(_Seiurus aurocapillus_) Wood Warbler family
_Called also_: GOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSH; THE TEACHER; WOOD
WAGTAIL; GOLDEN-CROWNED WAGTAIL; GOLDEN-CROWNED ACCENTOR
(Illustration facing p. 218)
_Length_--6 to 6.15 inches. Just a shade smaller than the
English sparrow.
_Male and Female_--Upper parts olive, with an orange-brown
crown, bordered by black lines that converge toward the bill.
Under parts white; breast spotted and streaked on the sides.
White eye-ring.
_Range_--United States, to Pacific slope.
_Migrations_--May. October. Common summer resident.
Early in May you may have the good fortune to see this little bird of
the woods strutting in and out of the garden shrubbery with a certain
mock dignity, like a child wearing its father's boots. Few birds can
walk without appearing more or less ridiculous, and however gracefully
and prettily it steps, this amusing little wagtail is no exception.
When seen at all--which is not often, for it is shy--it is usually on
the ground, not far from the shrubbery or a woodland thicket, under
which it will quickly dodge out of sight at the merest suspicion of a
footstep. To most people the bird is only a voice calling, "_Teacher,
Teacher, Teacher, Teacher, TEACHER!_" as Mr. Burroughs has interpreted
the notes that go off in pairs like a series of little explosions,
softly at first, then louder and louder and more shrill until the bird
that you at first thought far away seems to be shrieking his
penetrating crescendo into your very ears. But you may look until you
are tired before you find him in the high, dry wood, never near water.
In the driest parts of the wood, here the ground is thickly carpeted
with dead leaves, you may some day notice a little bunch of them, that
look as if a plant, in pushing its way up through the ground, had
raised the leaves, rootlets, and twigs a trifle. Examine the spot
more carefully, and on one side you find an opening, and within the
ball of earth, softly lined with grass, lie four or five cream-white,
speckled eggs. It is only by a happy accident that this nest of the
ovenbird is discovered. The concealment could not be better. It is
this peculiarity of nest construction--in shape like a Dutch
oven--that has given the bird what DeKay considers its "trivial name."
Not far from the nest the parent birds scratch about in the leaves
like diminutive barn-yard fowls, for the grubs and insects hiding
under them. But at the first suspicion of an intruder their alarm
becomes pitiful. Panic-stricken, they become fairly limp with fear,
and drooping her wings and tail, the mother-bird drags herself hither
and thither over the ground.
As utterly bewildered as his mate, the male darts, flies, and tumbles
about through the low branches, jerking and wagging his tail in
nervous spasms until you have beaten a double-quick retreat.
In nesting time, at evening, a very few have heard the "luxurious
nuptial song" of the ovenbird; but it is a song to haunt the memory
forever afterward. Burroughs appears to be the first writer to record
this "rare bit of bird melody." "Mounting by easy flight to the top of
the tallest tree," says the author of "Wake-Robin," "the ovenbird
launches into the air with a sort of suspended, hovering flight, like
certain of the finches, and bursts into a perfect ecstasy of
song--clear, ringing, copious, rivalling the goldfinch's in vivacity
and the linnet's in melody."