_The Marsh Hawk, Harrier, Blue Hawk._
_Length_: 17-19 inches; female averaging two inches longer.
_Male_: Above, bluish gray; below, white mottled with brown;
wings brownish, long, and pointed; tail long; upper tail-coverts
white.
The Marsh Hawk is the most harmless and beneficial of its family; it
feeds upon reptiles, locusts, grasshoppers, and small mammals, and never
disturbs domestic poultry.
In this locality it is more plentiful in the bogs near fresh ponds, and
in the vicinity of rivers, than in the salt-marshes.
It is the summer-day Hawk, and the species most frequently seen in the
warmest months. It flies by night as well as day, however, and is often
a companion of the Screech Owl in its nocturnal rambles.
_The Red-shouldered Hawk_
_Length_: 18-19 inches. Also miscalled “Hen-hawk.” The
Sharp-shinned Hawk and Cooper’s Hawk are the real “Hen-hawks.”
_Male_: Grayish brown above; feathers edged with rusty brown;
wings barred black and white; “shoulder” rusty red; tail black,
and barred and tipped with slate; black streaks on throat;
underparts buff.
One of the large Hawks; to be distinguished by a rust-red shoulder
patch; is the most common of the long, broad-winged Buzzard Hawks that
are seen flying in circles in the days of autumn and early spring. It
kills field-mice and other gnawers.
_The American Sparrow Hawk_
_Length_: 10 inches.
_Male_: Reddish back barred with black; reddish tail, with black
band and white tip; head with reddish spot on crown, slaty blue,
as are also wings, the latter having white bars; a black mark
back and front of ear; underparts varying from cream to buff.
A very handsome bird, though somewhat of a cannibal; the Wise Men wish
him protected for the following reasons:—
“When in doubt regarding the identity of a small Hawk, give the benefit
of the doubt to the Hawk, and refrain from killing it, for you may thus
spare a valuable bird, belonging to a species that during every twelve
months renders service to the agricultural industry of the country that
is far beyond computation, but if measured in dollars and cents would
reach to very high figures.
“This appeal for protection of the Sparrow Hawks, and the statements as
to their value, would be worthless if they could not be supported by
_facts_.
“Dr. Fisher summarizes as follows: ‘The subject of this Hawk is one of
great interest, and, considered in its economic bearings, is one that
should be carefully studied. The Sparrow Hawk is almost exclusively
insectivorous, except when insect food is difficult to obtain. In
localities where grasshoppers and crickets are abundant, these Hawks
congregate, often in moderate-sized flocks, and gorge themselves
continuously. Rarely do they touch any other form of food until, either
by advancing season or other natural causes, the grasshopper crop is so
lessened that their hunger cannot be appeased without undue exertion.
Then other kinds of insects and other forms of life contribute to their
fare, and beetles, spiders, mice, shrews, small snakes, lizards, or even
birds may be required to bring up the balance.
“‘In some places in the West and South, telegraph poles pass for miles
through treeless plains and savannas. For lack of better perches, the
Sparrow Hawks often use these poles for resting-places, from which they
make short trips to pick up a grasshopper or mouse, which they carry
back to their perch. At times, when grasshoppers are abundant, such a
line of poles is pretty well occupied by these Hawks. In the vicinity of
Washington, D.C., remarkable as it may appear to those who have not
interested themselves specially in the matter, it is the exception not
to find grasshoppers or crickets in the stomachs of the Sparrow hawks,
even when killed during the months of January and February, unless the
ground is covered with snow. It is wonderful how the birds can discover
the half-concealed, semi-dormant insects, which in colour so closely
resemble the ground or dry grass. Whether they are attracted by a slight
movement, or distinguish the form of their prey as it sits motionless,
is difficult to prove, but, in any case, the acuteness of their vision
is of a character which we are unable to appreciate.
“‘In the spring, when new ground or meadow is broken by the plough, they
often become very tame if not molested. They fly down, even alighting
under the very horses, for an instant, in their endeavour to capture an
unearthed mouse or insect.’”
“Aren’t there any _bad_ Hawks, then?” asked little Bobby, incredulously,
for to him the cry of “Hawk!” and the sight of the hired man with the
gun came together.
“Yes, Bobby, plenty of them, even hereabouts; the Sharp-shinned and the
Chicken or Cooper’s Hawk, both of them flash out of the sky and pounce
cruelly on both game- and song-birds. And, let me tell you all
something, though I do not wish to kill any birds needlessly, yet I
would not let any of these Hawks, useful or otherwise, nest or feed near
Birdland, and I should have Jacob frighten them away with blank
cartridges, because the very sight of them terrifies the beautiful
song-birds that we love, and that trust us and confide in our
protection.
“The little Screech Owls may play about if they will, but neither Crows,
Jays, Hawks, nor English Sparrows can ever be welcome garden guests.”
Something to remember about Hawks and Owls.—_The female is always
larger than the male!_
[Illustration: SPARROW HAWK]
XIII
TREE-TRUNK BIRDS
_Woodpeckers—Nuthatches and the Brown Creepers_
By the time November came in but few birds were to be seen about the
schoolhouse at Foxes Corners. For until Gray Lady came, no one had taken
an interest either in the appearance of the schoolbuilding itself or the
ragged bit of ground upon which it stood. Now four sugar-maples had been
transplanted from the near-by woods, and set where they would shade the
windows in the warm days of early summer and fall and yet not interfere
with winter sunshine; and Gray Lady had promised that by spring there
should be some benches along the north fence, where there was shade from
the white birches in the wood-lot beyond. That is, she had promised the
wood for the benches and Jacob’s aid in their planning; for the rest,
the boys were to do the work themselves, for after Thanksgiving four or
five large boys would come to school,—Tommy Todd’s brother Everett, who
was sixteen, and the two Judds, his cousins,—Walter, also sixteen, and
Irving, fourteen,—being among them.
All of these boys knew something about the handling of tools, and, if
they chose to join the Kind Hearts’ Club, would be valuable allies.
Sometimes, however, big boys, even though they are not cruel, laugh at
such societies, and so Gray Lady had made up her mind to let them ask to
come to the class in the workroom as if it was a privilege they desired
rather than as a favour to herself.
One bit of carpentry she asked Jacob to undertake, that no time should
be lost, and that was the bird lunch-counter for the school grounds. As
the flagpole was fastened to the schoolhouse, Jacob had utilized the
gnarled stump of a half-dead wild-apple tree, the bark of which was
seamed and scarred by the initials cut on it by many generations of
scholars. Above the platform, to hold the crumbs and grain, he had
fastened, between the two remaining branches, a slanting roof made of
some old mossy shingles, and at the edge of this he had stuck half a
dozen crooked spikes to hold bacon rind or suet or anything, like
chicken bones, that might be left from the dinner-pails, as many of the
children, owing to distance from home, always brought their lunch to
school during the winter and spring terms.
This lunch-counter was in place when Gray Lady went to the school the
first Friday afternoon in November, and she brought an additional
surprise with her,—two pictures or charts that could be unrolled and
hung on the wall like the great map.[2] Each of these charts held the
pictures of some twenty-five birds done in colours and of natural size,
and with each there was a little book telling about the birds.
The charts were to be lent to the five other schools in the township in
turn, but the children at Foxes Corners were so delighted with them that
they resolved that the first money that the Kind Hearts’ Club earned
should go to buy other pairs of the charts, so that they could not only
have some for their very own, but that the other schools, who had no
Gray Lady for their fairy god-mother, could have them also.
After the first few weeks, Gray Lady found that it would be best, on the
Fridays when she visited the school, simply to read to the children
stories of the birds that they had either seen at Birdland or that they
already knew by sight, from various books and magazines; as she had at
her house so many books, pictures of birds, and the mounted birds
themselves, that it was much easier for them to name unknown birds there
than at school.
* * * * *
“The singing-birds have all gone,” said Sarah Barnes, the second
Saturday of November, as she went to work upon the last piece of her
doll’s outfit—the cloak for the Red Riding-Hood that she was dressing.
“We still have a Song Sparrow down in the meadow,” said Goldilocks, “and
there are plenty of Bluebirds and Robins about, and Grackles and
Cowbirds, but the Song Sparrow is the only one that pretends to sing a
nice little song.”
“I guess we’ll have to go ahead to the spring birds or there won’t be
anything to learn about until they come back,” chimed in Eliza Clausen,
who was at work on a doll baby, and as her fingers were long and
slender, she succeeded in hemming the fine lawn, of which the dress was
made, very nicely.
“No birds?” said Gray Lady, raising her eyebrows. “Open the window
nearest you, Sarah, and do both you and Eliza look out and listen.”
“I don’t see anything, and I only hear different kinds of squeaks,” said
Eliza.
“I hear the squeaks,” said Sarah, “but I see a gray bird out here on the
roof, with black on top of his head and white underneath, and he’s got a
long beak and a short tail. Why, he’s just stuffed something that he had
in his beak in between the shingles. Now he’s crying ‘quank-quank’ and
flying toward the orchard.”
“That,” said Gray Lady, “is the White-breasted Nuthatch, one of our best
winter friends, for though he summers with us, like the Chickadee and
the Woodpeckers, it is not until the other birds have gone, and the
trees are bare of leaves, that we really seem to see and appreciate him.
“This Nuthatch is one of the tree-trunk birds that you will learn to
know so well, before winter is over, that you will never forget them;
for, though they have no song to speak of, their cleverness and the good
they do when other birds have gone more than make up for lack of music.”
“What do you mean by tree-trunk birds?” asked Clary; “I thought that
birds liked leafy branches the best.”
“Most birds do prefer the leafy branches,” said Gray Lady; “that is why
I call this little group, who do not, ‘tree-trunk birds,’ for all their
little lives are spent so close to the heart of the wood that they seem
almost to be parts of the tree.
[Illustration: R. H. Beebe, Photo. WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH]
“These birds not only make their nests in the wood itself by hollowing
out partly decayed places in branch and trunk, but they gain the greater
part of their food by searching the cracks in the tree bark for insects
that live there, and which other birds, that spend their lives among the
leafy twigs, cannot find.
“This quarrying food from the bark makes it possible for them to stay
about the vicinity of their nesting-haunts all winter; for many forms of
insect life winter in the bark crevices of forest as well as fruit trees
where the eggs hatch out, and the larvae undergo transformation early in
the season and begin to do mischief before the migrant birds return.
“If it were not for sleet storms, that cover the tree with a coating of
ice for days at a time, these hardy, sociable little birds would be sure
of a good living in a neighbourhood like this, with many orchards and
strips of woodland. But when ice puts a lock on the pantry doors, what
can the poor birds do?
“Owing to their frail structure and warm blood, they require more
constant fuel to keep the life-fire alive than the four-footed animals,
so that when hunger and cold travel hand in hand, they have to make a
brave fight for life. For generations this freezing up has happened to
them, and so, by experience, they have learned when food is plenty to
try and save it up.
“The Nuthatch, that Sarah has just seen stowing something away under the
shingles, is living very well at present. In spite of hard frost, wild
food is plentiful; then, too, the lunch-counter is amply supplied with
suet. The birds do not really need help as yet, but we put the food
there so that they may know where to find it when hard times come.”
“I should think the lunch-counter, with lots of easy food, would make
the birds lazy so’s they wouldn’t work for a living,” said Dave. “Pop
says, feeding tramps everywhere only makes more folks turn tramp, so now
he can’t get anybody to work at haying or wood-cutting for food and fair
pay.”
“Ah, but that shows the difference between wild birds and what is called
‘civilized’ man,” said Gray Lady. “The Nuthatches do not sit still and
gorge themselves, but are busy providing for the future. Yesterday, I
saw one of these same birds packing away little bits of suet in a
crevice under the roof of the side porch, and another using the thatch
on the summer-house for a larder. So it would seem that they distribute
the food in different places. If one cupboard is frozen up, one of the
others may be in the sun.
“A pair of Nuthatches found that the cornice of the main roof, under the
tin gutter, was in poor shape, and kindly called my attention to it by
boring into the wood and nesting in the space within. Five little birds
were hatched, and I believe that the party of seven, that are so tame
and come about the house so freely, are the birds hatched in the cornice
and their parents.”
“I shouldn’t think that you would like them to make holes in the house,”
said Tommy, “for the water might get in and do lots of harm, just the
same as Woodpeckers that make holes in the trees and spoil them.”
“That is where people make a mistake about these tree-trunk birds that
bore holes, and think that they are mischievous and destructive, whereas
they never pierce bark unless an insect lurks beneath, and when they
bore a nest-hole in a tree, it is the same as saying to its owner, ‘See,
this wood is dead; I am making use of what is otherwise useless to you
and I will pay you rent by protecting your other trees from harm. If you
watch well, you will see how many hairy caterpillars, birch-lice, and
wood-boring beetles I will kill in the year.’”
“The gutter is all mended and painted now, so the Nuthatches can’t nest
there next season, and I guess they will be very sorry,” said Clary, who
had taken her turn at looking out the window.
“Yes, the cornice has been mended, but Jacob has hollowed out a bit of
hickory branch with the bark on it, and has fastened it firmly under the
cornice with screws, so that when the birds look up their home in
spring, they will find a new one so close to the old place that I hope
they will move into it. In fact, those pictures in the workroom, of
bird-homes made of hollowed-out logs, were designed especially to
attract these tree-trunk birds and their little companions, the
Chickadees, who, though they search the twigs for food, love the trunk
also, and nest in a wood hollow like the Woodpeckers, themselves.”
“He’s come back again, but he hasn’t brought suet this time; it’s some
kind of a big seed that won’t stay in the shingle crack, so he’s
pounding it in,” said Sarah, looking over Clary’s shoulder and dropping
her sewing, so interested was she in the movements of the bird. “There,
he’s going away and walking down the roof head first; I don’t see why he
doesn’t slip and fall, the same as I did once when I tried to walk down
the back stairs on my hands and knees head first, ’cause brother dared
me.”
Gray Lady hurried to the window in time to see the Nuthatch give a final
pound to the object that was wedged between the shingles. With her
opera-glasses, she discovered that it was the empty shell of a beechnut.
“This little bird has been kind enough to write the meaning of its
singular name here on the roof, evidently for the benefit of the Kind
Hearts’ Club, for I have been expecting that some of you would ask from
what the term ‘Nuthatch’ came.”
“I thought it was a funny name, but then lots of birds’ names seem
queer, until you hear about them,” said Eliza Clausen.
“This bird is very fond of nuts,” continued Gray Lady, “not the very
hard ones like butternuts, but the smaller acorns, chestnuts, and
especially the little three-cornered beechnuts, with the sweet meat.
Having no teeth to crack them like a squirrel, and not being able to use
his beak for a nutcracker, he wedges the nut fast and then uses his
sharp, strong bill for a hatchet and hatches the nut open; by this he
has earned his name, ‘Nuthatch.’
“There is another name that Goldilocks once gave him that is quite as
good, and that would remind you of him wherever you hear it,—the
‘Upside-down’ bird!—for what other bird that you know can climb about
as he does?”
“Woodpeckers do,” cried Tommy and Dave, together.
“Yes, and there’s another bird, little and brown and striped, that’s
only here in winter and goes up and down all over the tree-trunks. I saw
one this morning when I was coming up,” said Sarah, “and I guess
Chickadees can go upside down, too, for I saw one hanging on to a fir
cone yesterday, and it was head down.”
Gray Lady laughed. “You all doubtless _think_ that all these other birds
climb like the Nuthatch, but this is a case of wrong seeing, which is
simply another form of not really paying attention; for not one of them
walks upside down in the same way. Hear what one of our poets says of
this:—