BIRDS OF PREY
We have now first to think of the great class of the birds, which are
distinguished from all other living creatures by having their bodies
covered with feathers.
These feathers serve a double purpose.
[Illustration: TYPICAL BIRDS OF PREY.
1. Red-tailed Buzzard. 2. Sparrow-hawk.
3. Golden Eagle. 4. Great Horned Owl.]
In the first place, they help to preserve the warmth of the body. Birds
are hot-blooded animals--indeed, their blood is a good deal warmer than
ours--and they often have to fly very fast through very cold air. So,
you see, it is most important that they should be clothed with some sort
of covering which is very warm and at the same time light. And nothing
is warmer, and at the same time lighter, than a coat of feathers.
And then, in the second place, many of these feathers are most useful in
flight. Without them, indeed, a bird could not fly at all. If we want to
keep a tame bird from escaping, we have only to clip its wings, and then
it can no longer raise itself into the air. But it is not only the
feathers of the wings that are used in flight; those of the tail are
employed as well, for they assist in flight, especially in checking
speed, and serve as a rudder, enabling the bird to steer its way through
the air.
Now birds are divided into orders and tribes and families, just as the
mammals are. But scientific men are not quite sure which of the orders
ought to be placed first. Among the birds of prey, however, we find some
of the largest and finest and most powerful of all the feathered race;
so that we cannot do better than place these at the head of our list.
You can always tell a bird of prey by two points in its structure. The
first we find in its beak, which is always very large and
strong, and very sharply hooked. And the second we find in its talons,
which are specially made for seizing and killing the animals upon which
it feeds. Some persons think that an eagle or a hawk kills its victims
with its beak, but that is a great mistake, for the beak is only used
for tearing the flesh from off its bones after it is dead. The real
weapons are the talons, which are so sharp and so strong that they can
be pressed deeply into the vitals of a captured animal and kill it at
once. All the birds of prey, therefore, have very powerful legs and
large feet and claws.
VULTURES--SYMBOLS OF RAPACITY
First among the birds of prey come the vultures. Yet very often, strange
to say, they never kill any prey at all, and the best naturalists
suspect that they should be placed in a class by themselves. They much
prefer to feed on carrion, so that if they can find the dead body of an
animal they will never take the trouble to seek and kill victims for
themselves. When an animal dies in a country in which vultures live,
several of these birds are sure to find its carcass almost immediately.
And in a very short time nothing will be left of it but just the bare
skeleton.
So, you see, these birds are really very useful. They belong to the
great army of nature's dustmen, just like the jackals and the hyenas.
For by destroying these carcasses before they can putrefy, they help to
keep the air pure. In the cities of the Southern United States and of
the tropics our small American vulture, the turkey-buzzard, is really
depended upon as a scavenger.
How vultures find the dead body of an animal is just a little doubtful.
Some naturalists have thought that they find it by means of sight, and
others that they do so by means of smell. It seems almost certain,
however, that when they are hovering high in the air they are really
watching one another; so that when one of them sees a carcass and swoops
down upon it, all the other vultures within sight notice what he is
doing, and come hurrying up for a share in the banquet. This explains
how it is that if an animal is killed when not a vulture is to
be seen, quite a number of these great, strong, ravenous birds will make
their appearance in a very short time.
THE LAMMERGEIER
This is the finest of all the vultures. It is found in Southern Europe,
in Northern Africa, and in Western Asia, and is sometimes as much as
four feet in length from the tip of the beak to the end of the tail,
while its wings may measure more than ten feet across when fully spread.
It is one of the very few vultures which have the head and neck clothed
with feathers. Besides this, a curious tuft of bristle-like hairs covers
the nostrils, while a similar tuft grows just under the base of the
bill. For this reason the bird is sometimes known as the bearded
vulture.
Lammergeiers are generally found among high mountains, where they prey
upon hares and marmots, and even upon rats and mice. They will visit the
flocks, too, which are feeding upon the grassy slopes, and carry off
kids and lambs. Chamois, when formerly they were more plentiful than
now, used to be attacked by them, and their favorite plan was to swoop
down upon them when they were standing on the brink of a precipice,
strike them over into the depths below by a stroke of their powerful
wings, and then descend to feed upon their mangled bodies.
The plumage of the lammergeier is grayish brown above and nearly white
below. The feathers of the neck are white, and there is also a pale
streak running down the middle of those upon the back.
The lammergeier makes a great clumsy nest of sticks, which is sometimes
placed on a ledge of a lofty cliff, and sometimes in the topmost
branches of a very tall tree. Two eggs are laid, which are dirty white
in color, with brownish blotches.
THE CONDOR
The condor is another very large vulture, inhabiting the great mountain
chain of the Andes. There it may be seen soaring high in air,
its keen eyes intently scanning the ground beneath it; and it may fly to
and fro for hours, rising and falling and sweeping round in great
circles, and yet never once flap its wings!
Condors live for the most part on llamas which have died a natural
death, or which have been killed by pumas and only partly devoured; but
two or three of them will unite together, when they are hungry, in order
to kill sheep or cattle.
In color the condor is grayish black, with a ruff of white feathers
round the lower part of the neck. On the head of the male is a large
fleshy wattle. It makes no nest at all, but simply lays its two white
eggs on a rocky ledge high up on the mountainside.
A variety of the condor inhabited Mexico and southern California until
recent years, but has now become almost or quite extinct. It differed
little from that of the Andes in either appearance or habits.
THE SECRETARY-VULTURE
The African secretary-vulture was formerly regarded as a kind of crane,
on account of its long stilt-like legs, and owes its name to the curious
tuft of very long feathers at the back of its head, which cause it to
look rather as though it were carrying a number of quill pens behind its
ears. The two middle feathers of the tail, also, are exceedingly long,
so that when the bird is standing upright their tips almost rest upon
the ground.
The secretary-bird spends its time on the ground, where it wanders over
the plains in pairs, and feeds upon small mammals, lizards, tortoises,
frogs, and locusts. It is also said to kill and devour even large
snakes, but whether it really does so is not quite certain.
EAGLES--SYMBOLS OF POWER
Next to the vultures come the eagles, of which two examples may be
mentioned--the white-headed, or bald eagle and the golden eagle, or
war-eagle as the Indians called it. Both are known in various local
varieties in all parts of the world, and both have been regarded
with admiration by brave men in all ages. The bald eagle is the symbol
of the United States; and its cousin, the white-tailed, is to be seen
along all the coasts of the Old World except the arctic. The American
eagle frequents the shores of both oceans, and of our great lakes and
rivers, because its favorite food is fish, which it obtains mainly by
robbing the industrious fish-hawks.
Of a nobler character, according to our human ideas, is the golden
eagle, and it is also larger, the female--which, in birds of prey,
usually exceeds her mate in size--sometimes measuring nearly three feet
in length and eight or nine feet across her outspread wings. This
magnificent bird may still frequently be seen in the remoter and more
mountainous parts of both continents, but in America is extremely rare
east of the Rocky Mountains and Lake Superior, and in Europe west of the
Swiss and German Alps. This was the eagle which by its bold mien so
impressed the early conquerors of Italy that they chose it to represent
them on their coins and standards, so that it came to be known
throughout a subject world as the Roman Eagle; and its image has
descended to the arms of Italy, Austria, Germany, Russia, and other
nations.
The aerie, or nesting-place, of these grand birds is much the same in
both kinds--a rude heap of sticks sufficiently hollowed on the summit to
hold the brown-blotched eggs, and placed upon a ledge of rocks, or
perhaps in the top of some huge tree. It may serve the purpose of a home
for many years in succession. Eagles have been recorded on both sides of
the Atlantic as using the same aerie for nearly a century without
interruption; and in such cases the structure often becomes of
prodigious size. A nest found in Scotland was nine feet high, five feet
across at the top, and twenty feet in width at the bottom; so that it
was really as big as a good-sized haystack!
Round this nest were the bones of between forty and fifty grouse,
besides those of a number of lambs, rabbits, and hares, which had been
brought there by the parent birds for the use of the young.
Very often a ledge close to the aerie is used as a larder, where the old
birds put their victims as soon as they are caught, and leave
them until they are wanted. When they are hunting the two birds
generally work together, one dashing in among bushes and low herbage,
among which hares, partridges, or other animals are likely to be hiding,
and the other lying in wait to pounce upon them as they rush out in
alarm.
THE OSPREY AND OTHER HAWKS
Not quite as big as the eagles, the fish-hawk, or osprey, is
nevertheless a large bird, for it measures nearly two feet in length and
between five and six feet in spread of wing. It is found in nearly all
parts of the world where civilization is not too destructive of its
privileges, and is numerous on all our great lakes and rivers as well as
by the coast.
The osprey feeds almost entirely upon fish, and may be seen sweeping to
and fro over the water, keenly watching for its victims as they rise to
the surface. When it catches sight of a fish it swoops down upon it,
plunges into the water with a great splashing, and nearly always rises
again a moment or two later with the fish struggling in its talons. But
it does not always succeed in reaching the shore with it, for the
white-headed eagle is also very fond of fish, though it does not like
the trouble of catching them. So it lies in wait for the fish-hawk as it
returns from a fishing expedition, and beats it about the head with its
great wings until it is glad to drop its victim in order to escape, when
the eagle swoops down and catches the morsel before it reaches the
ground.
These great birds may still be seen all along our coasts and beside our
lakes, where they live usually unmolested, although most other hawks are
likely to be shot at by every wandering man and boy with a gun. This
safety is due not only to the belief that they do no particular harm,
but to a feeling, especially along the eastern sea-coast, that it is a
lucky thing to have a pair build their nest near the home of a
fisherman, to whom they are thought to bring good fortune. This nest is
a big structure of sticks which is placed among the branches of a tree
near the water--preferably a tall tree, but sometimes, when these are
not handy, in a low one. Thus at the eastern end of Long Island,
New York, where the ospreys have been protected for many years, their
nests often rest on a small cedar or other tree close to the ground; and
in some places on the coast of New England men have erected little
platforms on the top of poles where the ospreys have made their homes.
All these nests are repaired and occupied year after year, and thus
sometimes grow to be of immense size.
FAMILIAR FALCONS AND HAWKS
If one were to try to describe even half of the great number of
different kinds of falcons and hawks in the world, or even in America,
this book would not be large enough for the purpose. Among those most
often seen in this country are two large, softly plumaged, brown hawks,
with square, barred tails, of the group called buzzards. One is the
red-tailed, another the red-shouldered, and a third the broad-winged,
the several names denoting the specially noticeable features in each
case. All make their homes in the woods, constructing big nests in
trees, and early in the spring laying brown-blotched eggs. These hawks
fly heavily over the fields in search of frogs, small snakes, field-mice
(of which they catch great numbers), and once in a while seize a young
bird which cannot yet fly very well; but mostly they live on mice and
insects. The country people call all of them hen-hawks, and are likely
to shoot them when they can; but in truth they harm the poultry-yard
very little.
The really dangerous "hen-hawks" are two or three much smaller and more
active falcons, such as the Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks. They are
swift and fierce, and will dart down and snatch a bird from its perch or
pick up a small chicken with amazing suddenness and speed. These hawks
are sometimes called kestrels, after a well-known European falcon which
they resemble.
KESTRELS AND OTHER CHICKEN-HAWKS
You may often see one or the other of these hovering high in the air, as
do the English kestrels, about three or four hundred feet from
the ground, and carefully watching for the mice upon which after all
they mainly feed. It has eyes like telescopes, so that as soon as a
mouse pokes its head out of its burrow it catches sight of it, swoops
down upon it, seizes it in its talons, and carries it off to be
devoured. The number of mice which it catches in this way is very large,
and it has been estimated that at least ten thousand of these
destructive little creatures are killed by every kestrel in the course
of every year. So we must look upon the bird as one of the best friends
of the farmer, in spite of the occasional loss of a chicken.
When it cannot find any mice the kestrel will sometimes eat small birds,
and now and then it will feed upon cockchafers and other large insects,
catching them in its claws as they fly, and then passing them up to its
beak.
Kestrels sometimes build in trees and sometimes in towers and old
buildings. But very often they make use of the deserted nest of a magpie
or a crow. From four to six eggs are laid, which are blotched with
reddish brown on a bluish-white ground.
Two near relatives, inhabiting both the old and the new worlds, are the
pigeon-hawk and sparrow-hawk. They are much alike, and their plumage is
more varied in color and pattern than that of other falcons. Both are
rather shy, and not often seen in the open; but are so courageous that
they will sometimes attack large birds, like ducks or grouse. The
handsome sparrow-hawk is best known. It will often dash into a flock of
sparrows and carry one of them off in its talons. It will sometimes
swoop down into a farmyard, too, and snatch up a chicken or a duckling,
while numbers of young pheasants and partridges fall victims to its
ravages. In days of old it was sometimes captured and trained for
hawking, like the merlin and the falcon, and it is said that a single
tame sparrow-hawk would sometimes kill as many as seventy or eighty
quail in a single day.
In Europe sparrow-hawks seldom take the trouble to build a nest of their
own, but nearly always make use of the deserted abode of a crow or
magpie, in which they lay three or four grayish-white eggs marked with a
number of dark-brown spots and blotches; but the American hawks
of this group make their homes in crannies in hollow trees, stuffing the
hole with a warm bed of grass and feathers.
OWLS, THE TERROR OF THE NIGHT
Next in order come those very singular birds which we call owls, and
which are really hawks that fly by night.
The eyes of these birds are very much like those of cats, being formed
in such a way as to take in even the faintest rays of light. Owing to
this fact owls can see on very dark nights, and can fly with as much
certainty and catch their prey with as much ease as other birds can in
the daylight. Moreover the prominence of their eyes, in the middle of
the great feathery disks, enables them to see in almost every direction
without turning the head.
This is very important, for wild animals are always alarmed by motion,
while they hardly ever notice creatures which keep perfectly still. If
you sit or stand for a while without moving even a finger, rabbits and
squirrels will often come quite close to you, and never seem to see you
at all. But at your very first movement they will take fright and
scamper away. So if an owl had to be constantly turning its head from
side to side in order to look for prey, its victims would certainly see
it, and would make good their escape. But as its eyes are set in the
middle of those great feathery circles, and turn easily in their
sockets, there is no need for it to do so, for it can look out in almost
every direction without moving its head in the least.
There are a good many different kinds of owls, several of which are
found in both continents. There is the long-eared owl, for instance,
which has two rather long feathery tufts upon its head; and there is the
short-eared owl, which has short ones. As a rule, these tufts lie flat
upon the head. But when the bird is excited they stand upright, and give
it a very odd appearance. Then there is the brown owl, which utters that
mournful hooting sound which one so often hears by night in wooded
districts.
Very often as one is walking along a country lane in the evening one of
these birds sweeps suddenly by and disappears into the darkness.
It is busy searching for mice, and the number which it catches must be
very great. For it has been found that when a pair of these birds have
little ones, they bring a mouse to them about once in every quarter of
an hour all through the night! And, besides that, their own appetites
have to be satisfied; and owls seem always to be hungry.
One day the late Lord Lilford, one of the foremost British
ornithologists of his time, tried to see how many mice a barn-owl really
could swallow. So he caught one of these birds and put it in a cage, and
gave it seven mice one after the other. Six of these it gulped down
without any hesitation; but though it tried hard to swallow the seventh
it could not quite manage to do so, and for about twenty minutes the
tail of the mouse was dangling from a corner of its beak. At last,
however, the tail disappeared; and three hours later the owl was
actually hungry again, and ate four more mice!
None of the owls ever digest the bones and feathers or hair of their
prey; but these materials get packed into balls in the stomach, and
after a time are coughed up and thrown away. Very often large quantities
of these "pellets" are found in hollow trees in which owls have been
roosting, more than a bushel having been taken from a single tree, and
by examining them one may learn the character of the bird's daily fare.
The birds do not make a nest, but lay their eggs on a heap of these
pellets instead; and they have an odd way of laying them at intervals,
so that sometimes half-fledged little ones, newly hatched little ones,
and freshly laid eggs may all be found together.
When the young owls are waiting for their parents to return with a
mouse, they always get very much excited and make most odd noises,
something like loud hisses followed by loud snores. And when at last one
of the old birds returns with a mouse in its talons the outcry grows
louder than ever.
One of the oddest members of the family is the burrowing owl, or
coquimbo, as the South American form is known. This inhabits only the
open plains of Western North America and Southern South America, and as
it can find no trees or rocky niches in which to nest, it scratches out
shallow burrows in little banks of earth, or takes possession of
the deserted burrows of some digging animal. It is therefore a constant
citizen of the "towns" of the prairie-dogs of the North and viscachas of
the South, where numbers of burrowing owls may sometimes be seen, some
hunting about for beetles and grasshoppers, on which they chiefly feed,
and others sitting at the entrances of the burrows and surveying the
surrounding country. They are not at all timid, and if a man approaches
them they will remain where they are until he is quite close, bobbing up
and down from time to time as though they were politely bowing to him.
If he continues to walk toward them they will rise into the air, fly two
or three times round his head, screaming loudly as they do so, and then
settle down on another mound a few yards away and bow to him again. But
if he walks round them instead they will turn their heads to look after
him, without moving their bodies, until one would almost think that they
would twist them off altogether.
When neither prairie-dogs nor viscachas live in the neighborhood, these
queer little owls will sometimes take up their quarters in the burrow of
a wolf, a fox, or a badger. They make a very rough nest of grass and
feathers, in which they lay from six to eleven white eggs.