It is September. August--the month of gray days for birds--has passed. The
last pin-feather of the new winter plumage has burst its sheath, and is
sleek and glistening from its thorough oiling with waterproof dressing,
which the birds squeeze out with their bills from a special gland, and
which they rub into every part of their plumage. The youngsters, now grown
as large as their parents, have become proficient in fly-catching or
berry-picking, as the case may be. Henceforth they forage for themselves,
although if we watch carefully we may still see a parent's love prompting
it to give a berry to its big offspring (indistinguishable save for this
attention), who greedily devours it without so much as a wing flutter of
thanks.
Two courses are open to the young birds who have been so fortunate as to
escape the dangers of nestlinghood. They may unite in neighbourly flocks
with others of their kind, as do the blackbirds of the marshes; or they
may wander off by themselves, never going very far from their summer home,
but perching alone each night in the thick foliage of some sheltering
bush.
How wonderfully the little fellow adapts himself to the radical and sudden
change in his life! Before this, his world has been a warm, soft-lined
nest, with ever anxious parents to shelter him from rain and cold, or to
stand with half-spread wings between him and the burning rays of the sun.
He has only to open his mouth and call for food and a supply of the
choicest morsels appears and is shoved far down his throat. If danger
threatens, both parents are ready to fight to the last, or even willing to
give their lives to protect him. Little wonder is it that the young birds
are loth to leave; we can sympathise heartily with the last weaker
brother, whose feet cling convulsively to the nest, who begs piteously for
"just one more caterpillar!" But the mother bird is inexorable and stands
a little way out of reach with the juiciest morsel she can find. Once out,
the young bird never returns. Even if we catch the little chap before he
finishes his first flight and replace him, the magic spell of home is
broken, and he is out again the instant our hand frees him.
What a change the first night brings! Yet with unfailing instinct he
squats on some twig, fluffs up his feathers, tucks his wee head behind his
wing, and sleeps the sleep of his first adult birdhood as soundly as if
this position of rest had been familiar to him since he broke through the
shell.
We admire his aptitude for learning; how quickly his wings gain strength
and skill; how soon he manages to catch his own dinner. But how all this
pales before the accomplishment of a young brush turkey or moundbuilder of
the antipodes. Hatched six or eight feet under ground, merely by the heat
of decaying vegetation, no fond parents minister to his wants. Not only
must he escape from the shell in the pressure and darkness of his
underground prison (how we cannot tell), but he is then compelled to dig
through six feet of leaves and mould before he reaches the sunlight. He
finds himself well feathered, and at once spreads his small but perfect
wings and goes humming off to seek his living alone and unattended.
It is September--the month of restlessness for the birds. Weeks ago the
first migrants started on their southward journey, the more delicate
insect-eaters going first, before the goldfinches and other late nesters
had half finished housekeeping. The northern warblers drift past us
southward--the magnolia, blackburnian, Canadian fly-catching, and others,
bringing memories of spruce and balsam to those of us who have lived with
them in the forests of the north.
"It's getting too cold for the little fellows," says the wiseacre, who
sees you watching the smaller birds as they pass southward. Is it, though?
What of the tiny winter wren which spends the zero weather with us? His
coat is no warmer than those birds which have gone to the far tropics. And
what of the flocks of birds which we occasionally come across in
mid-winter, of species which generally migrate to Brazil? It is not the
cold which deprives us of our summer friends, or at least the great
majority of them; it is the decrease in food supply. Insects disappear,
and only those birds which feed on seeds and buds, or are able to glean an
insect diet from the crevices of fence and tree-trunk, can abide.
This is the month to climb out on the roof of your house, lie on your back
and listen. He is a stolid person indeed who is not moved by the chirps
and twitters which come down through the darkness. There is no better way
to show what a wonderful power sound has upon our memories. There sounds a
robin's note, and spring seems here again; through the night comes a
white-throat's chirp, and we see again the fog-dimmed fields of a Nova
Scotian upland; a sandpiper "peets" and the scene in our mind's eye as
instantly changes, and so on. What a revelation if we could see as in
daylight for a few moments! The sky would be pitted with thousands and
thousands of birds flying from a few hundred yards to as high as one or
two miles above the earth.
It only adds to the interest of this phenomenon when we turn to our
learned books on birds for an explanation of the origin of migration, the
whence and whither of the long journeys by day and night, and find--no
certain answer! This is one of the greatest of the many mysteries of the
natural world, of which little is known, although much is guessed, and the
bright September nights may reveal to us--we know not what undiscovered
facts.
I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive; what time, what circuit first,
I ask not; but unless God sends his hail
Of blinding fire-balls, sleet or driving snow,
In sometime, his good time, I shall arrive;
He guides me and the bird. In his good time.
Robert Browning.