recognizing them as marauders, will chase crows in the spring and summer. Watching the little feathered dive-bombers attack the lumbering crow is quite a show, the larger bird always retreating as best he can, sometimes losing a few feathers, but seldom his dignity.

DOWNY WOODPECKER
(Dendrocopos pubescens)

Our smallest woodpecker at 6 inches; spotted with black and white. Dark bars on the outer tail feathers distinguish it from the similar but larger hairy woodpecker. Resident in the United States and the forested parts of Canada and Alaska.

This woodpecker is widely distributed, living in woodlands, orchards and gardens. Like the hairy woodpecker, it beats a tattoo on a dry resonant tree branch. To appreciative ears it has the quality of forest music. In a hole excavated in a dead branch the downy woodpecker lays four to six eggs. This and the hairy woodpecker are valuable human allies, their food consisting of some of the worst insect foes of orchard and shade trees. Beef suet, fastened too high for dogs to pirate, will attract Downies to a feeding station.

FLICKER
(Colaptes auratus)

Length 13 inches; the yellow (salmon in western birds) under surfaces of the wing and tail, and white rump are characteristic. It breeds throughout the United States and in forested parts of Canada; winters in most of the southern United States.

The flicker inhabits open country and delights in parklike regions where trees are numerous but well-spaced. It is possible to insure the presence of this useful bird about the home and to increase its numbers. It nests in any large cavity in a tree and readily appropriates an artificial nesting box. The most terrestrial of our woodpeckers, it procures much of its food from the ground. The largest item of animal food is ants, of which it eats more than any other common bird. The flicker is more adapted to suburbs than to the larger cities.

GOLDFINCH
(Spinus sp.)

The male is the only small, yellow bird with black wings and tail, with flight that is extremely undulating. In winter the species concentrate in areas where seed-laden plants are common.

They breed from Canada to Mexico and winter in the same range, nesting in July and August, after most birds have finished. The song is long-sustained, clear, light, and canary-like. In its flight, each dip is often punctuated by a simple cry of ti-dee-di-di.

Goldfinches are found along hedgerows, wood margins, brushy fields, and flower gardens, especially where cosmos are growing.

GRACKLE
(Quiscalus quiscula)

Length 12 inches. It breeds throughout the United States west to Texas, Colorado, and Montana and in southern Canada and winters in the southern half of its breeding range.

This is a beautiful blackbird that is well known from its habit of congregating in city parks and nesting there year after year. Like other species which habitually assemble in large flocks, it is capable of inflicting damage on farm crops. It shares with crows and blue jays a habit of pillaging the nests of small birds, but it does much good by destroying garden pests, especially white grubs, weevils, grasshoppers, and caterpillars.

GREEN HERON
(Butorides virescens)

A small, dark heron common to all water areas, breeding in a combination of wooded or brush habitats and marshes. It is also found along the wooded margins of lakes and ponds. It often shows more blue than green and is easily confused with the little blue heron. Its flight appears crowlike at a distance, moving with slow, arched wing beats.

The most generously distributed of small herons, its series of “kucks” or its loud skyow can often be heard in areas near urban settlements.

It breeds from the Gulf of Mexico north to southern Canada and winters from Florida south.

HERRING GULL
(Larus argentatus)

This is the common large sea gull of much of our interior and coasts and a familiar urban bird; a gray mantled, black wing tipped gull seen in garbage dumps and harbors in all U.S. coastal cities. Oceans, bays, estuaries, beaches, fields, inland lakes, reservoirs and large streams ... all provide habitat for this inspirer of “Jonathan Livingstone Seagull.”

His free wheeling grace in the sky and his raucous yet lonely kee-ow, ke-ow manage to bring beauty to even the most odoriferous city dump.

It breeds from the Arctic to the northern states and winters from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

HOUSE SPARROW
(Passer domesticus)

Perhaps the most citified of birds, this import’s incessant chattering, quarrelsome disposition, and abundance about human habitations distinguish it from our native sparrows. Actually, it is not a sparrow at all, but a weaver finch.

Almost universally condemned after its introduction into the United States, the house sparrow not only held its own, but increased in numbers and extended its range. It now occupies its own niche and is regarded with amusement and considerable affection in our inner cities.

In rural areas it does some damage to fruit, vegetables, and