TOLL OF THE WINTER

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 31, 5 August 1933, Page 10

TOLL OF THE WINTER

(By Johannes C. Andersen.) "A sparrow in the .eaves was making an incessant chirping; not the ordinary eheuky or cheery chirp of our I'nmiliar friend, but as if agitated. We heard a soft bump, and looking out, there on the balcony beyond our open bedroom', door lay a dead sparrow, fallen from the caves above. Or perhaps it had not fallen; it seemed more as, if it had been pulled out and dropped by its mate, which had been chirping agitatedly above, there, and now stood chirping at the side of the bird on the floor. " ' ' '-The chirping was evidently understood by the other birds, for not only sparrows but blackbirds and thrushes too canic.und collected about the dead bird, all noisily chirping; some on the iioor; the bigger ones on the railing. It would seem as if the first bird was telling what had happened; for one after (mother the ncw-comci's would ny up to the place from whero the dead bird had dropped or been dropped, down again, the chirping going on all the time. "It. was early morning, and in our | interest we overstayed getting-up time; but when we got' up,, dressing quietly, flic birds still went on with their excitement. .We had to leave for the kitchen, find when we came back after about an hour the dond bird had been dragged at least eighteen inches close to tho edge of the balcony, as if the others had tried to carry it off; they were gone.'' ,

This story was told me by a friend a few days since. What had happened? The gnlheriug of birds looked like the ono recorded in the nursery story of "who killed cock robin?"—pel-haps that story has some foundation in fact. There was, however, little doubt as to what killed the sparrow. It happened during a night of hard frost; the ground was white; unusual for Wellington. There had been a week or more of cold days, somtinies wet, and cold nights. Cold only , does not hurt the birds much; but cold and wet, or cold and hunger, kill a great nianv. This bird had evidently died in this way. Usually such deaths arc not seen by us; they mostly take place at night, and tho rats have played tho sexton before wo get -up, so we see no .dead birds lying about.

It has been noted before that this is the hard tinie of the year for the'birds) hence the Bird Protection Society hascalled August the bird-month, hoping to draw attention to the fact that the birds need more food then, their natural food -supply being exhausted or hidden. Cold on the top of hunger causes the death of hundreds of birds. Over 75 per cent., no, nearer 90 per cent, of the birds, die every year, die in these cold weeks', of semi-starvation; that is why we ask people to be kind* particularly in August—the time of famine before the time of plenty. Scraps of food ordinarily put in the rubbish-tin or cinerator if put out on the bird-table out of the way of cats may save scores of birds; scraps of fat meat or suet will «ive them warmth to resist tho cold. Help the. birds; protect your protectors; they will not fail to reward you withtho'ir song, their cheerful ways, their glossy beauty.