File:Birds of lakeside and prairie (1901) (14563742379).jpg

Identifier: birdsoflakesidep00clar (find matches)
Title: Birds of lakeside and prairie
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Clark, Edward Brayton
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: Chicago, New York, A.W. Mumford
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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et an adequate idea of the birds waysand beauty. The prothonotaries have a habit of constantlyflying back and forth over the river. Their yellow bodies arereflected in its smooth surface, and the observer has a doublecolor treat every time the bird crosses. The prothonotarybuilds in a hole in a tree or in a decayed stump, after themanner of the bluebird, and the nests are only less interestingthan the birds themselves. The tree swallows of the Kankakee.Valley believe that thecustoms of their ancestors are good enough for the descend-ants. They build in colonies in hollow trees, like their fore-fathers. The tree swallows that wander away into the hauntsof men make their homes in bird-houses or in crevices inbuildings. Nearly every group of dead tree trunks along theKankakee River has its swallow colony. There were thou-sands of the birds flying up and down the river, droppingdown now and then to dip in its waters. We passed manyof them sitting upon the tips of dead branches or upon the
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WARBLING VIREO. Spring on the Kankakee 115 scarred tops of stumps. The tree swallows under parts arepure white, while its back and shoulders, when the sun strikesthem full and fair, are a shimmering green. We turned the prow of our little boat toward the shoreand landed by some great trees under which the Indians oncemust have roamed. There two male redstarts gave us adiversion by having a pitched battle, first on a limb, then inthe air, and then on the limb again. We stayed in the vicin-ity for certainly half an hour, and though we did not watchthem constantly, I think that these little warblers, whosetempers are as fiery as their plumage, never once gave overfighting. We found a red-bellied woodpecker on one of thebig trees. This locality is, I think, about its northern limit,though one careful observer has reported the presence of oneof these woodpeckers in Lincoln Park, Chicago. We heardthe note of the tufted titmouse. It was the samePeter-peter-peter that I had heard early in Mar

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