"Snowbird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the junco, or common snowbird, came into the big barn and built her nest in the side of the haymow, only a few feet from me. The clean, fragrant hay attracted her as it had attracted me. One would have thought that in a haymow she had nesting material near at hand. But no; her nest-building instincts had to ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... never said among the people that a person has been bitten by a snake, but that he has been "scratched by a brier." In the same way, when an eagle has been shot for a ceremonial dance, it is announced that "a snowbird has been killed," the purpose being to deceive the rattlesnake or eagle spirits ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... woodpeckers come the members of the sparrow family that inhabit the Tahoe region. The little black-headed snowbird, Thurber's junco, is the most common of all the Tahoe birds. The thick-billed sparrow, a grayish bird with spotted breast and enormous bill is found on all the brushy hillsides and is noted for its glorious bursts ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... called the junco a snowbird, but this name should really be confined to a black and white bunting which comes south only with a mid-winter's rush of snowflakes. Their warm little bodies nestle close to the white crystals, and they seek cheerfully for the seeds which nature has provided for them. Then ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... the bitterest month of all for the Wood Folk, even Wayeeses was often hard pressed to find a living. Small game grew scarce and very wild; the caribou had wandered far away to other ranges; and the cubs would dig for hours after a mouse, or stalk a snowbird, or wait with endless patience for a red squirrel to stop his chatter and come down to search under the snow for a fir cone that he had hidden there in the good autumn days. And once, when the hunger within was more nipping than the eager cold without, one of the ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... bluebird, "don't leave me out! I saw the snow that lay round about." "Yes," chirped a snowbird, "that may be true; But I've seen it all the ...
— The Nursery, Volume 17, No. 100, April, 1875 • Various |
