August is Bird Month

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 261, 31 July 1937, Page 9 (Supplement)

August is Bird Month

J)EAR Everybody,— To-morrow is August—and do you know the extra-special 'importance of this month? Why, it’s Bird Month! Tins is the time when we want you all, every one of you, to feed the birds, for it is the month when they begin to get hungriest. You see, it is really only the beginning of Spring, and the cold months before it have forced the birds to eat all the grabs and berries they could find, so that in the first chilly days of Spring, before the caterpillars and beetles are seen again, there is very, very little for the huge feathered family to eat, and hundreds of its members die of hunger and cold. And here is where you. have a wonderful chance to make friends with birds. Every day after breakfast and dinner take any left-over scraps that mother can give you, and sprinkle them on the ground, or, if you have one, on the bird table. One winter—-such a cold one it was—l had ever so many feathered friends coming to have their breakfast ’ and tea served to them each day! There were waxeyes and thrushes, starlings and minahs and even a rather ragged, moulty-looking magpie. Now I had a pct magpie, who had been given to me when I was little, and who was as funny as he was old. The feathers in his head zvere rather scarce, but a little tuft grezv bravely here and there; his zvings were stiff, and his legs stiffer, so that zvhen he hopped, he zvas like a puppet on the end of a string—all bouncy and jerky. But for all his apparent age, Jacko had a very young heart, and he just loved a 'joke. His eyes, sunken a little and zvrinkled round the edges, would tzvinklc and glitter zvith mischief zvhenever the stranger magpies came to the bird table, but nothing happened for quite a -while. But one day something happened. I don’t knozv zvhv, but Jacko seemed to be enjoying himself hugely that day, and zvas making funny croaky noises that alzvays told us he teas planning mischief. As the other magpie, looking a little more ragged and untidy than usual, came flapping dozen from the pine tree on to the bird table, Jacko sidled up to him, and stood looking at him reflectively. Then, very suddenly, there zvas the sound of a, beak snapping and a squazvk of surprise from the stranger, zvho had been busily engaged in pecking at a corncob. Jacko eyed him triumphantly ;in his beak zvas a little tuft of feathers. “Hullo!” he said, “I Pell, you had more than me.” And he tossed the feathers over his ozvn back. And then the queer thing happened. The other magpie opened his beak and said just one zvord, “Greedy!” It had been a pet once, and must have flown azvay from ■its home. Probably it had. almost forgotten hozv to talk until Jacko reminded it again; and, needless to say, they zvere the greatest pals after that—and Jacko didn’t try to rob Jules, as zee called him, of any more feathers! So you see, if you feed the. birds this zvinter you, too, may

find some special friends among them. Love to you all.

sfb