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Morning View Kentucky
. 19 March 1956
Hello Mr. McCarthy,
My apologies for the length of my letter on our little tornado.
Had I known you were going to read it aloud, I would have curtailed
it as much as possible. Thank you for the kind things you said
about it. Your reading enhanced it considerably -— sounded much
better in your reading than it looked in my writing. As to
keeping a scrap book -— I couldn't. I never make copies of anything
but business letters.
The other morning you were discussing the advisability of continuing
to feed the song birds on into spring. Few people realize that
laterWinter and early spring are the most difficult time of all
, .‘ for the birds to find sufficient food.
, It may be a beautiful day, and the ground bare of snow, but if
it is too cold for insects to be hatching or stirring from
' hibernation, the birds are close to starvation. Through the course
of the winter the little fellows have consumed all the available
seeds and berries, have searched out all insect eggs tucked in
tree bark wrinkles, have exhausted the supply of hibernating bugs
under leaves and in other hiding places, and have robbed every
cocoon and chrysalis of its dormant occupant. There is nothing
left.
, If you Will consider the recommendation of a bird-feeder of
years’ standing, continue to supply food for the birds during
the summer. Not much —- Just a little in the morning, about noon,
and in the late afternoon. The reason is eminently practical.
You have supported the birds, more or less, all winter, Why
allow them to scatter and eat insects for some one else during
the summer.
Contrary to general belief, the birds will not confine their eating
to the feeder. There seems to be a definite dry food-insect ratio
in song bird feeding, whether they be seed-eaters such as the
cardinal or meat-eaters such as the chickadee. You will see them
eat a bit at the feeder, then abandon it for a lengthy scouring of
shrubs, garden, trees, and flowerbeds for insects.
When the female is on the nest and the male taking food to her
’35 so many species do, even the strictly seed—eating cardinal