The first of May finds the trees and shrubs well clothed in tender
green, the air laden with the perfume of many blossoms, and bird life
abounding. The number has been rapidly increasing since the coming of
the meadow lark and robin that proclaim the approach of the moving host.
Since their songs of joyous anticipation first were heard reverberating
through field and orchard, almost every day has brought some new
arrival, till now the air is alive with feathered creatures and
hilarious song is rife. With ever varying motions they search for food
and sport among the tree branches, or course through the vault of
heaven. Nidification is now in progress in various stages of
advancement, according to the species of bird.
But many of our summer visitors are still absent, yet just now is the
season that one of the most interesting should make his appearance and
join in the general jubilee. This is the Orchard Oriole, and he is among
the gayest of the gay of all this merry throng.
Being a soft-billed bird, or insect eater, he defers his migration until
insects have become plentiful. He is remarkably uniform in migration.
Wintering south of the United States, he enters our borders about the
last of March and with unusual regularity steadily makes his way onward
till he reaches the northern limit of his range the latter part of May.
In the southern states arid southern portion of the middle states east
of the Rocky mountains this Oriole is one of the most abundant and
familiar songsters that frequent the orchards and gardens.
He is a very conspicuous bird in both plumage and song. Although not
quite so brilliantly attired as his cousin Baltimore, his coat of
chestnut and black is very noticeable. His song is loud and gushing and
resembles that of the rose-breasted grosbeak enough for the superficial
observer to confound the two, but to the trained ear there is a decided
difference. The notes, though uttered with force and rapidity, are
varied, clear and sweet. His sojourn with us is short, but while here
his rapturous refrain is heard almost incessantly. This sprightly bird
is seldom, if ever, inactive, but with ever-moving pinion he flits from
branch to branch, from tree to tree, and even when giving forth his
gushing melody he quivers and sways.
Orchard Orioles are masters in the art of nest-building. The nest, a
beautiful basket-like structure about three inches across and the same
in length, is attached to half-upright or horizontal branches. Usually
it is half pensile, though some are wholly pendent. It is always made of
blades of long, slender grasses woven together in a most wonderful
manner and lined with plant fiber and feathers. As the grass is
invariably used while fresh and green, the nest is of a more or less
green hue at all times, and consequently difficult to detect among the
thick foliage. The four or five bluish-white eggs are spotted with a
purplish color. At first the nestlings are fed on tiny insects and later
on beetles and grasshoppers. The number of noxious insects a pair of
these birds will destroy in a season is almost incredible.
Addie L. Booker.
[Illustration: PRAIRIE WARBLER.
(Dendroica discolor.)
About Life-size.
FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.]
THE PRAIRIE WARBLER.
(_Dendroica discolor._)
This beautiful little Warbler cannot fail to awaken an interest in bird
life in the mind of any person whose privilege it is to observe it in
its chosen haunts. These are the shrubby pasture lands and the open
woods of the eastern United States. It is more common in barren, sandy
places of the Atlantic coast, where it seems to find an insect food
suited to its taste. It not infrequently visits orchards, when in bloom,
especially those in retired localities. Wilson, who wrote
enthusiastically of the Prairie Warbler, says: “They seem to prefer open
plains and thinly-wooded tracts, and have this singularity in their
manners, that they are not easily alarmed, and search among the leaves
the most leisurely of any of the tribe I have yet met with, seeming to
examine every blade of grass and every leaf, uttering at short intervals
a feeble chirr.”
Dr. Coues was also an ardent admirer of this little bird and during his
college days frequently hunted and studied its habits. He found the
“inflection of the Prairie Warbler’s notes a much more agreeable theme
than that of a Greek verb,” and possibly quite as profitable. He says:
“There was a little glade just by the college, a sloping sandy field run
waste with scattered cedars, where we could be sure of finding the
Warblers any day, from the twentieth of April, for two or three weeks.
Ten to one we would not see the little creatures at first. But
presently, from the nearest juniper, would come the well known sounds. A
curious song, if song it can be called—as much like a mouse complaining
of the toothache as anything else I can liken it to—it is simply
indescribable. Then perhaps the quaint performer would dart out into the
air, turn a somersault after a passing midge, get right side up and into
the shrubbery again in an instant.”
The flight of the Prairie Warbler is neither strong nor protracted. Yet
it is one of the most expert fly catchers among the Warblers. It is not
a social bird and it is very seldom that more than two or three are seen
together. A peculiar characteristic of this Warbler is that it does not
try to lead an intruder away from the vicinity of its nest. Mr. Nuttall
speaks of removing two eggs from a nest and replacing them in a short
time. Each time he removed the eggs the female bird returned to the
nest.
The Prairie Warbler is prettily colored. The back is marked with
reddish-brown spots on an olive-green ground. Beneath the eye of the
male there is a streak of black which is absent in the female. The
throat and under parts are a rich yellow color, with small spots of
black on the sides of the neck. The female is duller in color.
The nest is nearly always placed in the fork of a branch of either a
tree or shrub and never far from the ground. A wild rose bush is
sometimes selected. Mr. Welch describes one that he found in such a
place. It was mainly constructed of “the soft inner bark of small shrubs
mingled with dry rose leaves, bits of wood, woody fibers, decayed stems
of plants, spiders’ webs, etc.” These were elaborately woven together
and bound by “cotton-like fibers of a vegetable origin.” The nest had a
lining of fine fibers and horse hair. He also calls attention to the
upper rim of the nest, it “being a strongly interlaced weaving of
vegetable roots and strips of bark.”
Mr. Nuttall describes the nest as not unlike that of a summer
yellow-bird. He speaks of one that he examined as “being fixed in a
trifid branch and formed of strips of inner red cedar bark and asclepias
(milkweed) fibers, also with some caterpillar silk, and thickly lined
with cud-weed down and slender tops of the bent grass (Agrostis.)”
It is difficult to understand why this bird should be called the Prairie
Warbler, unless it is in order to distinguish it from those species that
frequent less open places. A much more appropriate name is the
Chestnut-backed Yellow Warbler. Though it is found in open places, this
little bird would easily elude observation were it not for its peculiar
notes, which Mr. Chapman describes as “a series of six or seven quickly
repeated zees, the next to the last one the highest.”