Among the Birds of the Yosemite
Travelers in the Sierra forests usually complain of the want of life.
“The trees,” they say, “are fine, but the empty stillness is deadly;
there are no animals to be seen, no birds. We have not heard a song in
all the woods.” And no wonder! They go in large parties with mules and
horses; they make a great noise; they are dressed in outlandish
unnatural colors; every animal shuns them. Even the frightened pines
would run away if they could. But Nature-lovers, devout, silent,
open-eyed, looking and listening with love, find no lack of inhabitants
in these mountain mansions, and they come to them gladly. Not to
mention the large animals or the small insect people, every waterfall
has its ouzel and every tree its squirrel or tamias or bird: tiny
nuthatch threading the furrows of the bark, sheerily whispering to
itself as it deftly pries off loose scales and examines the curled
edges of lichens; or Clarke crow or jay examining the cones; or some
singer—oriole, tanager, warbler—resting, feeding, attending to domestic
affairs. Hawks and eagles sail overhead, grouse walk in happy flocks
below, and song sparrows sing in every bed of chaparral. There is no
crowding, to be sure. Unlike the low Eastern trees, those of the Sierra
in the main forest belt average nearly two hundred feet in height, and
of course many birds are required to make much show in them, and many
voices to fill them. Nevertheless, the whole range, from foothills to
snowy summits, is shaken into song every summer; and though low and
thin in winter, the music never ceases.
The sage cock (_Centrocercus urophasianus_) is the largest of the
Sierra game-birds and the king of American grouse. It is an admirably
strong, hardy, handsome, independent bird, able with comfort to bid
defiance to heat, cold, drought, hunger, and all sorts of storms,
living on whatever seeds or insects chance to come in its way, or
simply on the leaves of sage-brush, everywhere abundant on its desert
range. In winter, when the temperature is oftentimes below zero, and
heavy snowstorms are blowing, he sits beneath a sage bush and allows
himself to be covered, poking his head now and then through the snow to
feed on the leaves of his shelter. Not even the Arctic ptarmigan is
hardier in braving frost and snow and wintry darkness. When in full
plumage he is a beautiful bird, with a long, firm, sharp-pointed tail,
which in walking is slightly raised and swings sidewise back and forth
with each step. The male is handsomely marked with black and white on
the neck, back, and wings, weighs five or six pounds, and measures
about thirty inches in length. The female is clad mostly in plain
brown, and is not so large. They occasionally wander from the sage
plains into the open nut-pine and juniper woods, but never enter the
main coniferous forest. It is only in the broad, dry, half-desert sage
plains that they are quite at home, where the weather is blazing hot in
summer, cold in winter. If any one passes through a flock, all squat on
the gray ground and hold their heads low, hoping to escape observation;
but when approached within a rod or so, they rise with a magnificent
burst of wing-beats, looking about as big as turkeys and making a noise
like a whirlwind.
On the 28th of June, at the head of Owen’s Valley, I caught one of the
young that was then just able to fly. It was seven inches long, of a
uniform gray color, blunt-billed, and when captured cried lustily in a
shrill piping voice, clear in tone as a boy’s small willow whistle. I
have seen flocks of from ten to thirty or forty on the east margin of
the Park, where the Mono Desert meets the gray foothills of the Sierra;
but since cattle have been pastured there they are becoming rarer every
year.
Another magnificent bird, the blue or dusky grouse, next in size to the
sage cock, is found all through the main forest belt, though not in
great numbers. They like best the heaviest silver-fir woods near garden
and meadow openings, where there is but little underbrush to cover the
approach of enemies. When a flock of these brave birds, sauntering and
feeding on the sunny, flowery levels of some hidden meadow or Yosemite
valley far back in the heart of the mountains, see a man for the first
time in their lives, they rise with hurried notes of surprise and
excitement and alight on the lowest branches of the trees, wondering
what the wanderer may be, and showing great eagerness to get a good
view of the strange vertical animal. Knowing nothing of guns, they
allow you to approach within a half dozen paces, then quietly hop a few
branches higher or fly to the next tree without a thought of
concealment, so that you may observe them as long as you like, near
enough to see the fine shading of their plumage, the feathers on their
toes, and the innocent wonderment in their beautiful wild eyes. But in
the neighborhood of roads and trails they soon become shy, and when
disturbed fly into the highest, leafiest trees, and suddenly become
invisible, so well do they know how to hide and keep still and make use
of their protective coloring. Nor can they be easily dislodged ere they
are ready to go. In vain the hunter goes round and round some tall pine
or fir into which he has perhaps seen a dozen enter, gazing up through
the branches, straining his eyes while his gun is held ready; not a
feather can he see unless his eyes have been sharpened by long
experience and knowledge of the blue grouse’s habits. Then, perhaps,
when he is thinking that the tree must be hollow and that the birds
have all gone inside, they burst forth with a startling whir of
wing-beats, and after gaining full speed go skating swiftly away
through the forest arches in a long, silent, wavering slide, with wings
held steady.
[Illustration: Mono Desert from Mono Pass.]
During the summer they are most of the time on the ground, feeding on
insects, seeds, berries, etc., around the margins of open spots and
rocky moraines, playing and sauntering, taking sun baths and sand
baths, and drinking at little pools and rills during the heat of the
day. In winter they live mostly in the trees, depending on buds for
food, sheltering beneath dense overlapping branches at night and during
storms on the leeside of the trunk, sunning themselves on the southside
limbs in fine weather, and sometimes diving into the mealy snow to
flutter and wallow, apparently for exercise and fun.
I have seen young broods running beneath the firs in June at a height
of eight thousand feet above the sea. On the approach of danger, the
mother with a peculiar cry warns the helpless midgets to scatter and
hide beneath leaves and twigs, and even in plain open places it is
almost impossible to discover them. In the meantime the mother feigns
lameness, throws herself at your feet, kicks and gasps and flutters, to
draw your attention from the chicks. The young are generally able to
fly about the middle of July; but even after they can fly well they are
usually advised to run and hide and lie still, no matter how closely
approached, while the mother goes on with her loving, lying acting,
apparently as desperately concerned for their safety as when they were
featherless infants. Sometimes, however, after carefully studying the
circumstances, she tells them to take wing; and up and away in a blurry
birr and whir they scatter to all points of the compass, as if blown up
with gunpowder, dropping cunningly out of sight three or four hundred
yards off, and keeping quiet until called, after the danger is supposed
to be past. If you walk on a little way without manifesting any
inclination to hunt them, you may sit down at the foot of a tree near
enough to see and hear the happy reunion. One touch of nature makes the
whole world kin; and it is truly wonderful how love-telling the small
voices of these birds are, and how far they reach through the woods
into one another’s hearts and into ours. The tones are so perfectly
human and so full of anxious affection, few mountaineers can fail to be
touched by them.
They are cared for until full grown. On the 20th of August, as I was
passing along the margin of a garden spot on the head-waters of the San
Joaquin, a grouse rose from the ruins of an old juniper that had been
uprooted and brought down by an avalanche from a cliff overhead. She
threw herself at my feet, limped and fluttered and gasped, showing, as
I thought, that she had a nest and was raising a second brood. Looking
for the eggs, I was surprised to see a strong-winged flock nearly as
large as the mother fly up around me.
Instead of seeking a warmer climate when the winter storms set in,
these hardy birds stay all the year in the high Sierra forests, and I
have never known them to suffer in any sort of weather. Able to live on
the buds of pine, spruce, and fir, they are forever independent in the
matter of food supply, which gives so many of us trouble, dragging us
here and there away from our best work. How gladly I would live on pine
buds, however pitchy, for the sake of this grand independence! With all
his superior resources, man makes more distracting difficulty
concerning food than any other of the family.
The mountain quail, or plumed partridge (_Oreortyx pictus plumiferus_)
is common in all the upper portions of the Park, though nowhere in
numbers. He ranges considerably higher than the grouse in summer, but
is unable to endure the heavy storms of winter. When his food is
buried, he descends the range to the brushy foothills, at a height of
from two to three thousand feet above sea; but like every true
mountaineer, he is quick to follow the spring back into the highest
mountains. I think he is the very handsomest and most interesting of
all the American partridges, larger and handsomer than the famous Bob
White, or even the fine California valley quail, or the Massena
partridge of Arizona and Mexico. That he is not so regarded, is because
as a lonely mountaineer he is not half known.
His plumage is delicately shaded, brown above, white and rich chestnut
below and on the sides, with many dainty markings of black and white
and gray here and there, while his beautiful head plume, three or four
inches long, nearly straight, composed of two feathers closely folded
so as to appear as one, is worn jauntily slanted backward like a single
feather in a boy’s cap, giving him a very marked appearance. They
wander over the lonely mountains in family flocks of from six to
fifteen, beneath ceanothus, manzanita, and wild cherry thickets, and
over dry sandy flats, glacier meadows, rocky ridges, and beds of
Bryanthus around glacier lakes, especially in autumn, when the berries
of the upper gardens are ripe, uttering low clucking notes to enable
them to keep together. When they are so suddenly disturbed that they
are afraid they cannot escape the danger by running into thickets, they
rise with a fine hearty whir and scatter in the brush over an area of
half a square mile or so, a few of them diving into leafy trees. But as
soon as the danger is past, the parents with a clear piping note call
them together again. By the end of July the young are two thirds grown
and fly well, though only dire necessity can compel them to try their
wings. In gait, gestures, habits, and general behavior they are like
domestic chickens, but infinitely finer, searching for insects and
seeds, looking to this side and that, scratching among fallen leaves,
jumping up to pull down grass heads, and clucking and muttering in low
tones.
Once when I was seated at the foot of a tree on the head-waters of the
Merced, sketching, I heard a flock up the valley behind me, and by
their voices gradually sounding nearer I knew that they were feeding
toward me. I kept still, hoping to see them. Soon one came within three
or four feet of me, without noticing me any more than if I were a stump
or a bulging part of the trunk against which I was leaning, my clothing
being brown, nearly like the bark. Presently along came another and
another, and it was delightful to get so near a view of these handsome
chickens perfectly undisturbed, observe their manners, and hear their
low peaceful notes. At last one of them caught my eye, gazed in silent
wonder for a moment, then uttered a peculiar cry, which was followed by
a lot of hurried muttered notes that sounded like speech. The others,
of course, saw me as soon as the alarm was sounded, and joined the
wonder talk, gazing and chattering, astonished but not frightened. Then
all with one accord ran back with the news to the rest of the flock.
“What is it? what is it? Oh, you never saw the like,” they seemed to be
saying. “Not a deer, or a wolf, or a bear; come see, come see.” “Where?
where?” “Down there by that tree.” Then they approached cautiously,
past the tree, stretching their necks, and looking up in turn as if
knowing from the story told them just where I was. For fifteen or
twenty minutes they kept coming and going, venturing within a few feet
of me, and discussing the wonder in charming chatter. Their curiosity
at last satisfied, they began to scatter and feed again, going back in
the direction they had come from; while I, loath to part with them,
followed noiselessly, crawling beneath the bushes, keeping them in
sight for an hour or two, learning their habits, and finding out what
seeds and berries they like best.
The valley quail is not a mountaineer, and seldom enters the Park
except at a few of the lowest places on the western boundary. It
belongs to the brushy foothills and plains, orchards and wheatfields,
and is a hundred times more numerous than the mountain quail. It is a
beautiful bird, about the size of the Bob White, and has a handsome
crest of four or five feathers an inch long, recurved, standing nearly
erect at times or drooping forward. The loud calls of these quails in
the spring—Pe-check-ah, Pe-check-a, Hoy, Hoy—are heard far and near
over all the lowlands. They have vastly increased in numbers since the
settlement of the country, notwithstanding the immense numbers killed
every season by boys and pot-hunters as well as the regular leggined
sportsmen from the towns; for man’s destructive action is more than
counterbalanced by increased supply of food from cultivation, and by
the destruction of their enemies—coyotes, skunks, foxes, hawks, owls,
etc.—which not only kill the old birds, but plunder their nests. Where
coyotes and skunks abound, scarce one pair in a hundred is successful
in raising a brood. So well aware are these birds of the protection
afforded by man, even now that the number of their wild enemies has
been greatly diminished, that they prefer to nest near houses,
notwithstanding they are so shy. Four or five pairs rear their young
around our cottage every spring. One year a pair nested in a straw pile
within four or five feet of the stable door, and did not leave the eggs
when the men led the horses back and forth within a foot or two. For
many seasons a pair nested in a tuft of pampas grass in the garden;
another pair in an ivy vine on the cottage roof, and when the young
were hatched, it was interesting to see the parents getting the fluffy
dots down. They were greatly excited, and their anxious calls and
directions to their many babes attracted our attention. They had no
great difficulty in persuading the young birds to pitch themselves from
the main roof to the porch roof among the ivy, but to get them safely
down from the latter to the ground, a distance of ten feet, was most
distressing. It seemed impossible the frail soft things could avoid
being killed. The anxious parents led them to a point above a spiræa
bush, that reached nearly to the eaves, which they seemed to know would
break the fall. Anyhow they led their chicks to this point, and with
infinite coaxing and encouragement got them to tumble themselves off.
Down they rolled and sifted through the soft leaves and panicles to the
pavement, and, strange to say, all got away unhurt except one that lay
as if dead for a few minutes. When it revived, the joyful parents, with
their brood fairly launched on the journey of life, proudly led them
down the cottage hill, through the garden, and along an osage orange
hedge into the cherry orchard. These charming birds even enter towns
and villages, where the gardens are of good size and guns are
forbidden, sometimes going several miles to feed, and returning every
evening to their roosts in ivy or brushy trees and shrubs.
Geese occasionally visit the Park, but never stay long. Sometimes on
their way across the range, a flock wanders into Hetch-Hetchy or
Yosemite to rest or get something to eat, and if shot at, are often
sorely bewildered in seeking a way out. I have seen them rise from the
meadow or river, wheel round in a spiral until a height of four or five
hundred feet was reached, then form ranks and try to fly over the wall.
But Yosemite magnitudes seem to be as deceptive to geese as to men, for
they would suddenly find themselves against the cliffs not a fourth of
the way to the top. Then turning in confusion, and screaming at the
strange heights, they would try the opposite side, and so until
exhausted they were compelled to rest, and only after discovering the
river cañon could they make their escape. Large, harrow-shaped flocks
may often be seen crossing the range in the spring, at a height of at
least fourteen thousand feet. Think of the strength of wing required to
sustain so heavy a bird in air so thin. At this elevation it is but
little over half as dense as at the sea level. Yet they hold bravely on
in beautifully dressed ranks, and have breath enough to spare for loud
honking. After the crest of the Sierra is passed it is only a smooth
slide down the sky to the waters of Mono, where they may rest as long
as they like.
Ducks of five or six species, among which are the mallard and wood
duck, go far up into the heart of the mountains in the spring, and of
course come down in the fall with the families they have reared. A few,
as if loath to leave the mountains, pass the winter in the lower
valleys of the Park at a height of three thousand to four thousand
feet, where the main streams are never wholly frozen over, and snow
never falls to a great depth or lies long. In summer they are found up
to a height of eleven thousand feet on all the lakes and branches of
the rivers except the smallest, and those beside the glaciers
incumbered with drifting ice and snow. I found mallards and wood ducks
at Lake Tenaya, June 1, before the ice-covering was half melted, and a
flock of young ones in Bloody Cañon Lake, June 20. They are usually met
in pairs, never in large flocks. No place is too wild or rocky or
solitary for these brave swimmers, no stream too rapid. In the roaring,
resounding cañon torrents, they seem as much at home as in the tranquil
reaches and lakes of the broad glacial valleys. Abandoning themselves
to the wild play of the waters, they go drifting confidingly through
blinding, thrashing spray, dancing on boulder-dashed waves, tossing in
beautiful security on rougher water than is usually encountered by sea
birds when storms are blowing.
A mother duck with her family of ten little ones, waltzing round and
round in a pot-hole ornamented with foam bells, huge rocks leaning over
them, cascades above and below and beside them, made one of the most
interesting bird pictures I ever saw.
I have never found the great northern diver in the Park lakes. Most of
them are inaccessible to him. He might plump down into them, but would
hardly be able to get out of them, since, with his small wings and
heavy body, a wide expanse of elbow room is required in rising. Now and
then one may be seen in the lower Sierra lakes to the northward about
Lassens Butte and Shasta, at a height of four thousand to five thousand
feet, making the loneliest places lonelier with the wildest of wild
cries.
Plovers are found along the sandy shores of nearly all the mountain
lakes, tripping daintily on the water’s edge, picking up insects; and
it is interesting to learn how few of these familiar birds are required
to make a solitude cheerful.
Sandhill cranes are sometimes found in comparatively small marshes,
mere dots in the mighty forest. In such spots, at an elevation of from
six thousand to eight thousand feet above the sea, they are
occasionally met in pairs as early as the end of May, while the snow is
still deep in the surrounding fir and sugar-pine woods. And on sunny
days in autumn, large flocks may be seen sailing at a great height
above the forests, shaking the crisp air into rolling waves with their
hearty koor-r-r, koor-r-r, uck-uck, soaring in circles for hours
together on their majestic wings, seeming to float without effort like
clouds, eying the wrinkled landscape outspread like a map mottled with
lakes and glaciers and meadows and streaked with shadowy cañons and
streams, and surveying every frog marsh and sandy flat within a hundred
miles.
Eagles and hawks are oftentimes seen above the ridges and domes. The
greatest height at which I have observed them was about twelve thousand
feet, over the summits of Mount Hoffman, in the middle region of the
Park. A few pairs had their nests on the cliffs of this mountain, and
could be seen every day in summer, hunting marmots, mountain beavers,
pikas, etc. A pair of golden eagles have made their home in Yosemite
ever since I went there thirty years ago. Their nest is on the Nevada
Fall Cliff, opposite the Liberty Cap. Their screams are rather pleasant
to hear in the vast gulfs between the granite cliffs, and they help the
owls in keeping the echoes busy.
[Illustration: Liberty Cap and Nevada Falls, Yosemite Valley.]
But of all the birds of the high Sierra, the strangest, noisiest, and
most notable is the Clarke crow (_Nucifraga columbiana_). He is a foot
long and nearly two feet in extent of wing, ashy gray in general color,
with black wings, white tail, and a strong, sharp bill, with which he
digs into the pine cones for the seeds on which he mainly subsists. He
is quick, boisterous, jerky, and irregular in his movements and speech,
and makes a tremendously loud and showy advertisement of
himself,—swooping and diving in deep curves across gorges and valleys
from ridge to ridge, alighting on dead spars, looking warily about him,
and leaving his dry springy perches, trembling from the vigor of his
kick as he launches himself for a new flight, screaming from time to
time loud enough to be heard more than a mile in still weather. He
dwells far back on the high stormbeaten margin of the forest, where the
mountain pine, juniper, and hemlock grow wide apart on glacier
pavements and domes and rough crumbling ridges, and the dwarf pine
makes a low crinkled growth along the flanks of the Summit peaks. In so
open a region, of course, he is well seen. Everybody notices him, and
nobody at first knows what to make of him. One guesses he must be a
woodpecker; another a crow or some sort of jay, another a magpie. He
seems to be a pretty thoroughly mixed and fermented compound of all
these birds, has all their strength, cunning, shyness, thievishness,
and wary, suspicious curiosity combined and condensed. He flies like a
woodpecker, hammers dead limbs for insects, digs big holes in pine
cones to get at the seeds, cracks nuts held between his toes, cries
like a crow or Stellar jay,—but in a far louder, harsher, and more
forbidding tone of voice,—and besides his crow caws and screams, has a
great variety of small chatter talk, mostly uttered in a fault-finding
tone. Like the magpie, he steals articles that can be of no use to him.
Once when I made my camp in a grove at Cathedral Lake, I chanced to
leave a cake of soap on the shore where I had been washing, and a few
minutes afterward I saw my soap flying past me through the grove,
pushed by a Clarke crow.
In winter, when the snow is deep, the cones of the mountain pines are
empty, and the juniper, hemlock, and dwarf pine orchard buried, he
comes down to glean seeds in the yellow pine forests, startling the
grouse with his loud screams. But even in winter, in calm weather, he
stays in his high mountain home, defying the bitter frost. Once I lay
snowbound through a three days’ storm at the timber-line on Mount
Shasta; and while the roaring snow-laden blast swept by, one of these
brave birds came to my camp, and began hammering at the cones on the
topmost branches of half-buried pines, without showing the slightest
distress. I have seen Clarke crows feeding their young as early as June
19, at a height of more than ten thousand feet, when nearly the whole
landscape was snow-covered.
They are excessively shy, and keep away from the traveler as long as
they think they are observed; but when one goes on without seeming to
notice them, or sits down and keeps still, their curiosity speedily
gets the better of their caution, and they come flying from tree to
tree, nearer and nearer, and watch every motion. Few, I am afraid, will
ever learn to like this bird, he is so suspicious and self-reliant, and
his voice is so harsh that to most ears the scream of the eagle will
seem melodious compared with it. Yet the mountaineer who has battled
and suffered and struggled must admire his strength and endurance,—the
way he faces the mountain weather, cleaves the icy blasts, cares for
his young, and digs a living from the stern wilderness.
Higher yet than Nucifraga dwells the little dun-headed sparrow
(_Leucosticte tephrocotis_). From early spring to late autumn he is to
be found only on the snowy, icy peaks at the head of the glacier
cirques and cañons. His feeding grounds in spring are the snow sheets
between the peaks, and in midsummer and autumn the glaciers. Many bold
insects go mountaineering almost as soon as they are born, ascending
the highest summits on the mild breezes that blow in from the sea every
day during steady weather; but comparatively few of these adventurers
find their way down or see a flower bed again. Getting tired and
chilly, they alight on the snow fields and glaciers, attracted perhaps
by the glare, take cold, and die. There they lie as if on a white cloth
purposely outspread for them, and the dun sparrows find them a rich and
varied repast requiring no pursuit,—bees and butterflies on ice, and
many spicy beetles, a perpetual feast, on tables big for guests so
small, and in vast banqueting halls ventilated by cool breezes that
ruffle the feathers of the fairy brownies. Happy fellows, no rivals
come to dispute possession with them. No other birds, not even hawks,
as far as I have noticed, live so high. They see people so seldom, they
flutter around the explorer with the liveliest curiosity, and come down
a little way, sometimes nearly a mile, to meet him and conduct him into
their icy homes.
When I was exploring the Merced group, climbing up the grand cañon
between the Merced and Red mountains into the fountain amphitheatre of
an ancient glacier, just as I was approaching the small active glacier
that leans back in the shadow of Merced Mountain, a flock of twenty or
thirty of these little birds, the first I had seen, came down the cañon
to meet me, flying low, straight toward me as if they meant to fly in
my face. Instead of attacking me or passing by, they circled round my
head, chirping and fluttering for a minute or two, then turned and
escorted me up the cañon, alighting on the nearest rocks on either
hand, and flying ahead a few yards at a time to keep even with me.
I have not discovered their winter quarters. Probably they are in the
desert ranges to the eastward, for I never saw any of them in Yosemite,
the winter refuge of so many of the mountain birds.
Humming-birds are among the best and most conspicuous of the
mountaineers, flashing their ruby throats in countless wild gardens far
up the higher slopes, where they would be least expected. All one has
to do to enjoy the company of these mountain-loving midgets is to
display a showy blanket or handkerchief.
The arctic bluebird is another delightful mountaineer, singing a wild,
cheery song and “carrying the sky on his back” over all the gray ridges
and domes of the subalpine region.
A fine, hearty, good-natured lot of woodpeckers dwell in the Park, and
keep it lively all the year round. Among the most notable of these are
the magnificent log cock (_Ceophlœus pileatus_), the prince of Sierra
woodpeckers, and only second in rank, as far as I know, of all the
woodpeckers of the world; the Lewis woodpecker, large, black, glossy,
that flaps and flies like a crow, does but little hammering, and feeds
in great part on wild cherries and berries; and the carpenter, who
stores up great quantities of acorns in the bark of trees for winter
use. The last-named species is a beautiful bird, and far more common
than the others. In the woods of the West he represents the Eastern
red-head. Bright, cheerful, industrious, not in the least shy, the
carpenters give delightful animation to the open Sierra forests at a
height of from three thousand to fifty-five hundred feet, especially in
autumn, when the acorns are ripe. Then no squirrel works harder at his
pine-nut harvest than these woodpeckers at their acorn harvest,
drilling holes in the thick, corky bark of the yellow pine and incense
cedar, in which to store the crop for winter use,—a hole for each
acorn, so nicely adjusted as to size that when the acorn, point
foremost, is driven in, it fits so well that it cannot be drawn out
without digging around it. Each acorn is thus carefully stored in a dry
bin, perfectly protected from the weather,—a most laborious method of
stowing away a crop, a granary for each kernel. Yet the birds seem
never to weary at the work, but go on so diligently that they seem
determined to save every acorn in the grove. They are never seen eating
acorns at the time they are storing them, and it is commonly believed
that they never eat them or intend to eat them, but that the wise birds
store them and protect them from the depredations of squirrels and
jays, solely for the sake of the worms they are supposed to contain.
And because these worms are too small for use at the time the acorns
drop, they are shut up like lean calves and steers, each in a separate
stall with abundance of food, to grow big and fat by the time they will
be most wanted, that is, in winter, when insects are scarce and
stall-fed worms most valuable. So these woodpeckers are supposed to be
a sort of cattle-raisers, each with a drove of thousands, rivaling the
ants that raise grain and keep herds of plant lice for milk cows.
Needless to say the story is not true, though some naturalists, even,
believe it. When Emerson was in the Park, having heard the worm story
and seen the great pines plugged full of acorns, he asked (just to pump
me, I suppose), “Why do the woodpeckers take the trouble to put acorns
into the bark of the trees?” “For the same reason,” I replied, “that
bees store honey and squirrels nuts.” “But they tell me, Mr. Muir, that
woodpeckers don’t eat acorns.” “Yes, they do,” I said, “I have seen
them eating them. During snowstorms they seem to eat little besides
acorns. I have repeatedly interrupted them at their meals, and seen the
perfectly sound, half-eaten acorns. They eat them in the shell as some
people eat eggs.” “But what about the worms?” “I suppose,” I said,
“that when they come to a wormy one they eat both worm and acorn.
Anyhow, they eat the sound ones when they can’t find anything they like
better, and from the time they store them until they are used they
guard them, and woe to the squirrel or jay caught stealing.” Indians,
in times of scarcity, frequently resort to these stores and chop them
out with hatchets; a bushel or more may be gathered from a single cedar
or pine.
The common robin, with all his familiar notes and gestures, is found
nearly everywhere throughout the Park,—in shady dells beneath dogwoods
and maples, along the flowery banks of the streams, tripping daintily
about the margins of meadows in the fir and pine woods, and far beyond
on the shores of glacier lakes and the slopes of the peaks. How
admirable the constitution and temper of this cheery, graceful bird,
keeping glad health over so vast and varied a range. In all America he
is at home, flying from plains to mountains, up and down, north and
south, away and back, with the seasons and supply of food. Oftentimes
in the High Sierra, as you wander through the solemn woods, awestricken
and silent, you will hear the reassuring voice of this fellow wanderer
ringing out sweet and clear as if saying, “Fear not, fear not. Only
love is here.” In the severest solitudes he seems as happy as in
gardens and apple orchards.
The robins enter the Park as soon as the snow melts, and go on up the
mountains, gradually higher, with the opening flowers, until the
topmost glacier meadows are reached in June and July. After the short
summer is done, they descend like most other summer visitors in concord
with the weather, keeping out of the first heavy snows as much as
possible, while lingering among the frost-nipped wild cherries on the
slopes just below the glacier meadows. Thence they go to the lower
slopes of the forest region, compelled to make haste at times by heavy
all-day storms, picking up seeds or benumbed insects by the way; and at
last all, save a few that winter in Yosemite valleys, arrive in the
vineyards and orchards and stubble-fields of the lowlands in November,
picking up fallen fruit and grain, and awakening old-time memories
among the white-headed pioneers, who cannot fail to recognize the
influence of so homelike a bird. They are then in flocks of hundreds,
and make their way into the gardens of towns as well as into the parks
and fields and orchards about the bay of San Francisco, where many of
the wanderers are shot for sport and the morsel of meat on their
breasts. Man then seems a beast of prey. Not even genuine piety can
make the robin-killer quite respectable. Saturday is the great
slaughter day in the bay region. Then the city pot-hunters, with a
rag-tag of boys, go forth to kill, kept in countenance by a sprinkling
of regular sportsmen arrayed in self-conscious majesty and leggins,
leading dogs and carrying hammerless, breech-loading guns of famous
makers. Over the fine landscapes the killing goes forward with shameful
enthusiasm. After escaping countless dangers, thousands fall, big
bagfuls are gathered, many are left wounded to die slowly, no Red Cross
Society to help them. Next day, Sunday, the blood and leggins vanish
from the most devout of the bird-butchers, who go to church, carrying
gold-headed canes instead of guns. After hymns, prayers, and sermon
they go home to feast, to put God’s song birds to use, put them in
their dinners instead of in their hearts, eat them, and suck the
pitiful little drumsticks. It is only race living on race, to be sure,
but Christians singing Divine Love need not be driven to such straits
while wheat and apples grow and the shops are full of dead cattle. Song
birds for food! Compared with this, making kindlings of pianos and
violins would be pious economy.
The larks come in large flocks from the hills and mountains in the
fall, and are slaughtered as ruthlessly as the robins. Fortunately,
most of our song birds keep back in leafy hidings, and are
comparatively inaccessible.
The water ouzel, in his rocky home amid foaming waters, seldom sees a
gun, and of all the singers I like him the best. He is a plainly
dressed little bird, about the size of a robin, with short, crisp, but
rather broad wings, and a tail of moderate length, slanted up, giving
him, with his nodding, bobbing manners, a wrennish look. He is usually
seen fluttering about in the spray of falls and the rapid cascading
portions of the main branches of the rivers. These are his favorite
haunts; but he is often seen also on comparatively level reaches and
occasionally on the shores of mountain lakes, especially at the
beginning of winter, when heavy snowfalls have blurred the streams with
sludge. Though not a water-bird in structure, he gets his living in the
water, and is never seen away from the immediate margin of streams. He
dives fearlessly into rough, boiling eddies and rapids to feed at the
bottom, flying under water seemingly as easily as in the air. Sometimes
he wades in shallow places, thrusting his head under from time to time
in a nodding, frisky way that is sure to attract attention. His flight
is a solid whir of wing-beats like that of a partridge, and in going
from place to place along his favorite string of rapids he follows the
windings of the stream, and usually alights on some rock or snag on the
bank or out in the current, or rarely on the dry limb of an overhanging
tree, perching like a tree bird when it suits his convenience. He has
the oddest, neatest manners imaginable, and all his gestures as he
flits about in the wild, dashing waters bespeak the utmost cheerfulness
and confidence. He sings both winter and summer, in all sorts of
weather,—a sweet, fluty melody, rather low, and much less keen and
accentuated than from the brisk vigor of his movements one would be led
to expect.
[Illustration: Water Ouzels in a Mountain Stream.]
How romantic and beautiful is the life of this brave little singer on
the wild mountain streams, building his round bossy nest of moss by the
side of a rapid or fall, where it is sprinkled and kept fresh and green
by the spray! No wonder he sings well, since all the air about him is
music; every breath he draws is part of a song, and he gets his first
music lessons before he is born; for the eggs vibrate in time with the
tones of the waterfalls. Bird and stream are inseparable, songful and
wild, gentle and strong,—the bird ever in danger in the midst of the
stream’s mad whirlpools, yet seemingly immortal. And so I might go on,
writing words, words, words; but to what purpose? Go see him and love
him, and through him as through a window look into Nature’s warm heart.