One of the most uncertain of months is October, and most difficult for the
beginner in bird study. If we are just learning to enjoy the life of wood
and field, we will find hard tangles to unravel among the birds of this
month. Many of the smaller species which passed us on their northward
journey last spring are now returning and will, perhaps, tarry a week or
more before starting on the next nocturnal stage of their passage
tropicward. Many are almost unrecognisable in their new winter plumage.
Male scarlet tanagers are now green tanagers, goldfinches are olive
finches, while instead of the beautiful black, white, and cream dress
which made so easy the identification of the meadow bobolinks in the
spring, search will now be rewarded only by some plump, overgrown
sparrows--reedbirds--which are really bobolinks in disguise.
Orchard orioles and rose-breasted grosbeaks come and are welcomed, but the
multitude of female birds of these species which appear may astonish one,
until he discovers that the young birds, both male and female, are very
similar to their mother in colour. We have no difficulty in distinguishing
between adult bay-breasted and black poll warblers, but he is indeed a
keen observer who can point out which is which when the young birds of the
year pass.
October is apt to be a month of extremes. One day the woods are filled
with scores of birds, and on the next hardly one will be seen. Often a
single species or family will predominate, and one will remember "thrush
days" or "woodpecker days." Yellow-bellied sapsuckers cross the path,
flickers call and hammer in every grove, while in the orchards, and along
the old worm-eaten fences, glimpses of red, white, and black show where
redheaded woodpeckers are looping from trunk to post. When we listen to
the warble of bluebirds, watch the mock courtship of the high-holders, and
discover the fall violets under leaves and burrs, for an instant a feeling
of spring rushes over us; but the yellow leaves blow against our face, the
wind sighs through the cedars, and we realise that the black hand of the
frost will soon end the brave efforts of the wild pansies.
The thrushes, ranking in some ways at the head of all our birds, drift
through the woods, brown and silent as the leaves around them. Splendid
opportunities they give us to test our powers of woodcraft. A thrush
passes like a streak of brown light and perches on a tree some distance
away. We creep from tree to tree, darting nearer when his head is turned.
At last we think we are within range, and raise our weapon. No, a leaf is
in the way, and the dancing spots of sunlight make our aim uncertain. We
move a little closer and again take aim, and this time he cannot escape
us. Carefully our double-barrelled binoculars cover him, and we get what
powder and lead could never give us--the quick glance of the hazel eye,
the trembling, half-raised feathers on his head, and a long look at the
beautifully rounded form perched on the twig, which a wanton shot would
destroy forever. The rich rufous colouring of the tail proclaims him a
singer of singers--a hermit thrush. We must be on the watch these days for
the beautiful wood thrush, the lesser spotted veery, the well named
olive-back and the rarer gray-cheeked thrush. We may look in vain among
the thrushes in our bird books for the golden-crowned and water thrush,
for these walkers of the woods are thrushes only in appearance, and belong
to the family of warblers. The long-tailed brown thrashers, lovers of the
undergrowth, are still more thrush-like in look, but in our
classifications they hold the position of giant cousins to the wrens. Even
the finches contribute a mock thrush to our list, the big,
spotted-breasted fox sparrow, but he rarely comes in number before mid
October or November. Of course we all know that our robin is a true
thrush, young robins having their breasts thickly spotted with black,
while even the old birds retain a few spots and streaks on the throat.
If we search behind the screen of leaves and grass around us we may
discover many tragedies. One fall I picked up a dead olive-backed thrush
in the Zoological Park. There were no external signs of violence, but I
found that the food canal was pretty well filled with blood. The next day
still another bird was found in the same condition, and the day after two
more. Within a week I noted in my journal eight of these thrushes, all
young birds of the year, and all with the same symptoms of disorder. I
could only surmise that some poisonous substance, some kind of berry,
perhaps some attractive but deadly exotic from the Botanical Gardens, had
tempted the inexperienced birds and caused their deaths.
As we walk through the October woods a covey of ruffed grouse springs up
before us, overhead a flock of robins dashes by, and the birds scatter to
feed among the wild grapes. The short round wings of the grouse whirr
noisily, while the quick wing beats of the robins make little sound. Both
are suited to their uses. The robin may travel league upon league to the
south, while the grouse will not go far except to find new bud or berry
pastures. His wings, as we have noticed before, are fitted rather for
sudden emergencies, to bound up before the teeth of the fox close upon
him, to dodge into close cover when the nose of the hound almost touches
his trembling body. When he scrambled out of his shell last May he at once
began to run about and to try his tiny wings, and little by little he
taught himself to fly. But in the efforts he got many a tumble and broke
or lost many a feather. Nature, however, has foreseen this, and to her
grouse children she gives several changes of wing feathers to practise
with, before the last strong winter quills come in.
How different it is with the robin. Naked and helpless he comes from his
blue shell, and only one set of wing quills falls to his share, so it
behooves him to be careful indeed of these. He remains in the nest until
they are strong enough to bear him up, and his first attempts are
carefully supervised by his anxious parents. And so the glimpse we had in
the October woods of the two pair of wings held more of interest than we
at first thought.
In many parts of the country, about October fifteenth the crows begin to
flock back and forth to and from their winter roosts. In some years it is
the twelfth, or again the seventeenth, but the constancy of the mean date
is remarkable. Many of our winter visitants have already slipped into our
fields and woods and taken the places of some of the earlier southern
migrants; but the daily passing of the birds which delay their journey
until fairly pinched by the lack of food at the first frosts extends well
into November. It is not until the foliage on the trees and bushes becomes
threadbare and the last migrants have flown, that our northern visitors
begin to take a prominent place in our avifauna.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom friend of the maturing sun;
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.