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Bird-Life in the Klondike
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beautiful. The creek, reaching this wooded flat, winds from side to side, its bed only a few feet below the level and fringed with alders, which are here trees rather than bushes. The trail cut through the woods for the dog teams from Dawson to the mines, strikes the creek half a mile from the river and thence follows the frozen creek-bed. Where trail and creek meet stands our cabin, surrounded by evergreens and birches. The branches of the evergreens sag beneath the weight of snow which there is not a breath of air to dislodge. Red squirrels have left their trails from tree to tree on the snow, exactly as in a forest in Canada. As we open the door and step out into the sharp, keen air, a soft 'took, took' is heard and a Quaker-gray body which has been hopping about the door-yard flies to a limb near by, and is answered by other soft sounds. Presently another gray breast is seen approaching by short flights through the spruces. The miner calls them ' camp robbers.' We know them as Moosebirds, or Canada Jays, and recognize here in the wilds of Klondike the same confiding, impudent fellow as in the woods of Maine. They are fairly plentiful, and in their silent travels they frequently visit the cabins of the miners. There was one which used to peck regularly at the single pane of glass which served for the window of a miner's cabin on Eldorado. Regularly three times a day he came, and I was told that he never varied from his time by more than ten minutes. It was starvation time; pork, flour, dried apples and a few beans were about all the two men had who lived in that cabin, but the little fellow in gray never went away without something. Ere the 'robbers' have departed, there is a snapping sound overhead, and bits of cone come tumbling down upon the cabin roof. It is a flock of White-winged Crossbills, gathering their daily provender. A little way of? is heard the familiar 'dee, dee, dee ' of the common Chickadee. A Raven flying up creek gives voice at intervals to his ' klonk.' These were the sounds that I had always about my camp. As the days grew lighter flocks of Redpolls, with pink breasts and crimson caps, came about, feeding in the trees. During the winter I wandered much over the country, one time with a roving band of Indian hunters on the far reaches of Klondike, and never at any time by day was I out of sight or sound of birds; while as the spring sun rose higher above the southern horizon the woods at times seemed alive with birds. Nowhere have I seen Crossbills and Redpolls so plentiful and noisy. One Blue Grouse, the only one I saw or heard of, as well as a few Canada Grouse, I added to my scant larder. One day about the last of April, I heard a drumming near the camp, and a few days later, when the snow was thawing in patches, I saw, upon stepping outside, standing upon a log in a bare spot under a tree a drummer (Ruffed Grouse). Several days later I found another, also a drummer, on the same spot, showing that I had built my house by a favorite drumming-log. Of