AUGUST IS BIRD MONTH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 180, 1 August 1931, Page 3

AUGUST IS BIRD MONTH

“I brought down fifty-three this morning,” said an elderly friend of mine to me one afternoon. I looked at him, as 1 did not know he was a shot, and was doubtful as to what he meant, (writes W. Johannes C. Anderson in the Evening Post.) He evidently interpreted my look rightly, and explained: “I throw out crumbs every morning on the lawn, and this morning there were fifty-three birds enjoying them ” dia not know before that he took the least interest in birds, and like the Ancient Mariner “1 blessed him unaware.” ‘‘ Of course, they were mostly spar rows,” he said. That doesn’t matter. The other day I was coming down by Anderson Park, and saw a flock of sparrows on the grass, forty or fifty, all close together, picking at something, working their way along the side. I spoke to the caretaker, who was at work on another pan of the grass. “What are the sparrows after?” 1 asked him. “Grass grubs,” said he. “They often come down in flocks like that, work right round the side systematically and then in to the centre.” How many thousands of grubs did those sparrows account for? And that gardener was sensible; he didn’t shoot them off with a gun as the college people did the seagulls.