Notes
January Seventh
Persons not familiar with birds often mistake the white-breasted nuthatch for a woodpecker, for their actions are much alike. The nuthatch creeps about the trees in all kinds of attitudes, while the woodpecker assumes an upright position most of the time and moves in spasmodic hops. The young and the female downy woodpecker do not have the red crescent on the back of the head. The hairy woodpecker is another "resident" that looks like his cousin, the downy, but he is once again as large.
January Eighth
Winter in the North is a season of hardship and hunger to wild creatures. The otherwise wary and cunning crow often puts discretion aside when in search of food, and fearlessly visits the village refuse heaps, or the farmer's barn-yard. In the orchards you will find where he has uncovered the decayed apples and pecked holes into them.
January Ninth
Even the mink, after days of fasting, is driven by starvation to leave his retreat in a burrow along a creek or river bank, and to forage upon the farmer's poultry. Poor fellow, he does not hibernate, so he must have food; fish is his choice, but when hard pressed, he will take anything, "fish, flesh, or fowl."