Feeding the pigeons in city parks is an old custom, particularly for the young and old. This bird is probably the one most familiar and recognizable to the urban dwellers and may be their closest contact with the world of birds.
These birds breed throughout the United States and southern Canada, and down to central Mexico. They winter in South America.
This is the largest (8 inches long) of the swallow tribe. It formerly built its nest in cavities of trees and still does in wild districts, but having learned to live close to humans, it soon adopted domestic habits. The best way to have martins around is to erect apartment houses for them at suitable nesting sites—and protect that housing from use by other birds. The nest boxes should be about 15 feet from the ground and made inaccessible to cats. A colony of martins makes great inroads upon the insect population, as the birds not only feed upon insects but rear their young on the same diet.
The red eye of this small olive-green and white bird, although giving it a name, is of little help in identifying it. Abundant in eastern forests in its breeding season, it winters in South America. This bird is seen in deciduous trees in city parks during migration.
Its call is a monotonous series of short, abrupt phrases similar to a robin’s. It is repeated as often as 40 times a minute, all through the day. It is lucky for suburban sleepers that the vireo doesn’t sing at night.
RED-HEADED WOODPECKER (Melanerpes erythrocephalus)
At 9 inches or so in length, this is a medium-sized woodpecker which occurs in the eastern states.
The red-head isn’t really common even in its announced range, although it’s easy to spot when it is working the neighborhood. It likes open, deciduous woods, parklike spaces, and is fond of cities where old trees line the streets. Like all its clan, its diet of harmful grubs, beetles, and other insects makes it a desirable bird, and the small amounts of fruit and acorns it eats are never missed.
RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD (Agelaius phoeniceus)
About 9½ inches long, the red-wing breeds in most of North America; it winters in the southern half of United States and down clear to Costa Rica.
The prairies of the upper Mississippi Valley, with their numerous sloughs and ponds, furnish ideal nesting places for red-wings, and this region has become the great breeding ground for the species, pouring forth the vast flocks that sometimes play havoc with grainfields. Red-wings are gregarious, living in flocks and breeding in communities. Their food is about one-fourth insects and three-fourths vegetable.