The season of 1880 seems to have been exceptionally favorable to
the birds. The warm, early spring, the absence of April snows and
of long, cold rains in May and June,--indeed, the exceptional heat
and dryness of these months, and the freedom from violent storms
and tempests throughout the summer,--all worked together for the
good of the birds. Their nests were not broken up or torn from the
trees, nor their young chilled and destroyed by the wet and the
cold. The drenching, protracted rains that make the farmer's seed
rot or lie dormant in the ground in May or June, and the summer
tempests that uproot the trees or cause them to lash and bruise
their foliage, always bring disaster to the birds. As a result of
our immunity from these things the past season, the small birds in
the fall were perhaps never more abundant. Indeed, I never
remember to have seen so many of certain kinds, notably the social
and the bush sparrows. The latter literally swarmed in the fields
and vineyards; and as it happened that for the first time a large
number of grapes were destroyed by birds, the little sparrow, in
some localities, was accused of being the depredator. But he is
innocent. He never touches fruit of any kind, but lives upon seeds
and insects. What attracted this sparrow to the vineyards in such
numbers was mainly the covert they afforded from small hawks, and
probably also the seeds of various weeds that had been allowed to
ripen there. The grape-destroyer was a bird of another color,
namely, the Baltimore oriole. One fruit-grower on the Hudson told
me he lost at least a ton of grapes by the birds, and in the
western part of New York and in Ohio and in Canada, I hear the
vineyards suffered severely from the depredations of the oriole.
The oriole has a sharp, dagger-like bill, and he seems to be
learning rapidly how easily he can puncture fruit with it. He has
come to be about the worst cherry bird we have. He takes the worm
first, and then he takes the cherry the worm was after, or rather
he bleeds it; as with the grapes, he carries none away with him,
but wounds them all. He is welcome to all the fruit he can eat,
but why should he murder every cherry on the tree, or every grape
in the cluster? He is as wanton as a sheep-killing dog, that will
not stop with enough, but slaughters every ewe in the flock. The
oriole is peculiarly exempt from the dangers that beset most of our
birds: its nest is all but impervious to the rain, and the
squirrel, or the jay, or the crow cannot rob it without great
difficulty. It is a pocket which it would not be prudent for
either jay or squirrel to attempt to explore when the owner, with
his dagger-like beak, is about; and the crow cannot alight upon the
slender, swaying branch from which it is usually pendent. Hence
the orioles are doubtless greatly on the increase.
There has been an unusual number of shrikes the past fall and
winter; like the hawks, they follow in the wake of the little birds
and prey upon them. Some seasons pass and I never see a shrike.
This year I have seen at least a dozen while passing along the
road. One day I saw one carrying its prey in its feet,--a
performance which I supposed it incapable of, as it is not equipped
for this business like a rapacious bird, but has feet like a robin.
One wintry evening, near sunset, I saw one alight on the top of a
tree by the roadside, with some small object in its beak. I
paused to observe it. Presently it flew down into a scrubby old
apple-tree, and attempted to impale the object upon a thorn or
twig. It was occupied in this way some moments, no twig or knob
proving quite satisfactory. A little screech owl was evidently
watching the proceedings from his doorway in the trunk of a decayed
apple-tree ten or a dozen rods distant. Twilight was just falling,
and the owl had come up from his snug retreat in the hollow trunk,
and was waiting for the darkness to deepen before venturing forth.
I was first advised of his presence by seeing him approaching
swiftly on silent, level wing. The shrike did not see him till the
owl was almost within the branches. He then dropped his game,
which proved to be a part of a shrew-mouse, and darted back into
the thick cover uttering a loud, discordant squawk, as one would
say, "Scat! scat! scat!" The owl alighted, and was, perhaps,
looking about him for the shrike's impaled game, when I drew near.
On seeing me, he reversed his movement precipitately, flew straight
back to the old tree, and alighted in the entrance to the cavity.
As I approached, he did not so much seem to move as to diminish in
size, like an object dwindling in the distance; he depressed his
plumage, and, with his eye fixed upon me, began slowly to back and
sidle into his retreat till he faded from my sight. The shrike
wiped his beak upon the branches, cast an eye down at me and at his
lost mouse, and then flew away. He was a remarkably fine
specimen,--his breast and under parts as white as snow, and his
coat of black and ashen gray appearing very bright and fresh. A
few nights afterward, as I passed that way, I saw the little owl
again sitting in his doorway, waiting for the twilight to deepen,
and undisturbed by the passers-by; but when I paused to observe
him, he saw that he was discovered, and he slunk back into his den
as on the former occasion.