7820 Red-winged Blackbirds

The red-winged blackbird is a handsome fellow. His feathers are shiny black. His shoulders are trimmed with bright read and yellow. His wife looks as if she belongs to another family. Her feathers are rusty black. She is speckled with brown, white and orange.

The red-winged blackbird is one of the first birds to come back in the spring. He is of great help to the farmer. He eats many grubs, worms, and caterpillars that would spoil the farmers crops. He follows the farmer in the field and picks up the worms that the plow turns up. This bird saves much of the fruit in the orchards. He eats the cankerworms. His baby birds like plenty of these worms and grubs.

In the fall the red-winged feeds on the seeds of weeds and wild rice. He eats some of the farmer’s grain. But he pays the farmer well for his killing so many bugs.

The red-wing likes to live in a swampy place or near water. He builds his nest in low bushes or among the tall grasses. The nest is built in May. It is made of grasses and the stalks of weeds and is lined with soft grasses.

The red-wing’s eggs are light blue. They are spotted with purple or black. The young birds look like their mother. The blackbirds are noisy but helpful neighbors

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7821 The Blue Jay

The blue jay is larger than a robin. He has brighter feathers. He is a beautiful blue bird with white underneath and on some of his feathers. He wears a black collar and his bill and legs are black. He lives with us all the year around. He may be handsomer than a robin, but he has not such a beautiful song. He screams instead of singing. Besides, he is a thief, and our robin is an honest bird. None of the other birds like the blue jay. He is cruel to them. He steals their eggs and sucks them. He steals their little birds and eats them.

He does some good, for he also eats grasshoppers, worms and mice. He eats berries and nuts. Sometimes he stores nuts and hard seeds in the ground for winter use as squirrels do. If he forgets where they are hidden and notes not eat them, they may take root in the spring and grow. Perhaps the blue jay planted some of the chestnut or oak trees you know about.

His nest is not a beautiful one like the humming bird’s It is large and loose and made mostly of twigs. His mate, who looks just like him, lays five or six grey eggs with brownish spots. Blue jays carefully tend their own eggs and little birds. They do not eat them. You see, there are some good things about the jay, even if he is called such a bad bird.

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7810 Baby Robin’s Mealtime in Box Alder Tree

Have you ever watched a robin as he pulled a worm from the ground? Then did you see him peck at it with his bill? Perhaps he was breaking it into small pieces to feed his babies. They were waiting in the nest with their yellow bills wide open.

Since these little robins have been hatched, their parents have been very busy. Father and mother take turns hunting for food. They babies keep up a loud peeping. They only stop when their mouths are filled by the parents.

Each baby eats more than his weight in worms each day. When an old bird comes back to the nest the babies wait to be fed. The old bird puts a piece of worm into a little bird’s throat with his bill. If the little bird does not swallow it, the old bird takes it out and gives it to another baby.

Most of us have three meals a day. How would you like to be a baby robin and eat all day long?

Something to Think About.

1. What work do the mother and father robin do before the babies come?
2. What do they do while the baby birds are very young?

Things to Find Out.

1. What do robins eat besides worms?
2. Is the baby robin’s breast red?
3. What do robins use to build their nests?
4. Where do robins like to build their nest?
5. What do robins do when winter is near?
6. How does the robin’s song sound?

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7828 Quail’s Nest

In the spring the quail makes a nest on the ground. It is well hidden. The stubble meets overhead. She lays in it many eggs—sometimes as many as thirty. She packs these in the nests point down to save space. If you handle these eggs Mrs. Bob-White will not sit on them. In twenty-four days the little quail hatch. They are not much bigger than bumble bees. They run after their mother through the grass like little chickens. Farmers like quail because they eat so many weed seeds.

If danger comes, the mother calls her babies and spreads her wings over them. By and by they are too large to be hidden so. Then if danger comes the mother pretends to have a broken leg or wing. She flutters about and tries to make the enemy follow her and forget the babies.

Quail families have a queer way of sleeping. They do not roost in trees. They sleep standing in a circle on the ground. Their tails are toward the center and their heads toward the outside. They squat as close together as they can to keep warm. The father bird nearly always stays on guard outside the circle. He watches for foxes, weasels, hawks and men. They are all enemies of BobWhite.

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13696 Ostrich Hatching Eggs, Florida

There is no larger bird in the world than the ostrich. A tall man would have to look up at an ostrich. An ostrich is big enough to carry a boy or girl on his back.

The ostrich cannot fly, but it can run very fast. It can go as fast as a mile a minute. The ostrich comes from Africa. In the warm parts of our country there are ostrich farms. Here ostriches are raised for their fine feathers. The tail and wing feathers are called plumes. Ostrich plumes are worth much money. The tail plumes are worth more than wing plumes.

When the ostrich is six months old it is plucked for the first time. After that the tail and wing feathers are plucked every eight months.

The ostrich lives to be very old. It is not strange to hear of an ostrich fifty years old. In the picture we see a mother ostrich sitting on her nest. The nest is a hole in the ground. The father ostrich dug the hole with his feet. The father ostrich dug the hole with his feet. There may be ten eggs in the nest. The mother sits on them in the day time and the father sits on them at night.

An ostrich egg is about twenty times as big as a hen’s eggs. The shell of an ostrich egg is very thick. Some of the black people in Africa use the shells for dishes.

Ostrich skin is used to make leather.

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