A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO DO THIS WINTER
I
You should go skating--crawling, I ought to say--over a pond of glare
ice this winter. Take the pond you are most familiar with. Go early on
a bright day, before any skater arrives, and lying flat upon the
clear, “black” ice, study the bottom of the pond and the fish that
swim below you. They have boats with glass bottoms along the
California coast, through which to watch the marvelous bottoms off
shore. But an Eastern pond covered with glare ice is as good, for such
ice is a plate-glass window into a wonder world.
II
Fight your way one of these winter days to the crest of some high hill
and stand up against a northwest gale. Feel the sweep of the winds
from across the plain beneath you; hear them speaking close in your
ear, as they fly past; catch them and breathe them, until they run red
in your leaping veins. Master them, and make them, mighty as they are,
your own. And something large and free, strong and sound will pass
into you; and you will love the great world more, and you will feel
how fit a place, for the strong of heart, is this earth to live on.
III
Keep a careful list of the winter birds you see; and visit every
variety of wood, meadow, and upland in your neighborhood--not
neglecting the parks and city trees--for a sight of the rarer winter
visitors, such as the snowy owl, the snow buntings, and the
crossbills.
IV
If you know little about the birds, then this is the time to begin
your study. When they are so few and scarce? Yes, just because they
are few and scarce. On a June morning (unless you are at home in the
woods) you will be confused by the medley of songs you hear, and the
shapes flitting everywhere about you; and you may be tempted to give
up your study for the very multitude. Get a pair of good field or
opera glasses and a good bird book, such as Hoffmann’s, “Guide to the
Birds,” and go into the fields and woods--leaving the book at home.
The first bird you see follow up until you can remember (1) his size,
color--whether he has a white bar on wings, or small spots or large
clear spots on breast; (2) his chirp, or call; (3) something peculiar
about his flight--a flirt of the tail, a habit of flying down to the
ground in getting away. Then come back to your book and identify him
_from memory_. If you cannot, then go out again and again; and it will
not be long before either this first one, or others, will be
accurately made out--the beginning of an acquaintance that you can
extend in the summer, but which will be plenty large enough for your
“coming-out” winter into bird society. For here is a list of the birds
you may be able to find during the winter:--
Screech owl, crow, robin, flicker, jay, goldfinch, tree sparrow,
English sparrow, song sparrow, junco, golden-crowned kinglet,
nuthatch, brown creeper, downy woodpecker, quail, partridge.
V
See to it that no bird in your neighborhood starves for lack of food
that you can supply. Tie a piece of suet to a tree or bush near the
house (by the window if you can) for the chickadees and blue jays;
keep a place on the lawn cleared of snow and well supplied with crumbs
and small seeds for the juncos and the sparrows; hang a netted bag of
cracked nuts out somewhere for the nuthatches; and provide corn and
nuts for the squirrels.
VI
Go out on a cold December day, or a January day, and see how many
“signs” of spring--“Minor Prophets,” as Mr. Torrey calls them--you can
bring home. They will be mostly buds of various sorts. Then, on a
warm, soft day, go again to see what you can bring home--flitting,
creeping, crawling things that the warm sun has brought from their
winter hiding.
VII
Make a map of your sky, showing the positions of the planets, the
constellations, and the most brilliant stars, the points in the
horizon for the rising and setting of the sun, say, in January, noting
the changes in places of things since your last map drawn in October.
Any school child can do it, and, in doing it, learn the few large
facts about the sky that most people are pitifully ignorant of.
VIII
Go out after a fresh light snow and take up the trail of a fox or a
rabbit or a partridge, as you might take up a problem in arithmetic,
or as a detective might take up a clew, and “solve” it--where the
creature came from, where going, what for, in a hurry or not, pursued
or pursuing, etc. It will give you one of the best of lessons in
observation, in following a clew, and in learning to take a hint.
IX
Go out to study the face of the ground--the ridges, hollows, level
places, the ledges, meadows, sandbanks, the course of the streams, the
location of the springs--the general shape and contour, the pitch and
slant and make-up of the region over which you tramp in the summer.
Now, when the leaves are off and things swept bare, you can get a
general idea of the lay of the land that will greatly aid you in your
more detailed study of plants and birds, of individual things, in the
summer. It is like an outline map in your geography.
X
Winter is the time to do much good reading. A tramp over real fields
is to be preferred to a tramp in a book. But a good book is pretty
nearly as good as anything under the stars. You need both fields and
books. And during these cold days--impossible days, some of them, for
work afield--you will read, read. Oh, the good things to read that
have been written about the out-of-doors!