of perhaps a hundred alighting in the tops of the higher whistling all and finally flying off to the They in a few insects per the remaining 94 per cent of their fod consisting of grain and weed They frequent higher latitudes and more open plains than do other sparrows in The which they glean from the is of little or no and it is a pity to kill these interesting and rare The bird is nearly an inch longer and its wing is over an inch longer than that of the English its flight is more steady and and it sings while The Red One of the birds that stay here in winter is the red These birds are not frequent in this part of the mountain but they are reported in the higher Some are encountered about Salt Lake valley it on the Wasatch slopes the eastern side in the This bird is a lit larger than the English sparrow and wears a dull rose red coat over an undercoat of the red is brighter near the tail and the gray shows through on the the bird is further distinguished by a peed crossing of the tips of the The wings are ism is also the which is short and T e female is dull greenish-olive often shading bright each feather with a dusky center with dark on head and back and some wm The species is said to vary much in color and the bill presenting the chief variation in A laxity of the crossbills' visits at Fort they have been seen in every mont hof the though their occurrence was times they were as common and fearless as English sparrows and on bright days in February and March their pleasing song was heard in every Their curiously specialized beaks are necessary for twisting the pine nuts out of the The principal winter fare of these birds is the seeds of the or In picking out the pine nuts from the cozy pockets of the they are very As a flock of them feed on the pine you hear a rustling caused by the shelling off of the pine These flocks are not of a the female is dull with some green and while the young may be marked like the female or may show Red Cross-Bills a mixture of red and there is another the white winged that continues to mingle in these The latter is slightly smaller and has white wing with white on the and a decided pinkish tint on the upper parts of the body and Both species have a dipping flight similar to that of the Gentle and social in their these birds are easily and their friendship for man is often sadly Sometimes they help themselves to decayed garden being extravagantly fond of old As they they keep up their loud call They are good climbers and walkers and often stand head downward among the They have the very curious habit of breeding in midwinter or in very early How the young endure the cold is a but the mossy which is the size of a with alls two inches may be a sufficient shelter for the It has a small opening through which the happy pair enter their snug little winter Coues says they are most devoted parents and will shun no danger in defense of their Their summer resorts are within the depths of the evergreen from |