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winter. If suet is included in the menu at the feeder, it will also attract Woodpeckers. Golden-crowned Kinglets and Chickadees usually occur in mixed flocks in coniferous thickets during winter.

Songbirds that only visit us in winter include Snow Buntings, Redpolls, Evening Grosbeaks, Pine Grosbeaks, White—winged Crossbills,

and Tree Sparrows. Evening Grosbeaks will readily visit a bird feeder in winter.

Snow Buntings and Horned Larks can be found in large flocks along the shore and along roadsides near the shore in winter.

- Bruce MacLean Milton

- Backyard Birding —»

Are you new at the bird game? Do you want to meet some of our hardy feathered neighbours without experiencing the discomforts of our damp and frequently windy P.E.I. winter days? Try setting up a bird feeder in your backyard and you may rest assured that some avian opportunist will soon discover this winter mecca. Let's talk about "when, with what, and how".

When? Never feed before freeze-up or snow fall; to do so could be to entice some exotic migrants to halt in their journeying south, and thus expose them to an early death. Be concerned for chickadees, juncos, jays, pheasants, woodpeckers, evening grosbeaks, the occasional white-throated Sparrow and Song Sparrow, the common winterers. Feed

consistently until Spring break-up, the exception being a big mid—winter thaw.

With what? A 50 lb. bag of scratch from a local poultry feedgrain supplier, some suet and drippings, a hamper of corn on the cob, a few heads of sunflower seeds, a jar of peanut butter, a bushel of apples,

bread crumbs (fine), and a garbage bag of barn chaff should suffice for the entire cold season.

flew? Old branches and prunings staked out on the back lawn, teepee fashion in which is tossed grain, corn and finely crushed bread crumbs has proved to be just about cat and hawk proof for jays, pheasants, and juncos: large chunks of pastry, bread, etc., only attract starlings, house sparrows and crows. An elevated tray of sunflower seeds in the shelter of a bare-branched tree is preferred by evening grosbeaks; near fruit trees a suet stick fastened to a'post or drippings smeared on an upright limb, will draw downey or hairy woodpeckers, who in turn will help rid your favorite apple tree of the coddling moth larvae overwintering there.

A stick, with rough bark, smeared with peanut butter and hung from a limb, will feed a small flock of chickadees for a week. They in turn will clean your hedge and shrubs of many an egg cluster of destructive insects. Several small evergreens, poked in the ground in a clump, over which during cold days you pour melted suet and drippings, becomes a life-saver for many a songster. Don't forget to toss some crumbs and grain under the bared branches of your shrubs and hedge for white- throated and song sparrows. A big ball of suet and seeds hung in a bit

of netting, and a window—sill box of sand and grain may round out your feeding station.

- Kathy Martin Revised from "For Pleasure and Profit", Blomidon Naturalists Society Newsletter 1 (2), 1974.