Do You Know the Birds..

4.8

... that the bright little robin is a friendly bird?

He likes people and always builds his soft nest near a human dwelling. During the hot summer months, robins do not sleep very late at night, singing a gay good-night to everybody.

Robins are among the first birds which come in springtime.

... that some kinds of birds, such as robins, fly by day, but many others, such as starlings and swallows, travel only at night? How these birds find their way in the darkness, no one knows. But we know that, though they leave us before winter comes, they will return again with the warmth and sunshine of spring.

... that there is an old belief that the cuckoo is first seen each year in England on April 20? Perhaps because of its loud, strange call, or perhaps because of its lazy habit of laying its eggs in the nests of other birds, the cuckoo is an object of contempt. The English word “cuckoo” also means “foolish”.

... that the American cuckoo is not like the bad-mannered European cuckoo which lays its eggs in other birds’ nests? The American cuckoos take care of their young ones themselves. But there is an American bird that has the bad habit of the European cuckoo. This is the cowbird that lays its eggs in other birds’ nests.

... that the crow eats corn, fruit, and the eggs and the young of other birds?

That is why people invented scarecrows for them. But crows also destroy great numbers of insects; so they probably do more good than harm.

... that once or twice a year, most birds get new coats of feathers? The old feathers drop off as the new ones grow in. There is a river in America called the Feather River. Millions and millions of birds used to drop off their old feathers as they flew over this river. For many days the river looked like a stream of feathers. That’s how the Feather River got its name.