The principal problems which birds, and indeed all other creatures, have
to solve, have been well stated to be--Food, Safety, and Reproduction. In
regard to safety, or the art of escaping danger, we are all familiar with
the ravages which hawks, owls, foxes, and even red squirrels commit among
the lesser feathered creatures, but there are other dangers which few of
us suspect.
Of all creatures birds are perhaps the most exempt from liability to
accident, yet they not infrequently lose their lives in most unexpected
ways. Once above trees and buildings, they have the whole upper air free
of every obstacle, and though their flight sometimes equals the speed of a
railroad train, they have little to fear when well above the ground.
Collision with other birds seems scarcely possible, although it sometimes
does occur. When a covey of quail is flushed, occasionally two birds will
collide, at times meeting with such force that both are stunned.
Flycatchers darting at the same insect will now and then come together,
but not hard enough to injure either bird.
Even the smallest and most wonderful of all flyers, the hummingbird, may
come to grief in accidental ways. I have seen one entangled in a burdock
burr, its tiny feathers fast locked into the countless hooks, and again I
have found the body of one of these little birds with its bill fastened in
a spiral tendril of a grapevine, trapped in some unknown way.
Young phoebes sometimes become entangled in the horsehairs which are used
in the lining of their nest. When they are old enough to fly and attempt
to leave, they are held prisoners or left dangling from the nest. When
mink traps are set in the snow in winter, owls frequently fall victims,
mice being scarce and the bait tempting.
Lighthouses are perhaps the cause of more accidents to birds than are any
of the other obstacles which they encounter on their nocturnal migrations
north and south. Many hundreds of birds are sometimes found dead at the
base of these structures. The sudden bright glare is so confusing and
blinding, as they shoot from the intense darkness into its circle of
radiance, that they are completely bewildered and dash headlong against
the thick panes of glass. Telegraph wires are another menace to low-flying
birds, especially those which, like quail and woodcock, enjoy a whirlwind
flight, and attain great speed within a few yards. Such birds have been
found almost cut in two by the force with which they struck the wire.
The elements frequently catch birds unaware and overpower them. A sudden
wind or storm will drive coast-flying birds hundreds of miles out to sea,
and oceanic birds may be blown as far inland. Hurricanes in the West
Indies are said to cause the death of innumerable birds, as well as of
other creatures. From such a cause small islands are known to have become
completely depopulated of their feathered inhabitants. Violent hailstorms,
coming in warm weather without warning, are quite common agents in the
destruction of birds, and in a city thousands of English sparrows have
been stricken during such a storm. After a violent storm of wet snow in
the middle West, myriads of Lapland longspurs were once found dead in the
streets and suburbs of several villages. On the surface of two small
lakes, a conservative estimate of the dead birds was a million and a
half!
The routes which birds follow in migrating north and south sometimes
extend over considerable stretches of water, as across the Caribbean Sea,
but the only birds which voluntarily brave the dangers of the open ocean
are those which, from ability to swim, or great power of flight, can trust
themselves far away from land. Not infrequently a storm will drive birds
away from the land and carry them over immense distances, and this
accounts for the occasional appearance of land birds near vessels far out
at sea. Overcome with fatigue, they perch for hours in the rigging before
taking flight in the direction of the nearest land, or, desperate from
hunger, they fly fearlessly down to the deck, where food and water are
seldom refused them.
Small events like these are welcome breaks in the monotony of a long ocean
voyage, but are soon forgotten at the end of the trip.
Two of these ocean waifs were once brought to me. One was a young European
heron which flew on board a vessel when it was about two hundred and five
miles southeast of the southern extremity of India. A storm must have
driven the bird seaward, as there is no migration route near this
locality.
The second bird was a European turtle dove which was captured not less
than seven hundred and fifty miles from the nearest land--Ireland. When
caught it was in an exhausted condition, but it quickly recovered and soon
lost all signs of the buffeting of the storm. The turtle dove migrates
northward to the British Islands about the first of May, but as this bird
was captured on May 17th, it was not migrating, but, caught by a gust of
wind, was probably blown away from the land. The force of the storm would
then drive it mile after mile, allowing it no chance of controlling the
direction of its flight, but, from the very velocity, making it easy for
the bird to maintain its equilibrium.
Hundreds of birds must perish when left by storms far out at sea, and the
infinitely small chance of encountering a vessel or other resting-place
makes a bird which has passed through such an experience and survived,
interesting indeed.
In winter ruffed grouse have a habit of burrowing deep beneath the snow
and letting the storm shut them in. In this warm, cosey retreat they spend
the night, their breath making its way out through the loosely packed
crystals. But when a cold rain sets in during the night, this becomes a
fatal trap, an impenetrable crust cutting off their means of escape.
Ducks, when collected about a small open place in an ice-covered pond,
diving for the tender roots on which they feed, sometimes become confused
and drown before they find their way out. They have been seen frozen into
the ice by hundreds, sitting there helplessly, and fortunate if the sun,
with its thawing power, releases them before they are discovered by
marauding hawks or foxes.
In connection with their food supply the greatest enemy of birds is ice,
and when a winter rain ends with a cold snap, and every twig and seed is
encased in a transparent armour of ice, then starvation stalks close to
all the feathered kindred. Then is the time to scatter crumbs and grain
broadcast, to nail bones and suet to the tree-trunks and so awaken hope
and life in the shivering little forms. If a bird has food in abundance,
it little fears the cold. I have kept parrakeets out through the blizzards
and storms of a severe winter, seeing them play and frolic in the snow as
if their natural home were an arctic tundra, instead of a tropical
forest.
A friend of birds once planted many sprouts of wild honeysuckle about his
porch, and the following summer two pairs of hummingbirds built their
nests in near-by apple trees; he transplanted quantities of living
woodbine to the garden fences, and when the robins returned in the spring,
after having remained late the previous autumn feeding on the succulent
bunches of berries, no fewer than ten pairs nested on and about the porch
and yard.
So my text of this, as of many other weeks is,--study the food habits of
the birds and stock your waste places with their favourite berry or vine.
Your labour will be repaid a hundredfold in song and in the society of the
little winged comrades.
Worn is the winter rug of white,
And in the snow-bare spots once more,
Glimpses of faint green grass in sight,--
Spring's footprints on the floor.
Spring here--by what magician's touch?
'Twas winter scarce an hour ago.
And yet I should have guessed as much,--
Those footprints in the snow!
Frank Dempster Sherman.