weather was broiling,—hot enough to drive the thermometer into
hysterics, just the day to see how the heat would affect the feathered
tenants of the groves; and so, overcoming my physical inertia as best I
could, I stalked to the woods in the afternoon in quest of bird lore.
With the perspiration running from every pore, I trudged about for some
time without seeing or hearing a single bird. Were the books correct,
after all? Was I to be deprived of the pleasure of proving them in
error? It began to appear as if such might be the case. Presently,
however, as I pushed out into a gap at one side of the woods, an uneasy
chirping in the clumps of bushes and brambles near by sent a thrill of
gladness through my veins. I felt intuitively that there were birds in
abundance in the neighborhood, and my presentiment proved correct; for
before my brief search was completed, I was permitted to record the
songs of the indigo-bird, the cardinal grossbeak, the towhee bunting,
the wood-pewee, the Baltimore oriole, and the black-capped chickadee;
while, no sooner had I stepped out of the woods into the adjoining
swamp, than the song-sparrow chimed merrily, “Oh, certainly, certainly,
you mustn’t forget me-me-me! No-sirree, no-sirree!”
One of the most blithesome trillers of midsummer was the grass-finch,
which sang his canticles until about the twelfth of August, when he
suddenly took leave for parts unknown. It seemed to me he sang more
vigorously in July than in May, for several times he prolonged his trill
with such splendid musical effect as to make me rush out to the
adjoining field to find a lark-sparrow. The black-throated bunting
remained here almost as long, rasping his harsh notes until he also took
his flight. I was somewhat disappointed in the meadow-larks, having
heard but one note from their tuneful throats during August; but when
September came, they resumed their shrill choruses, which lasted until
November, increasing in vigor as the autumn advanced.
The robins were chary of their music, only two songs having been heard
during August, one of them on the fourteenth. But the little
bush-sparrow made ample compensation, chanting his pensive voluntaries
almost every day at the border of the woods until about the twentieth of
August. Still more lavish of his melody was the indigo-bird, which on
several occasions was the only songster, besides the wood-pewee, heard
during a long stroll through the woods. An irrepressible minstrel, he is
the most cheery member of the midsummer chorus. My notes say that the
Maryland yellow-throat was singing in splendid voice on the first of
August, but I am positive I heard him later in the month, as he is one
of our most rollicksome midsummer choralists. The goldfinch sang
cheerily on the first, eighteenth, and nineteenth of August, and I
cannot say how often in July and August I heard the loud refrain of the
Carolina wren.
On the tenth, twelfth, fourteenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth of August,
the Baltimore oriole piped cheerily, though he had partly doffed his
splendid vernal robes, and was beginning to don his modest autumnal
garb. The cardinal bird fluted frequently during July and August, and,
besides, regaled me with a vocal performance on the third of September.
The last record I have of the towhee bunting’s trill is the tenth of
August; but before that date he was quite lavish of his music. On many
of my tramps to the woods the sad minor whistle of the black-capped
chickadee pierced the solitudes, making one dream of one’s boyhood
days,—
“When birds and flowers and I were happy peers,”
as Lowell would phrase it.
One of my surprises was a warbler’s trill on the twelfth of August. The
little tantalizer kept itself so far up in the trees as to baffle all
attempts at identification, but I am disposed to think it was a cerulean
warbler. On the nineteenth of August two warbler trills, one of them, I
feel almost sure, from the throat of the chestnut-sided warbler, were
heard, which is all the more novel because these birds are not
residents, but only migrants in this latitude. I should have felt amply
repaid for all my efforts, had I proved nothing more than that warblers
will sometimes regale one with an aftermath of song in the dog days.
The most persistent minstrel of the midsummer orchestra was the
wood-pewee,—the only bird whose song I heard on every excursion to the
woods during July and August; and even when September came, there seemed
to be little abatement in his musical industry. All the year round, the
song-sparrow is the most prolific lyrist of my acquaintance, but in
midsummer he is distanced by his sylvan neighbor, the wood-pewee. During
my walks on the twenty-ninth and thirty-first of August the pewee’s was
the only song heard.
Then, he does not confine himself wholly to his ordinary song,
_Phe-e-w-e-e_ or _Phe-e-e-o-r-e-e-e_, for one day in July he twittered a
quaint medley in a low, caressing tone, as if singing a lullaby to his
nestlings. At first I could not tell what bird was the author of the new
style of melody, but presently the song glided sweetly into the
well-known _Pe-e-w-e-e_. On another occasion I was charmed by the vocal
rehearsals of a young pewee. His youth was evident from the fact that he
twinkled his wings and coaxed for food from the mother bird, who
rewarded his vocal efforts by feeding him. The song was extremely
beautiful, spite of the crudeness of its execution; a clear continuous
strain, repeated quite loudly, with here and there a partially
successful attempt to emit the ordinary pewee notes. Occasionally the
parent bird would respond, as if setting the ambitious novice a musical
copy, and then he would make a heroic effort to pipe the notes he had
just heard, and several times he succeeded admirably. He had a voice of
excellent quality, but did not have it under perfect control; still, the
immature song was so innocent, so _naïve_ and striking, that it was a
temptation to wish he would never learn to sing otherwise.
Permit me to add, in conclusion, that, while the birds are not equally
musical or plentiful all the year round, yet there is never a time when
their behavior is not worth careful attention. Moreover, midsummer is
the most favorable time for the study of the quaint behavior and varied
plumage of young birds,—a theme connected with our avian fauna that
merits more consideration than it has yet received.
X.
WHERE BIRDS ROOST.
One winter evening found me tramping through a swamp not far from my
home, listening to the dulcet trills of the song-sparrows, which had
recently returned from a brief visit to a more southern latitude. There
was no snow on the ground, and the day had been pleasant; but, as
evening approached, the west wind blew raw across the fields. For some
reason which I cannot now recall, an impulse seized me to clamber over
the fence into the adjacent meadow, where I stalked about somewhat
aimlessly for a minute or two, little thinking that I was on the eve of
a discovery,—one that was destined to lead me into a delightful field of
investigation.
The ground was rather soggy, but a pair of tall rubber boots make one
indifferent to mire and mud. The dusk was now gathering rapidly, and it
was time for most birds to go to bed. I soon found, too, that they were
going to bed, and, moreover, were taking lodgings in the most unexpected
quarters. Imagine my surprise when, as I trudged about, the little
tree-sparrows, which are winter residents in my neighborhood, flew up
here and there out of the deep grass. They seemed to be hidden somewhere
until I came near, and then they would suddenly dart up as if they had
emerged from a hole in the ground.
This unexpected behavior led me to investigate; and I soon found that in
many places there were cosey apartments hollowed out under the long,
thick tufts of marsh grass, with neat entrances at one side like the
door of an Eskimo hut. These hollows gave ample evidence of having been
occupied by the birds, so that there could be no doubt about their being
bird bedrooms. Very frequently they were burrowed in the sides of the
mounds of sod raised by the winter frosts, and were thus lifted above
the intervening hollows, which contained ice-cold water. In every case
the overhanging grass made a thatched roof to carry off the rain.
I do not mean to say that these little dugouts were made by the birds
themselves. Perhaps they were, but it is more probable that they had
been scooped out the previous summer by field-mice, and had only been
appropriated for sleeping-apartments by the sparrows. However that may
be, they were exceedingly cunning and cosey; and soft must have been the
slumbers of the feathered occupants while the wintry blasts howled
unharming above them.
Prior to that discovery I had supposed, with most people, that all birds
roost in trees and bushes. Later researches have proved how wide of the
truth one’s unverified hypotheses may be. A week or so afterward, while
strolling one evening at dusk through a favorite timber-belt, I noticed
the snowbirds, or juncos, darting up from the leaves and bushes and
small brush-heaps, beneath which they had found dainty little coverts
from the storm. In many places crooked twigs and branches, covered with
leaves, lay on the ground, leaving underneath small spaces overarched
and sheltered, and into these cosey nooks the juncos had crept for the
night. No enemies, at least in winter, would find them there, and their
hiding-places were snug and warm. Long after dark I lingered in the
woods, and everywhere startled the snow-birds from their leafy couches.
At one place a whole colony of them had taken lodgings. When my passing
frightened them away, they flew through the darkness into the
neighboring trees. After waiting at some distance for several minutes, I
returned to the spot, and found that some of the birds had gone back to
their bedrooms on the ground.
In my nocturnal prowlings through the fields and lowlands, I have
frequently frightened the meadowlarks from the grass, and that long
before nest-building or incubation had begun. Of course, they were
recognized by their nervous alarm-calls, as well as by the peculiar
sound of their fluttering wings. What surprises me beyond measure is
that they so often select low, boggy places for their roosts, instead of
the dry pleasant upland slopes. But there is no accounting for tastes in
the bird world. The grass-finches and lark-sparrows, like their
relatives just mentioned, seek little hollows in the ground for
bed-chambers, usually sheltered by grass tufts.
Long before day, one April morning, I made my way to the marsh so
frequently mentioned in this volume. The moon was shining brightly in
the southern sky. Early as it was—for as yet there was no sign of
daybreak—the silvery trills of the song-sparrows rose from the bushes
like a votive offering to the Queen of Night. From one part of the swamp
a sweet song would ring out on the moonlit air, and would at once be
taken up by another songster not far away. Then another would chime in,
and another, until the whole enclosure was filled with the antiphonal
melody. A silence would then fall upon the marsh like a dream-spirit, to
be broken soon by another outburst of minstrelsy; and thus the nocturne
continued until day broke, and it merged into the glad matin service.
But my object is to tell about bird roosts rather than about bird music.
When I reached the farther end of the marsh, several sparrow songs came
up from the ground. I walked with a tentative purpose toward a spot
whence a song came, when the little triller sprang up affrighted. The
same experiment with a number of other songsters brought a like result
in each case, proving beyond doubt, I think, that at least some of the
song-sparrows roost on the ground, and begin their matins before they
rise from their couches, so anxious are they to put in a full day of
song.
On the same morning—it was still before daybreak—a bevy of red-winged
blackbirds, which had been roosting in the long grass, flew up with
vociferous cries and protests at the rude awakening I had given them,
just when they were enjoying their morning nap. Blame them who will for
making loud ado, for there are many people who would do the same under
similar provocation. Thus it will be seen that many birds sleep on the
ground. My investigations lead me to this conclusion: As a rule, those
birds which nest on or near the ground, and spend a considerable portion
of their time in the grass, like the meadow-larks and song-sparrows,
roost on the ground, while others find bushes and trees more to their
taste. Still, there are exceptions to this rule; for on several
occasions, while bent on my nocturnal prowlings, I have driven the
turtle-dove from the ground, although this bird usually roosts in the
thorn-trees and willows.[4]
The robins choose thick trees and even wild rose-bushes for roosts. In
the apple-trees and pines of a neighbor’s yard across the fields these
birds find sleeping-apartments early in the spring, before nest-building
is begun, for a perfect deluge of robin music often pours from that
locality, both morning and evening.
The white-throats, wood-sparrows, and brown thrashers make use of the
thick thorn-trees of the marsh for lodgings. They flutter about in sore
dismay as I approach, until I start back, lest they should impale
themselves on the sharp thorns. Sometimes the thrasher ensconces himself
for the night in the brush-heaps which the wood-choppers have made on
the slopes, making his presence known by his peculiar way of scolding at
my officious intrusion.
One cannot help admiring the wise forethought displayed by many birds in
creeping into the thick thorn-bushes at night, where they may sleep
without fear of attack from their nocturnal foe, the owl. Full well they
seem to know he cannot force his bulky form through the thick network of
branch and thorn. How he must gnash his teeth with rage—if owls ever do
that—when he espies his coveted prey sleeping peacefully just beyond the
reach of his talons! Still, it sometimes happens that even a small bird
ventures into too close quarters in these terrible prickly bushes; for I
once found a dead sparrow completely wedged in among the fierce thorns,
where it had evidently been caught in such a way as to prevent its
escape.
Something over a year after the preceding facts were published, I was
seized with a whim to resume my investigations on bird roosts. One of my
nocturnal rambles seems to be deserving of somewhat minute description.
It was a delightful evening of early spring, with a warm westerly breeze
stirring the bursting leaves. The sun had set, and the dusk was falling
over fields and woods. The bright moon, a little more than half full,
lengthened out the gloaming and added many precious minutes to the
singing hours of the birds. Such a woodland chorus as I was permitted to
listen to that evening! It was a rare privilege. How the wood-thrushes
vied with the towhee buntings! Which would sing the latest? That seemed
to be the question. At length there were several moments of silence, and
I supposed all the birds had gone to sleep, when a white-throated
sparrow and a wood-pewee struck in with their sweet strains; and so the
chorus continued until it was really night. The wood-thrushes, I think,
got in the last note of the twilight serenade.
Before it had become quite dark, I espied a wood-thrush sitting in the
fork of a dogwood-tree, looking at me in a startled way; but she did not
fly. I walked off some distance, remained awhile, and then returned, to
find her still in her place. Then I strolled about until night had fully
come; the moon shone brightly, so that it was not dark. When I went back
to the dogwood-tree, the speckled breast of the thrush was still visible
in the fork which she had chosen for her bed-chamber, and I wished her
pleasant dreams.
While stalking about, I startled another wood-thrush, which had selected
a loose brush-heap on the ground instead of a sapling or tree for a
roost. The indigo-birds and bush-sparrows flew up from the blackberry
bushes as I pushed my way through them. Several times the towhee
buntings leaped scolding out of bed, having selected brush-heaps, or
dead branches lying on the ground, for roosting-places.
A discovery was also made in regard to the sleeping-apartments of the
red-headed woodpecker. As the dusk was gathering, a red-head dashed in
front of me into the border of the woods, alighting on a sapling stem,
and then began to shuffle upward toward a hole plainly visible from
where I sat; but just as he reached the hole, another red-head appeared
with a challenging air on the inside of the cavity, and red-head number
one darted away with a cry of alarm. Now was my time to discover, if
possible, where red-head number two would roost. So I kept a close watch
on the cavity, waiting about, as previously said, until nightfall, and
then, keeping my eye on the hole, so that the bird could not fly out
without being seen, I made my way to the sapling. Intently watching the
hole with my glass, I tapped the stem of the tree with my heel, when, in
the moonlight, a red head and long, black beak were protruded from the
opening above. The woodpecker was within, that much was proved; and when
I had beaten against the tree, he had sprung up to the orifice to see
who was thus impolitely disturbing his evening slumbers. He turned his
head sidewise, and looked down at me with his keen beady eyes; but
although I tapped against the tree again and again, he would not leave
the cavity. There can be no doubt that it was his bedroom,—that cosey
apartment in the sapling,—for it was still too early in the season for
the bird to begin nesting, as he had arrived only two or three days
before from his winter residence in the south. Very likely most
woodpeckers roost in the cavities which they hew in trees, for I do not
see why the one into whose private affairs I pried that evening should
have been an exception. He most probably was only following the customs
of his tribe from time immemorial.[5]
A number of experiments made with young birds purloined from the nest—I
must beg the feathered parents’ forgiveness—have added several
interesting facts to the subject in hand. One spring I became guardian,
purveyor, and man-of-all-work to a pair of young flickers, taken from a
cavity in an old apple-tree. They were kept in a large cage, in which I
placed sapling boughs of considerable size. They had not become my
protégés many days before they insisted on converting these upright
branches into sleeping-couches, clinging to the vertical boles with
their stout claws, and pillowing their heads in the feathers of their
backs. In this position they slept as comfortably as the thrushes and
orioles confined in other cages slept on their horizontal perches, or,
for that matter, as I slept in my own bed. They even slept on the under
side of an oblique branch. One of them passed one night on a horizontal
perch, although apparently his slumbers were not quite so sound and
refreshing as they would have been had he roosted in the wonted upright
position. Queerest of all, these woodpeckers sometimes selected the side
of the cage itself for a roosting-place, thrusting their claws into the
crevice between the door and its frame. Wherever they roosted, their
tails were made to do duty as braces, by being pressed tightly against
the wall to which they clung. A pair of young red-headed woodpeckers
behaved in much the same way, always preferring to sleep on an upright
perch.
During the spring of 1893 I placed in a cage the following birds, all
taken while in a half-callow state, from the nest: Two cat-birds, one
red-winged blackbird, one cow-bunting, and two meadow-larks. In a few
days all of them proclaimed their species, as well as the inexorable law
of heredity, by selecting such roosts as were best adapted to them, and
that without any instruction whatever from adult birds. The meadow-larks
almost invariably squatted on the grass with which the floor of the cage
was lined, usually scratching and waddling from side to side until they
had made cosey hollows to fit their bodies; while the remaining inmates
flew up to the perches when bed-time came.
It was quite interesting to look in upon my group of sleeping pets of an
evening, part of them roosting in the lower story of the cage and the
rest in the upper story. Several times, however, one of the larks slept
on a perch, and the red-wing, after the cat-birds and bunting had been
removed from the cage, occasionally seemed to think the upstairs a
little lonely, and so he cuddled down on the grass below, edging up
close to the larks. The strangely assorted bedfellows slept together in
this way like happy children.
XI.
THE WOOD-PEWEE.
A MONOGRAPH.
Almost every person living in the country or the suburbs of a town is
familiar with the house-pewee, or phœbe-bird. It is usually looked upon
as the sure harbinger of spring. In my boyhood days my parents and
grandparents were wont to say, “Spring is here; the phœbe is singing.”
And if blithesomeness of tone and good cheer have anything to do with
the advent of the season of song and bursting blossoms, the pewit, as he
is often called, must be a true herald and prophet. He seems to carry
the “subtle essence of spring” in his tuneful larynx, and in the
graceful sweep of his flight as he pounces upon an insect. It is quite
easy to make the transition from his familiar song of _Phe-e-by_ to the
exclamation, _Spring’s here!_ by a little stretch of the fancy.
But the phœbe has a woodland relative, a first cousin, with which most
persons are not so well acquainted, because he is more retiring in his
habits, and seeks out-of-the-way places for his habitat. I refer to the
wood-pewee. If your eyes and ears are not so sharp as they should be,
you may get these two birds confounded; yet there is no need of making
such a blunder. The woodland bird is smaller, slenderer, and of a darker
cast than his relative; and, besides, there is a marked difference in
the musical performances of these birds. The song of the phœbe is
sprightly and cheerful, and the syllables are uttered rather quickly,
while the whistle of the wood-pewee is softer and more plaintive, and is
repeated with less emphasis and more deliberation. There is, indeed,
something inexpressibly sad and dreamy about the strain of the
wood-pewee, especially if heard at a distance in the “emerald twilight”
of the “woodland privacies.” Mr. Lowell seldom erred in his attempts to
characterize the songs and habits of the birds, but in his exquisite
poem entitled “Phœbe” he certainly must have referred to the wood-pewee
and not to the phœbe-bird, as his description applies to the former but
not to the latter. He calls this bird “the loneliest of its kind,” while
the pewit is a familiar species about many a country home. Taking it for
granted that he meant the wood-pewee, how happy is his description!
“It is a wee sad-colored thing,
As shy and secret as a maid;
That ere in choir the robins ring,
Pipes its own name like one afraid.
“It seems pain-prompted to repeat
The story of some ancient ill,
But _Phœbe! Phœbe!_ sadly sweet,
Is all it says, and then is still.
· · · · · · ·
“_Phœbe!_ it calls and calls again;
And Ovid, could he but have heard,
Had hung a legendary pain
About the memory of the bird.
· · · · · · ·
“_Phœbe!_ is all it has to say
In plaintive cadence o’er and o’er,
Like children who have lost their way,
And know their names, but nothing more.”
This poetical tribute is certainly very graceful, and would be true to
life if the phonetic representation were a little more accurate. Instead
of _Phœbe_, imagine the song to be _Pe-e-w-e-e-e_ or _Phe-e-w-e-e-e_,
and you will gain a clear idea of the minstrelsy of this songster of the
wildwood. However, he frequently varies his tune,—to prevent its
becoming monotonous, I opine. He sometimes closes his refrain with the
falling inflection or circumflex, and sometimes with the rising, as the
mood prompts him. In the former case the first syllable receives the
greater emphasis and is the more prolonged, and in the latter this order
is precisely reversed. When the last syllable is uttered with the rising
circumflex, it is usually, if not always, cut off somewhat abruptly.
Moreover, this minstrel often runs the two syllables of his song
together,—a peculiarity that I have represented in my notes, taken while
listening to the song, in this way: _Phe-e-e-o-o-w-e-e-e!_ There is a
characteristic swing about the melody that refuses to be caught in the
mesh of letters and syllables.