Snow Buntings were also common in November, and Horned Larks during the first part of the month. I noticed a large flock of the latter one morning feeding in the stubble and, observing that they were moving towards me, crouched motionless until they came up and surrounded me, gathering seeds in the earnest, industrious manner of domestic Pigeons, and exhibiting but little more alarm at my presence. On the 27th a Shrike alighted in the top of the elm near the house, and, after reconnoitering for a few moments, started down into the orchard, but apparently missed whatever it struck at and, turning upward, alighted in a smaller elm by the road, when it at once began tearing to pieces an old bird's nest, behaving exactly as if in anger at its disappointment.
For some time I was unable to discover what it had at first been after, but finally caught sight of a Downy Woodpecker clinging motionless to the underside of a small branch in an apple tree, with every feather drawn down close to its body, just as an owl does when trying to escape notice.
After a while it began turning its head from side to side, as if to make sure its enemy had disappeared. When I attempted to make it fly, it merely crept mouse-like about the branches until perfectly certain that the Shrike had gone, when it took wing and flew to another tree, where it presently went to work as if nothing had happened.
Throughout December the only birds to be found were Crows, Blue Jays, Downy Woodpeckers, Black-capped Chickadees, Nuthatches, Golden-crowned Kinglets, Brown Creepers, and Partridges, with an occasional Bald Eagle or Rough-legged Hawk and a very few Flickers. A large flock of Wild Geese passed over on the 7th, and I saw a few Tree Sparrows and a Winter Wren about the last of the month. The Sparrows lingered about until the first week in January, when a large flock of Snow Buntings made their appearance. A few days later, however, neither Sparrows nor Buntings were to be found anywhere.
January 6. Going through the woods I heard the small birds making quite a fuss in the young growth, and on looking for the cause, discovered a Saw-whet Owl in a little hemlock. When I first caught sight of him he was sitting on one of the smaller branches ten feet from the ground, apparently asleep, with his back to the trunk and his head tipped back. On being closely approached, he seemed to awake suddenly with a start, at once turning his great round eyes in my direction, and after that, never removed them from me for an instant, though I walked around his tree several times. He had a partly eaten white-footed mouse slung across the branch beside him, probably the remains of his breakfast.