February holes are most interesting places and one never knows what will
be found in the next one investigated. It is a good plan, in one's walks
in the early fall, to make a mental map of all the auspicious looking
trees and holes, and then go the rounds of these in winter--as a hunter
follows his line of traps. An old, neglected orchard may seem perfectly
barren of life; insects dead, leaves fallen, and sap frozen; but the warm
hearts of these venerable trees may shelter much beside the larvae of
boring beetles, and we may reap a winter harvest of which the farmer knows
nothing.
Poke a stick into a knothole and stir up the leaves at the bottom of the
cavity, and then look in. Two great yellow eyes may greet you, glaring
intermittently, and sharp clicks may assail your ears. Reach in with your
gloved hand and bring the screech owl out. He will blink in the sunshine,
ruffling up his feathers until he is twice his real size. The light partly
blinds him, but toss him into the air and he will fly without difficulty
and select with ease a secluded perch. The instant he alights a wonderful
transformation comes over him. He stiffens, draws himself as high as
possible, and compresses his feathers until he seems naught but the
slender, broken stump of some bough,--ragged topped (thanks to his
"horns"), gray and lichened. It is little short of a miracle how this
spluttering, saucer-eyed, feathered cat can melt away into woody fibre
before our very eyes.
We quickly understand why in the daytime the little owl is so anxious to
hide his form from public view. Although he can see well enough to fly and
to perch, yet the bright sunlight on the snow is too dazzling to permit of
swift and sure action. All the birds of the winter woods seem to know this
and instantly take advantage of it. Sparrows, chickadees, and woodpeckers
go nearly wild with excitement when they discover the little owl, hovering
about him and occasionally making darts almost in his very face. We can
well believe that as the sun sets, after an afternoon of such excitement,
they flee in terror, selecting for that night's perch the densest tangle
of sweetbrier to be found.
One hollow tree may yield a little gray owl, while from the next we may
draw a red one; and the odd thing about this is that this difference in
colour does not depend upon age, sex, or season, and no ornithologist can
say why it occurs. What can these little fellows find to feed upon these
cold nights, when the birds seek the most hidden and sheltered retreats?
We might murder the next owl we come across; but would any fact we might
discover in his poor stomach repay us for the thought of having needlessly
cut short his life, with its pleasures and spring courtships, and the
delight he will take in the half a dozen pearls over which he will soon
watch?
A much better way is to examine the ground around his favourite roosting
place, where we will find many pellets of fur and bones, with now and then
a tiny skull. These tell the tale, and if at dusk we watch closely, we may
see the screech owl look out of his door, stretch every limb, purr his
shivering song, and silently launch out over the fields, a feathery,
shadowy death to all small mice who scamper too far from their snow
tunnels.
When you feel like making a new and charming acquaintance, take your way
to a dense clump of snow-laden cedars, and look carefully over their
trunks. If you are lucky you will spy a tiny gray form huddled close to
the sheltered side of the bark, and if you are careful you may approach
and catch in your hand the smallest of all our owls, for the saw-whet is a
dreadfully sleepy fellow in the daytime. I knew of eleven of these little
gray gnomes dozing in a clump of five small cedars.
The cedars are treasure-houses in winter, and many birds find shelter
among the thick foliage, and feast upon the plentiful supply of berries,
when elsewhere there seems little that could keep a bird's life in its
body. When the tinkling of breaking icicles is taken up by the wind and
re-echoed from the tops of the cedars, you may know that a flock of purple
finches is near, and so greedy and busy are they that you may approach
within a few feet. These birds are unfortunately named, as there is
nothing purple about their plumage. The males are a delicate rose-red,
while the females look like commonplace sparrows, streaked all over with
black and brown.
There are other winter birds, whose home is in the North, with a similar
type of coloration. Among the pines you may see a flock of birds, as large
as a sparrow, with strange-looking beaks. The tips of the two mandibles
are long, curved, and pointed, crossing each other at their ends. This
looks like a deformity, but is in reality a splendid cone-opener and
seed-extracter. These birds are the crossbills.
Even in the cold of a February day, we may, on very rare occasions, be
fortunate enough to hear unexpected sounds, such as the rattle of a belted
kingfisher, or the croak of a night heron; for these birds linger until
every bit of pond or lake is sealed with ice; and when a thaw comes, a
lonely bat may surprise us with a short flight through the frosty air,
before it returns to its winter's trance.
Of course, in the vicinity of our towns and cities, the most noticeable
birds at this season of the year (as indeed at all seasons) are the
English sparrows and (at least near New York City) the starlings, those
two foreigners which have wrought such havoc among our native birds. Their
mingled flocks fly up, not only from garbage piles and gutters, but from
the thickets and fields which should be filled with our sweet-voiced
American birds. It is no small matter for man heedlessly to interfere with
Nature. What may be a harmless, or even useful, bird in its native land
may prove a terrible scourge when introduced where there are no enemies to
keep it in check. Nature is doing her best to even matters by letting
albinism run riot among the sparrows, and best of all by teaching sparrow
hawks to nest under our eaves and thus be on equal terms with their
sparrow prey. The starlings are turning out to be worse than the sparrows.
Already they are invading the haunts of our grackles and redwings.
On some cold day, when the sun is shining, visit all the orchards of which
you know, and see if in one or more you cannot find a good-sized, gray,
black, and white bird, which keeps to the topmost branch of a certain
tree. Look at him carefully through your glasses, and if his beak is
hooked, like that of a hawk, you may know that you are watching a northern
shrike, or butcher bird. His manner is that of a hawk, and his appearance
causes instant panic among small birds. If you watch long enough you may
see him pursue and kill a goldfinch, or sparrow, and devour it. These
birds are not even distantly related to the hawks, but have added a hawk's
characteristics and appetite to the insect diet of their nearest
relations. If ever shrikes will learn to confine their attacks to English
sparrows, we should offer them every encouragement.
All winter long the ebony forms of crows vibrate back and forth across the
cold sky. If we watch them when very high up, we sometimes see them sail a
short distance, and without fail, a second later, the clear "_Caw! caw!_"
comes down to us, the sound-waves unable to keep pace with those of light,
as the thunder of the storm lags behind the flash. These sturdy birds seem
able to stand any severity of the weather, but, like Achilles, they have
one vulnerable point, the eyes,--which, during the long winter nights,
must be kept deep buried among the warm feathers.