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For he looks out of his nest of grass, moss, bark, and rootlets, to see moose browsing among the young trees, and hears black bears growling. His bird companions are Snowbirds, Horned Larks, Crossbills, and Pine Grosbeaks; and he trembles lest the Great Gray Owl shall find his nestlings.
A Northern pinewood once we knew, My dear, when younger by some lustres, Where little painted crossbills flew And pecked among the fir-cone clusters; They hobnobbed and sidled In coats all aflame, While young Autumn idled, And we did the same.
Would the big buck's cunning provide a yard large enough for wide wandering, with plenty of browse along the paths to carry his flock safely through the winter's hunger? That was a story, waiting somewhere ahead, which made me hurry away from the foot-written records that otherwise would have kept me busy for hours. Crossbills called welcome to me, high overhead. Nothing can starve them out.
A flock of pelicans and two or three brown fishing-eagles were fishing in its agitated waters, seemingly with great success. There is a good sturgeon fishery at the foot of the rapid. Several golden plovers, Canadian grosbeaks, crossbills, woodpeckers and pin-tailed grouse were shot today; and Mr. Back killed a small striped marmot.
The vivid crossbills, red and black and white, would come to the yard in flocks, and the quaker-coloured snow-buntings, and the big, trustful, childlike, pine grosbeaks, with the growing stain of rose-purple over their heads and necks. These kept Lidey interested, helping to pass the days that now, to her excited anticipations, seemed so long.
Thinking from having seen the one in Sark, and from his description, that the birds might be Crossbills, I asked him to get me one or two, which he said he could easily do, as the people were destroying them on account of the damage they did. In a day or two he brought me one live and two dead Crossbills, and told me that as many as forty had been shot in one person's garden.
Wolfville, N. S. Dec. 25; 10 A. M. to 12.30 P. M. Cloudless; 5 inches of light snow; no wind; temperature 30 degrees. Total, 11 species, 140 individuals. Dec. 20, a flock of 8 to 10 American Crossbills. Tilton, N. H. Dec. 25; 8.20 A. M. to 12.30 P. M. Cloudy, changing to light rain; a little snow on ground; wind light, south-east; temperature 38 degrees.
Emboldened by hunger, the Starlings alight at the kitchen door, and the Juncos, Sparrows, Downy Woodpeckers, and Nuthatches come to feed on the window-sill. Jays and Meadowlarks haunt the manure piles or haystacks in search of fragments of grain. Purple Finches flock to the wahoo elm trees to feed on the buds, and Crossbills attack the pine cones.
A great flock of crossbills swooped down into the spruces, and stopped whistling in their astonishment. A dozen red squirrels snickered and barked their approval, as the bulls butted each other. Meeko is always glad when mischief is afoot. High overhead floated a rare woods' raven, his head bent sharply downward to see. Moose-birds flitted in restless excitement from tree to bush.
Behold us made companions of water-hens, snipes, goldfinches, woodpeckers, jays, owls, magpies, jackdaws, rooks, starlings, woodcocks, cocks, hens and chickens, turkey-cocks, blackbirds, thrushes, chaffinches, tomtits, jenny-wrens, lapwings, linnets, greenfinches, crossbills, flycatchers, larks, plovers, kingfishers, wagtails, redbreasts, redfinches, sparrows, ducks, fieldfares, woodpigeons and bullfinches!
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