Evening Grosbeaks and Cardinals in Southern Wisconsin
About noon on January 22, 1916, as I was returning from a walk in South Park, a flutter of wings, accompanied by soft whistles and twitters, caught my attention and, to my surprise and joy, I counted a flock of nineteen Evening Grosbeaks in the small maple and elm trees bordering the sidewalk.
The bright sunshine falling on their plumage gave them an extremely beautiful and gay-colored appearance. The birds seemed to be nearly all males. They were quite tame, and I was able to approach close under the trees before they took to their wings, finally disappearing in a northeasterly direction. Two years ago, on one of the coldest days of the winter, a flock of about fifty visited Reedsburg and were observed by a number of our bird-lovers.
I cannot resist giving a brief account of the pair of beautiful Cardinals that have been staying in Reedsburg for the past two weeks. Although I did not have the good fortune to observe these rare visitors, yet their identity was made certain by the authoritative testimony of a number of bird-lovers who had ample opportunity to watch them closely from a curtained window, which looked out on the apple-tree and feeding-station only a few feet from the house; so there was no chance of an error in their identification. They were first seen on January 5, in the midst of a driving blizzard, with the mercury dropping to 25° below zero. The pair remained in the vicinity of the grain-strewn feeding-station for about half an hour, and have been seen a great many times since, by a large number of people.—Ethel A. Nott, Reedsburg, Wisconsin.
Evening Grosbeaks at Port Henry, N. Y.
On December 17, 1915, I saw a pair of Evening Grosbeaks.
On January 28, 1916, out over an open spot of water in Lake Champlain, I saw three Canada Geese and the men working near there told me they had been around there all the morning.
On January 7, 1916, I saw a large flock of Evening Grosbeaks.
The last two weeks I have seen many Crows as many as four in one flock.—Dora B. Harris, Port Henry, N. Y.