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IN BIRD LAND
BY
LEANDER S. KEYSER
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk?
Ralph Waldo Emerson: _Forbearance_
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now!
Percy B. Shelley: _To a Skylark_
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY
1894
Copyright
By A. C. McClurg and Co.
A.D. 1894
NOTE.
The articles comprising this volume having been previously published in
various periodicals of the country, I would desire to tender my grateful
acknowledgments to the several publishers and editors for their uniform
courtesy in permitting me to reprint the papers. My observations on
birds have been made, except when otherwise indicated, in various haunts
in and about Springfield, Ohio,—a region well adapted for ornithological
research or pastime.
L. S. K.
August, 1894.
CONTENTS.
Chapter Page
I. Wayside Rambles 9
II. Bird Curios 24
III. Winter Frolics 40
IV. February Outings 58
V. Arrival of the Birds 64
VI. Winged Voyagers 76
VII. Plumage of Young Birds 87
VIII. Nest-Hunting 92
IX. Midsummer Melodies 110
X. Where Birds Roost 116
XI. The Wood-Pewee 127
XII. A Pair of Night-Hawks 135
XIII. A Birds’ Gala-Day 141
XIV. Rife with Birds 152
XV. Various Phases of Bird Life:
I. Bird Courtship 160
II. Bird Nurseries 169
III. Bird High Schools 185
IV. Bird Work 193
V. Bird Play 201
VI. Bird Deaths 207
XVI. The Secret of Appreciation 216
XVII. Browsings in Other Fields 226
XVIII. A Bird Anthology from Lowell 242
My Bird List 263
Index 267
_This way would I also sing,
My dear little hillside neighbor!
A tender carol of peace to bring
To the sunburnt fields of labor
Is better than making a loud ado;
Trill on, amid clover and yarrow!
There’s a heart-beat echoing for you,
And blessing you, blithe little sparrow!_
Lucy Larcom.
IN BIRD LAND.
I.
WAYSIDE RAMBLES.
Looking out of my study window one fair spring morning, I noticed a
friend—a professional man—walking along the street, evidently taking his
“constitutional.” Having reached the end of the brick pavement, he
paused, glanced around a moment undecidedly, and then, instead of
walking out into the beckoning fields and woods, turned down another
street which led into a thickly populated part of the city. Surely, I
mused, we are not all cast in the same mould. While he carefully avoided
going beyond the suburbs and the beaten paths, as if afraid he might
soil his polished shoes, I should have plunged boldly into the country,
“across lots,” to find some sequestered nook or grass-grown by-way, “far
from human neighborhood,” to hold undisturbed converse with Nature. My
friend’s conduct, however, did not put me in a critical mood, but rather
stirred some grateful reflections on the wise adaptation of all things
in the world of being. How fortunate that men are so variously
constituted! If some did not naturally choose the bustle and stir and
excitement of the city, where would be our philanthropists, our Howards
and Peabodys and Dodges? On the other hand, if others did not
voluntarily seek quiet and solitude in Nature’s unfrequented haunts, the
world would never have been blessed with a Wordsworth, an Emerson, or a
Lowell; and in that case, for some of us at least, life would have been
bare and arid.
It is true, we cannot accept Pope’s dictum, “Whatever is, is right.” We
know that many things that are, are wrong; but doubtless more things in
this paradoxical old world are right than moralists sometimes suppose.
To the genuine lover of Nature, and especially to the lover of her
unbeaten pathways, the ringing lines of Emerson come home with thrilling
power:—
“If I could put my woods in song
And tell what’s there enjoyed,
All men would to my gardens throng,
And leave the cities void.”
Yet I doubt if any spot in Nature’s domain could be made so attractive
as to overcome most persons’ natural love of human association. Mayhap
even if this could be done, it would not be desirable. Should all men
hie to the woods and leave the cities void, it would spoil both the
woods and the cities. The charm of the woods is their quiet, their
solitude; the enchantment of the city, its thronging life and activity.
While I may be lonesome in a crowd, my neighbor is almost sure to feel
lonesome in the marsh or the deep ravine. If all men loved Nature with a
passion that could not be controlled, much work would be left undone
that is indispensable to human life and happiness. I am glad, therefore,
that there are many birds of many kinds; glad, too, that there are many
men of many minds. The apostle does well to remind his brethren in the
church that there are “diversities of gifts” and “diversities of
operations,” even if all do spring from “the same Spirit.”
Albeit, as for me, give me
“A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned.”
Emerson voices my own feeling when he sings:—
“A woodland walk,
A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush,
A wild rose, or rock-loving columbine,
Salve my worst wounds;”
for,
“What friend to friend cannot convey,
Shall the dumb bird instructed say.”
And it is true that a wayside ramble will often do, by way of
self-revelation and conviction, what no human voice of chastisement can
accomplish. Mr. Howells says, in one of his most trenchant analytical
novels: “If you’re not in first-rate spiritual condition, you’re apt to
get floored if you undertake to commune with Nature.” There are times
when the very immaculateness of the sky, or the purity of a woodland
flower, rebukes one, gives one a keen sense of one’s sins, and makes one
long for absolution; or when the pensive moaning of the wind through the
gray, branchless trees on a winter’s day forces on the mind a prevision
of a judgment about to be visited upon one’s misdoings. Yet this is
seldom my own experience while idling in out-of-the-way places. Usually
I feel soothed and comforted, or, at most, a sort of glad melancholy
steals over me, which is as enchanting as a magician’s spell; while I
often win exhilaration from the whispering breezes, as if they carried a
tonic on their pulsing wings.
On the spring morning on which my friend so studiously avoided Nature’s
by-paths, my stint of labor for the day was soon despatched, and then,
flinging my lunch-bag over my shoulders, I hurried across the fields,
anxious to put a comfortable distance between myself and bothering human
tenements. By noon I had reached a green hollow at the border of a
woodland, where Nature, to a large extent at least, has had her own
sweet way. Here, on the grassy bank of a rivulet, I sat down to eat my
luncheon. The spring near by filled my cup with ale that sparkles, but
never burns; that quenches thirst, but never creates it. Not a human
habitation was in sight; nothing but the tinkling brook, the sloping
hills, the quiet woods, and the overarching sky. The haunt was not
without music. The far-away cadences of the bush-sparrows on the
hillside filled the place like melodious sunshine. A short distance down
the hollow a song-sparrow thrummed his harp, while a cooing dove lent
her dreamy threnody to the wayside trio. Although engaged in the prosaic
act of eating my luncheon, I breathed in an atmosphere of poetry and
romance, and half expected a company of water-witches and dryads to leap
upon the greensward before me and dance to the music of bird and brook.
A pagan I am not,—at least, such is my hope; but moods subjunctive
sometimes seize me when I do not blame the Greeks—aye, rather, when I
praise them—for peopling the woods with Pan and his retinue; for I feel
the influence of a strange, mystical, and more than impersonal presence.
Yes, one’s dreams sometimes take on a speculative cast, even on a day
that seems to be “the bridal of the earth and sky.” In this unfrequented
spot the birds sing their sweetest carols, be there a human ear to hear
or not. Do they sing merely for their own delectation, these little
creatures of a day? Is there not far too much sweetness wasted on the
desert air? Would there not be more purpose in Nature could these dulcet
strains be treasured in some way, so that they might be poured into
man’s appreciative ear? Why has Nature made no phonographs? Wherefore
all this waste of ointment? Does Nature encourage the habits of the
spendthrift? I recall a summer day when I strolled along a deep, lonely
ravine. It was at least a mile to the nearest human dwelling. Suddenly a
clear, melodious trill from a song-sparrow’s lusty throat rippled
through the stillness, making my pulses flutter. Here, doubtless, the
little Arion had sung his roundels all summer long, and perhaps I had
been the only person who had heard him, and then I had caught only a few
tantalizing strains—simply enough to give a taste for more. Why was the
peerless triller apparently burying his talents in this solitary haunt?
It may be true of bird song, as of the recluse flower, that “beauty is
its own excuse for being;” but I am not ashamed to record my confession
of faith, my creed, on this matter; not my dreamy cogitations with _ifs_
and _mayhaps_. There is a divine ear which catches every strain of
wayside melody, and appreciates it at its true value. Thus, no beauty or
sweetness is ever lost, no bird or flower is really an anchorite. A bird
may flit away in alarm at the approach of a human intruder, and may not
lisp a note until he is well out of the haunt; but the same songster
will unconsciously pour his dithyrambs all summer long into the ear of
God. Nature was not made for man alone; it was also made for its
Creator. Never has the brown thrasher sung with such enchanting vigor
and abandon as he did the other day at the corner of the woods when he
thought no human auditor within ear-shot. He was singing for God, albeit
unconsciously.
It is high time to get back to my waysiding, if I may coin a word. You
must go to an out-of-the-way resort, far from the din of loom and
factory, to feel the quaint, delicate fancy of Sidney Lanier’s lines,—
“Robins and mocking-birds that all day long
Athwart straight sunshine weave cross-threads of song,
Shuttles of music.”
The wayside rambler often is witness of delightful bird-pranks that must
escape other eyes. On a bright day in February I strolled to the hollow
to which I have already referred. The sun was melting the ice-mantle
from the brook, and causing the snow to pour in runlets down the banks.
In a broad, shallow curve of the stream the tree-sparrows and
song-sparrows were taking a bath. I watched them for a long time. Some
of them would remain in the ice-cold water for from three to five
minutes, fluttering their wings and tails in perfect glee; and sending
the pearl-drops and spray glimmering into the air. Their ablutions done,
they would fly up to the saplings near by, and carefully preen and dry
their moistened robes.
It was in the depth of the woods that my saucy black-cap, the titmouse,
clambered straight up the vertical hole of an oak sapling, as if he had
learned the trick from the brown creeper or the white-breasted nuthatch.
No less interesting was the conduct of the downy woodpecker, that little
drum-major of the woods. He is the tilter _par excellence_ of the
woodpecker family. He flings himself in the most reckless manner from
trunk to branch, and from branch to twig, often alighting back-downward
on the slenderest stems. Shall I describe one of his odd tricks? I had
often seen him clinging to the slender withes of the willows at the
border of the swamp, and had wondered how he could hold himself with his
claws to so meagre a support. It was a problem. How much I longed to
solve it! However, for a long time the bird so completely baffled me
that I felt like another Tantalus. One winter day, however, he happened
to be quite near the ground as I stood beneath the willows, so that I
could see just how he accomplished the mysterious feat. Imagine my
surprise! He did not cling to the withes with his _claws_ at all, as he
clings to a tree-trunk or a large bough, but grasped the slender perches
with his _feet_, precisely as if they were hands, flinging his long
toes, like fingers, clear around the stems, one foot above the other. In
ascending, he would go foot over foot; in descending, he would simply
loosen his hold slightly and slip down. Sir Isaac Newton may have made
more important discoveries, but he did not feel prouder or happier when
he solved the binomial theorem than did I when my little avian problem
was solved. I am not aware that any one else has ever described this
performance, and am strongly tempted to announce it as an original
discovery. Yet a certain writer once declared, patronizingly, that there
are some writers—himself excepted, of course—on natural history themes
who proclaim as original discoveries many facts that are perfectly
familiar to every tyro in science. Spite of the scornful reflection,
however, it is my modest opinion that there are very few observers who
have seen a woodpecker ascending a willow-withe foot over foot.
Many, many a cunning bird prank would have been missed had I kept, like
the majority of pedestrians, to the beaten track. There, for example, is
that odd little genius in mottled robes, the brown creeper, who has
performed a sufficient number of quaint gambols to repay me for all the
time and effort expended in pursuing my wayside rambles. He is always
_sui generis_, apparently priding himself on his eccentricities, like
some people you may know. A genuine arboreal creeper, he almost
invariably coasts up hill. Unlike his congeners, the nuthatch and the
creeping warbler, he never goes head-downward. Dear me, no! Whether it
is because it makes him light-headed, or he regards it as bad form, I am
unable to say. He does not even hitch down backward after the manner of
the woodpeckers, but marches up, up, up, until he thinks it time to
descend, which he does by taking to wing, bounding around in an arc as
if he were an animated rubber ball. You may almost imagine him saying:
“Pah! such vulgar sport as creeping head-downward may be well enough for
mere plebeians like the nuthatches and the striped creepers, but it is
quite beneath the caste of a patrician like myself! _Tseem! tseem!_” At
rare intervals he will slip down sidewise for a short distance, in a
slightly oblique direction, especially when he comes to a fork of the
branches.
However, he does not think it beneath his dignity to take a promenade on
the under side of a horizontal bough. One day as I watched him doing
this, he reached a point where the limb made an obtuse angle by bending
obliquely downward. Now what would he do? Would he really hitch down
that branch head-foremost, only for once? By no means. Catch him
committing such a breach of creeper decorum! He suddenly spread his
wings and hurled himself to the lower end of that oblique section of the
branch, and then ambled up to the angle in regular orthodox fashion. You
will never find him doing anything to give employment to the heresy
hunters![1]
Have any of my fellow-observers ever seen this merry-andrew convert
himself into a whirligig? I once witnessed this droll performance, which
seemed almost like a vagary. A creeper was clinging to a large oak-tree
near the base, when he took it into his crazy little pate, for what
earthly—or unearthly—reason I know not, to wheel around like a top
several times in quick succession. He rested a moment, and then repeated
the comedy.
On another occasion a creeper was preening his ruffled feathers, having
evidently just taken a bath; and how do you suppose he went about it? In
quite a characteristic fashion, you may rest assured. Instead of sitting
crosswise on a perch, as most birds would have done, he clung to the
vertical bole of a large oak-tree, holding himself firmly against the
shaggy bark, and daintily straightening out every feather from his
breast to his flexible tail. Growing tired of this position—apparently
so, at least—he shuffled up to a fork made by the trunk and a large
limb, where he found a more comfortable slanting perch on which to
complete his toilet. Once, afterward, I saw a creeper arranging his
plumes in the same way.
But the quaintest exploit of this bird still remains to be described.
One autumn day, while rambling along the foot of a range of steep
cliffs, I caught sight of one of these birds darting from a tree toward
the perpendicular wall of rock. For a few moments I lost him, but
followed post-haste, muttering to myself, “What if I should find the
little clown climbing up the face of the cliff! That would be a
performance worth describing to my bird-loving friends, wouldn’t it?”
(Surely a monomaniac may talk aloud to himself.) I could scarcely
believe my eyes, for the next moment my happy presentiment was realized;
there was the creeper scaling the vertical face of the cliff, with as
much ease and aplomb, apparently, as a fly creeping up the smooth
surface of a window-pane! Then he flew ahead a short distance, and began
mounting the cliff where its face was quite smooth and hard. Presently
he encountered a bulging protuberance, and tried to creep along the
oblique under side of it; but that feat proved to be beyond his skill,
agile as he was, and so he abandoned the attempt, and swung away to
another part of the vertical wall. I have never seen, in any of the
manuals which I have consulted, a description of a similar performance;
and if any of my readers have ever witnessed such a “coruscation” of
creeper genius, I should be glad to hear from them.
In one’s out-of-the-way saunterings, one dashes up against many a faunal
problem that defies, even while it challenges, solution. On a cold day
of early winter I was strolling along the bare, windswept banks of a
river, keeping my eyes alert, as usual, for bird curios. In the small
bushes that fringed the bank were some cunningly placed nests. In the
bottom of one of them lay many seeds of dogwood berries, with the
kernels bored out,—the work, no doubt, of the crested tits. But there
were no dogwood-trees within twenty-five rods of the place! Why had the
birds carried the shells to this nest, and dropped them into it? This is
all the more curious because it was not a tit’s nest, but very likely a
cat-bird’s. One can only surmise that the tits had gathered these seeds
in the fall, and stowed them away in the nest for winter use, and then
had eaten out the kernels when hunger drove them to it. That would be in
perfect keeping with the habits of these thrifty little providers for
the morrow.
During the winter of 1892-1893 a red-bellied woodpecker, often called
the zebra-bird, took up his residence in my woodland. (I call it mine by
a sort of usufruct, because I ramble through its pleasant archways or
sit in its quiet boudoirs at all hours and in all seasons.) With the
exception of several brief absences, for which I could not account, the
woodpecker remained until the following spring, giving me some
delightful surprises. It was the first winter he had shown the good
grace to keep me company. Perhaps he was lazy; or he may have been a
clumsy flier; or perchance he got separated from his fellows by
accident, and so was left behind in the autumn when the southward
pilgrimage began.
He was, by all odds, the handsomest woodpecker I had ever seen. His
entire crown and hind-neck were brilliant crimson, which fairly
shimmered like a flambeau when the sun peeped through a rift in the
clouds and shone upon it; and then his back was beautifully mottled and
striped with black and white, while his tail was bordered with a broad
band of deep black. What a splendid picture he made, too, whenever he
spread his wings and bolted from one tree to another! I wish an artist
could have caught him on the wing, and transferred him to canvas. He
performed a trick that was new to me, and did it several times. He would
dash to some twigs, balance before them a moment on the wing, pick a nit
or a worm from a dead leaf-clump, and then swing back to his upright
perch. Once he found a grain of corn in a pocket of the bark, placed
there, perhaps, by a nuthatch; but he did not seem to care for
johnny-cake, and so he dropped it back into the pocket. How cunningly he
canted his head and peered into the crannies of the bark for grubs,
calling, _Chack! chack!_
During the entire winter he uttered only this harsh, stirring note, half
jocose, half spiteful; but, greatly to my surprise, when spring arrived,
especially if the weather happened to be pleasant, he began to call,
_K-t-r-r! k-t-r-r!_ precisely like a red-headed woodpecker; indeed, at
first I laid siege to every tree, looking in vain for a red-head come
prematurely northward, until I discovered the trick of my winter
intimate, the red-bellied wood-chopper. Why it should have been so I
cannot explain; but whenever a cold wave struck this latitude during the
spring, he would invariably revert to his harsh _Chack! chack!_ and then
when the breezes grew balmy again, he would resume his other reveille,
making the woods echo. I also discovered—it was a discovery to myself,
at least—that the red-bellied is a drummer, like most of his relatives;
but not once did he thrum his merry _ra-ta-ta_ before spring
arrived,—another avian conundrum for the naturalist to beat his brains
against.
But hold! I might go rambling on in this way forever, like Tennyson’s
brook,—or, possibly, like Ixion revolving on his wheel,—describing the
odd pranks witnessed in my wayside rambles. It is high time, however, to
call a halt; yet, after a brief breathing-space, these miscellanies will
be resumed in the next chapter, which may, with some degree of
propriety, be entitled “Bird Curios.”
II.
BIRD CURIOS.
Every observer of birds and animals has doubtless amassed many facts of
intense interest—at all events, of intense interest to himself—which he
has not been able to adjust to any systematic arrangement he may have
made of his material. That is true of the incidents described in this
chapter. It will, therefore, necessarily partake of the nature of
bric-à-brac. If it were not so self-complimentary, I should dub it bird
mosaic, and have done. The reader will perhaps be more disposed to trace
a resemblance to an eccentric old woman’s “crazy quilt;” and if he
prefers the homelier and less poetical title, I shall not complain.
But even a bit of patchwork must be begun somewhere, and so I shall
plunge at once _in medias res_.
The day was one of the fairest of early spring. How shall I describe it?
No sky could have been bluer, no fields greener. The earth smiled under
the favoritism of the radiant heavens in happy recognition. My steps
were bent along the green banks of a winding creek in northern Indiana.
Suddenly a loud, varied bird song fell on my ear and brought me to a
full stop. It swept down liltingly from a high, bushy bank some rods
back from the stream, and at once proclaimed itself as the rhapsody of
the cat-bird. Anxious to watch the brilliant vocalist in his singing
attitudes, I approached the acclivity, and soon espied him in the midst
of the dense copse, which was not yet covered with foliage. He redoubled
his efforts when he saw an appreciative auditor standing near. Presently
a quaint impulse seized his throbbing, music-filled bosom. He swung
gracefully to the ground, picked up a fragment of newspaper, leaped up
to his perch again, and then, holding the paper harp in his beak,
resumed his song with more vigor than before. All the while his beady
eyes sparkled with good-natured raillery, as if he expected me to laugh
at his unique performance; and, of course, I was able to accommodate him
without half an effort. An errant gust of wind suddenly wrenched the bit
of paper from his bill and bore it to the ground. The minstrel darted
after, and straightway recovered his elusive prize, flew up to his
perch, and again roused the echoes of woodland and vale with his
rollicking song, the paper harp imparting a peculiar resonance to his
tones; while his air of banter seemed to challenge me to a musical
contest. I laughingly declined in the interest of my own reputation.
He was one of the choicest minstrels of bird land I have ever
heard,—barring the sex, a Jenny Lind or an Adelina Patti,—his voice
being of excellent _timbre_, his tones pure and liquid, and his
technical execution almost perfect. Ever since that day I have been the
avowed friend of the catbird,—in truth, his champion, ready at any
moment, in season and out, to take up the glove in his defence against
every assailant. Some very self-conscious human performers—people who
themselves live in glass houses—have accused him of singing to be heard,
making him out vain and ambitious. Well, what if he does? Why do his
human compeers sing or speak or write? Certainly not purely for their
own delectation, but also, in part at least, to catch the appreciative
ear and eye of the public, and win a bit of applause. “Let him that is
without sin among you first cast a stone.” He who scoffs at my
plumbeous-hued choralist makes me his enemy,—not the choralist’s, but
the scoffer’s. So let the latter beware!
I leave the cat-bird, however, to his own resources—he is well able to
take care of himself—to tell what the birds were doing during a recent
spring, which fought in a very desultory manner its battle with the
north winds. Special attention is called to the laggard character of the
season because a tardy spring is a sore ordeal to the student of bird
life, postponing many of his most longed-for investigations. The spring
to which I refer (1892) was provokingly slow in its approach, and yet it
developed some traits of bird character that were interesting. For
instance, the first week in April was a seducer, being quite bland,
starting the buds on many trees, and putting the migrating fever into
the veins of a number of species of birds. But the snow-storms and
fierce northern blasts that came later were very hard on both birds and
buds. Many a chorus was sung during the pleasant weather, but on more
than one day afterward the cheerful voices of the feathered choir were
hushed, while the songsters themselves sought refuge from the storm in
every available nook, where they sat shivering. One cannot always
repress the interrogatory why Nature so frequently stirs hopes only to
blast them; but it is not the business of the empirical observer to
question her motives or her manners,—rather to study her as she is,
without asking why.
Cold as April was, some birds were hardy enough to go to nest-building.
Among these were the robins, whose blushing bosoms could be seen
everywhere in grove and field. On the seventh of the month a robin was
carrying grass fibres to a half-finished nest in the woodland near my
house. A week later she was sitting on the nest, hugging her eggs close
beneath her warm bosom, while the tempests howled mercilessly about her
roofless homestead. It seemed to me, one cold morning after a
snow-storm, that her body shivered as she sat there, and I feared more
than once that she would freeze to death; but no such fatality befell
her, and she resolutely kept her seat in her adobe cottage.
And this reminds me of a bird tragedy described to me by a professor in
the college located in my town. He said that a number of years ago a
robin built a nest in a tree not far from the site on which some workmen
were erecting a new college building. In May a very fierce snow-storm
came. One day the workmen noticed a half-dozen robins darting about the
nest on which the hatching bird sat, flying at her with sharp cries,
striking her with their wings, and making use of various other devices
to dislodge her from the nest. They seemed to realize that she was in
peril of her life through long inactivity and exposure to the cold. But
their efforts were unsuccessful: she would not leave her nest; her eggs
or young must have her care at whatever cost. However, the poor bird
paid dearly for her devotion. The next morning—the night had been very
cold—the workmen found her dead upon the nest. My informant vouches for
the truthfulness of the story, and says that he himself saw the faithful
mother on the nest after she had been frozen stiff.
On the twentieth of April I saw another robin sitting close on her nest,
which was built on a horizontal branch of a willow-tree, not more than
eight feet from the ground. The raw east wind lifted the feathers on her
back, as if determined to creep through her thick clothing to the
sensitive skin. A few days earlier a blue jay was seen carrying lumber
to her partly erected nursery in the crotch of an oak-tree. A pair of
bluebirds, sighing out their sorrows and joys, began building in one of
my bird-boxes during the pleasant early April weather; but when the cold
spell came, they wisely suspended operations until the storms were
overpast and they could proceed with safety. A killdeer plover’s nest
was found by my farmer neighbor on the ninth of April. It was on the
ground in an open field, with not so much as a spear of grass for
protection.
That year the crow blackbirds arrived from the south in February, all
bedecked in holiday attire, the rich purple of their necks scintillating
in the sunshine. You have perhaps observed the droll antics of these
birds as they sing their guttural _O-gl-ee_. It is amusing to see them
fluff up their feathers, spread out their wings and tails, bend their
heads forward and downward with a spasmodic movement, and then emit that
queer, gurgling, half-musical note. It would seem that the little they
sing requires a superhuman—more precisely, perhaps, a
super-avian—effort, coming aqueously, one might almost say, from some
deep fountain in their windpipes. These contortions do not invariably
accompany their vocal performances, but certainly occur quite
frequently. The red-wings also often behave in a like manner; and both
species always spread out their tails like a fan when they sing, whether
they fluff up their plumes and twist their necks or not.
Another bit of bird behavior gave me not a little surprise during the
same spring. It started this query in my mind: Is the white-breasted
nuthatch a sap-sucker? It has been proved by Mr. Burroughs and Mr. Frank
Bolles, I think, that the yellow-bellied woodpecker is. But how about
the frisky nuthatch, so versatile in ways and means? Here is an
incident. One day I saw a nuthatch thrusting his slender bill into a
hole in the bark of a young hickory-tree. Nuthatches often hunt for
grubs in that way, but something about this fellow’s conduct prompted me
to watch him closely for some minutes. He bent over the hole with a
lingering movement, as if sipping something. Presently I slowly
approached the tree, keeping my eye intent on the bird.
Of course, he flew away on my approach, but my eye was never taken from
the spot to which he had been clinging. Being forced to climb the trunk
of the tree a few feet, what discovery do you suppose awaited me? There
was a small hole pierced through the bark from which the sap was flowing
down the crannies, and into that fount the little wassailer had been
thrusting his bill, with a sort of lingering motion, precisely as if he
had been sipping the sweet liquor. The evidence was sufficient to
convince me that he had been doing this very unorthodox thing. The real
sap-suckers, no doubt, had dug the well, for there were a number of them
in the woods, and the nuthatch had been stealing the nectar. Perhaps,
however, I wrong him; he may have asked permission of the owner to drink
from the saccharine fountain.
The next autumn I took occasion to pry into the affairs of my beloved
intimates of the woods, and had more than one surprise. Some species of
birds, like some other animals, lay by a supply of food for winter,
proving that they do take some thought for the morrow. So far as my
observation goes, this provident care is displayed only by those birds
that are winter residents in our more northern latitudes. I have never
seen any of the vast company of migrants making such provision for the
proverbial rainy day; and, indeed, it would be unnecessary. To them
sufficient unto the day is the care as well as the evil thereof, and so
they take their “daily bread” as they happen to find it.
Our winter residents, however, are more thrifty, as I have observed
again and again. Here is an instance which once came under my eye. While
sauntering along the border of the woods one day in September, I noticed
several nuthatches and black-capped titmice busily gathering seeds from
a clump of sunflower stalks, and flying with them to the trees near by.
I found a seat and watched them for a long while. A nuthatch would dart
over to a sunflower stalk, cry, _Yak! yak!_ in his familiar way, as if
talking affectionately to himself, deftly pick out a seed from its
encasement, fly with it to the trunk of an oak-tree, and then thrust it
into a crevice of the bark with his long slender beak. He would then
hurry back for another seed, which he would treat in the same way.
The behavior of one of these little toilers was especially interesting.
By mistake he pushed a seed into a cranny which seemed to be too deep
for his purpose, and so he proceeded in his vigorous way to pry and
chisel it out. He seemed to say to himself: “That would be too hard to
dig out on a cold winter day; I think I’d better get it out now.” When
he had secured it, he put it into another crevice, which also proved too
deep; and so his dainty had to be recovered once more. The third
attempt, however, proved a charm, for that time he found a little pocket
just to his liking. To make very sure he did not eat the seed, I did not
take my eye from him for a single moment. The fact is, during the entire
time spent in watching the birds, I did not see them eat a single seed.
The titmice flew farther into the woods with their winter “goodies,”
where the foliage was so dense, while the birds were so quick in
movement, that it was impossible to see just where they hid their store;
but they returned too soon for a new supply to allow time for eating the
seeds.
One autumn I spent a week in a part of Kentucky where beechnuts were
very plentiful, and saw the hairy and red-headed woodpeckers putting
away their hoard of “mast” for the winter, industrious husbandmen that
they were. A farmer said that he had often seen the woodpeckers carrying
these nuts to a hole in a tree and dropping them into it. He once found
such a winter store that must have contained fully a quart of beechnuts.
In my own neighborhood the hairy woodpecker often hides tidbits in
gullies of the bark, after the manner of the nuthatch. The crested tit
also stows corn and various kinds of seeds in some safe niche for a time
of exigency. Several times in the winter, when the ground was covered
with snow, I have surprised this bird eating a corn grain in the very
depth of the woods, a considerable distance from the neighboring
cornfields.
One winter day a nuthatch picked three grains of corn in succession from
the fissures of an oak, and greedily devoured them. On another occasion
one of these nuthatches was seen diving into a hole on the under side of
a limb. Presently he emerged with a nut of some kind in his bill, and
flew away, remaining just about long enough to eat it, when he returned
for another. This he repeated until his dinner was finished.
No doubt, when cold and stormy weather comes, these birds have many a
luscious mouthful because of their forehandedness, and no doubt they
enjoy their well-kept stores as much as the farmer and his family relish
their dish of mellow apples around the glowing hearth on a winter
evening. It is no fancy flight, but a literal truth, that many a niche
and cleft is made to do duty as larder for the feathered and furred
tenants of the woods.
With the birds that migrate, autumn is the season for gathering in large
convocations, holding “windy congresses in trees,” as Lowell aptly puts
it. The aerial movements of some of these feathered armies are often
worthy of observation. Memory lingers fondly about a day in autumn when
two friends and myself were clambering up the side of a steep hill or
ridge that bounded a green hollow on the south. We had gone half-way to
the top when we turned to admire the panorama spread out picturesquely
before us. Our exclamations of pleasure at the scene were soon
interrupted by a shadow hurtling across the hollow, and on looking up,
we saw a vast army of crow blackbirds sweeping overhead, moving about
fifty abreast. How long the column was I cannot say, but it extended
over the hollow from hilltop to hilltop and some distance beyond in both
directions. The odd feature about the ebon army’s evolutions was this:
The vanguard had gone on far beyond the ravine, and was pushing over the
opposite ridge, when there was a peculiar swaying movement near the
centre directly above the hollow; then that part of the column dropped
gracefully downward toward the trees below them; at the same moment
those in the van swung lightly around to the right and returned, while
the rear part of the column advanced rapidly, and then all swept grandly
down into the tops of the tall trees in the ravine. It was a splendid
military pageant, and might well start several queries in the
interrogative mind. Where was the commander-in-chief of that sable army?
Was he near the centre of the column? If so, why should he station
himself there instead of at the head? Again, how could the message to
return be sent so speedily to the vanguard? Do birds employ some occult
method of telegraphy? But these are questions more easily asked than
answered; for no one, so far as I know, has yet given special attention
to the military tactics of the armies in feathers.
It may be a somewhat abrupt transition from a crowd to an individual,
but the reader must bear in mind that a close logical unity cannot be
preserved in a chapter composed of bric-à-brac; and, besides, is not
every crowd made up of individuals? How great was my surprise, one
summer day, to see a purple grackle stalking about in his regal manner
on the flat rocks of a shallow woodland stream, and then suddenly wheel
about, pull a crab out of the water, and fly off with it to a log, where
he beat it to pieces and devoured it! I doubt if many persons are aware
that this bird dines on crab. On the same day another grackle, striding
pompously about in the shallow water, suddenly sprang up into the air,
some six or eight feet, and caught an insect on the wing. This was a
performance on the part of a crow blackbird never before witnessed by
me.
One day in the woods my saucy little madcap, the crested titmouse, was
tilting about on the twigs of a sapling like a trapeze performer in a
circus. Sometimes, he hung lightly to the under side of a spray, and
pecked nits and other dainties from the lower surface of a leaf. While
doing so, he happened to catch sight of an insect buzzing by; he flung
himself at it like a feathered arrow; but for some reason he missed his
mark, and the insect, in its efforts to escape, let itself drop toward
the ground. An interesting scuffle followed; the titmouse whirled around
and around, dashing this way and that like zigzag lightning, in hot
pursuit, fluttering his wings very rapidly until he alighted on the
ground on the dry leaves, where he at last succeeded in capturing his
prize. He gulped it down with a sly wink, as much as to say: “Wasn’t
that a clever trick, sir? Beat it if you can!” Then he picked up a seed
and flew with it to a twig in a dogwood sapling, where he placed it
under his claws, holding it firmly as he nibbled it with his stout
little beak. His meal finished, he suddenly pretended to be greatly
alarmed at something, called loudly, _Chick, chick-a-da! chick-a-da-da!_
and darted away like an Indian’s arrow.
On the same day a golden-crowned kinglet—my Lilliputian of the
woods—surprised me by dropping from a twig above me to the ground, right
at my feet, passing within two or three inches of my face. Quick as a
flash he leaped to a sapling before me, and I saw that he held a worm in
his tiny bill. Of course, that was the prize for which he had dashed in
such a headlong way to the ground.
Few birds have charmed me more than the jolly red-headed woodpecker, and
many a quaint antic has he performed with all the nonchalance of a sage
or a stoic. He has a queer way of taking his meals. The first time it
came to my notice I was walking home, on a hot summer day, along a
railway, when a red-head bounded across the track before me, holding a
ripe, blood-red cherry in his beak. He made a handsome picture with his
pure white and velvety black coat and vest, his crimson cap and collar,
and his—here my tropes fail, and I am forced to become literal—long,
black beak, tipped with the scarlet berry. Swinging gracefully across
the railway, he presently alighted on a stake of the meadow fence, where
he seemed to place the cherry in a sort of crevice, and then sip from it
in a somewhat dainty, half-caressing way, as if it were rarely billsome.
My curiosity being excited, I eyed him awhile, and then, determined to
reconnoitre, climbed the wire fence over into the meadow, and drove him
away from his menu. There, in a small pocket of the fence-stake,
apparently hollowed out, at least partially, by the bird himself, lay
the cherry, its rind punctured in several places, where the diner-out
had thrust in his bill to sip the juicy pulp underneath,—a sort of
woodpecker’s _table d’hôte_. The crevice had a rank odor of cherries
dried in the sun,—a proof that it had been used for a dining-table for
some time. The legs and wings of several kinds of insects were also
strewn about. Since that day I have found many of these pockets in
fence-stakes, posts, dead tree-boles, and old stumps, where woodpeckers
have placed their dainties to be eaten at their convenience.
You have doubtless, seen these red-heads catching insects on the wing.
This they do with as much agility as the wood-pewee, sometimes
performing evolutions that are little short of marvellous. From my study
window I once watched one of these aeronauts as he sprang from the top
of a tall oak-tree in the grove near by, and mounted up, up, up in
graceful terraces of flight, until he had climbed at least twice the
height of the tree, when he suddenly stopped, poised a moment airily,
wheeled about, and plunged downward headlong with a swiftness that made
my head swim, closing the descent with a series of bounds, as if he were
going down an aerial stairway. Whether he performed this feat in pursuit
of an insect, or to display his skill, or only to give vent to his
exuberance of feeling, I am unable to say.
The red-head has an odd way of taking a bath during a light shower,
which he does by clinging lengthwise to an upright or oblique branch,
fluffing up his plumes as much as possible, and then flapping his wings
slowly back and forth, thus allowing the refreshing drops thoroughly to
percolate and rinse his handsome feathers. And, by the way, the subject
of bird baths is one of no small degree of interest to the ogler of the
feathered creation. It has been my good fortune to see a brilliant
company of warblers of various species—lyrics in color, one might call
them—performing their ablutions at a small pond in the woods. How their
iridescent hues flashed and danced in the sunshine, as they dipped their
dainty bosoms into the water, twinkled their wings, and fluttered their
tails, sending the spray like pearl-mist into the air! One sylvan
picture like that is worth many a mile’s tramping.
I once saw several myrtle warblers taking a dew-bath. Do you wonder how
they did it? They leaped from a twig in the trees upon the dew-covered
leaves,—it was early morning,—and fluttered about until their plumes
were thoroughly drenched, then flitted to a perch to dry their
bedraggled feathers and carefully arrange their dainty toilets.[2]
Besides, it has been my chance to witness my little confidant, Bewick’s
wren, taking a dust-bath, which he did in this manner: he would squat
flat on his belly on the ground in the lane, completely hiding his feet,
and then glide about rapidly and smoothly over the little undulations,
stirring the dust in volatile cloudlets. Never have I seen any
performance, even in the bird realm so varied and versatile, more
absolutely charming; so charming, indeed, that I believe my brief
description of it will fittingly bring this rambling chapter on “Bird
Curios” to a close.
III.
WINTER FROLICS.
Had Mr. Lowell never written anything but “A Good Word for Winter,” he
would still have deserved a place in the front rank of American writers.
What a genuine appreciation of Nature, even in her sterner and more
unfriendly moods, breathes in every line of his manfully written
monograph! Blessed be the man whose love for Nature is so leal and
deeply rooted that he can say, “Even though she slay me, yet will I
trust in her!” When the storm howls dismally, and the icy gusts strike
you rudely in the face; when the cold rain or sleet pelts you
spitefully; when, in short, Nature seems to frown and scold and
bluster,—the loyal lover of her feels no waning of affection, but knows
that beneath all her bluster and apparent harshness she carries a
tender, maternal heart in her bosom that responds to his wooing. No,
Thomson is in error when he says that winter is the “inverted year.”
Winter, as well as summer, is the year right end up, standing squarely
on its feet; or, if it does sometimes turn a somersault, it quickly
wheels about again into an upright position. Nor is Cotton’s dictum
correct that winter is “our mortal enemy.” It has been much
misunderstood, and therefore much abused, for there are persons who will
ever and anon malign that which is above their comprehension.
It is just possible that the weather may sometimes become too cold in
the winter for open-air exercise; but the winter of 1890-1891, with its
occasional snow-storms, its alternating days of rain and clear sunshine,
was an almost ideal one for the rambler. There were times when the woods
were clad in robes more beautiful than the green of spring or the brown
of autumn; when I was compelled to exclaim with a Scottish poet,—
“Now is the time
To visit Nature in her grand attire.”
I mean those days when every twig and branch was “ridged inch-deep with
pearl,” making the woodland a perfect network of marble shafts and
columns.
As to the feathered tenants of the woods, they were almost as
light-hearted and gay as in the season of sunshine and flowers, save
that they were not so prolific of song. Quite a number of interesting
species were the constant companions of my winter loiterings, and
several of them occasionally regaled me with snatches of melody. Among
our winter songsters is the hardy Carolina wren. On December and January
days when the weather was quite cold, his vigorous bugle echoed through
the woods, _Chil-le-lu, chil-le-lu_, or, _Che-wish-year, che-wish-year_,
giving one the feeling that at least one brave little heart was not
discouraged on account of the dismal moaning of the wintry storm. He is
every inch a hero, and I wonder Emerson did not celebrate his praise as
well as that of the black-capped chickadee, in verse. The wren is
somewhat more of a recluse than most of my winter intimates. He has not
been quite as sociable as I should have liked. Whether it was modesty or
selfishness that made him a sort of eremite could not be determined.
Most of his contemporaries, such as the chickadees, kinglets,
nuthatches, and woodpeckers, prefer to go in straggling flocks; so that,
as soon as I see one bird or hear his call, I feel sure that he is
simply the sentinel of a bevy of feathered tilters and coasters at my
elbow. No, they do not believe in monasteries or nunneries; they do not
believe that it is good for a bird to be alone, whatever may be said of
man or woman. Listen to that kinglet, the malapert, hanging
head-downward on a spray and making his disclaimer: “No, sir, we birds
are sociable beings, as men are, and like to hold commerce with one
another. What good would it do to sing so sweetly or tilt so gracefully
were there no auditors or spectators to admire our performances?” And
all his plumed comrades cry, “Aye! aye!” by way of emphatic endorsement.