Two little twittering sparrows
Shivering under the eaves,
Watching the slanting raindrops
Pattering over the leaves.
Chilled to their poor little marrows,
Though feathered in winter array,
For cold blows the wind o’er the housetop
And bitter and bleak is the day.
“You two little balls of brown feathers!
You chattering he and she!
Of what are you thinking, my pretty ones,
As you nestle close under the lea?”
“Shall we tell you,” they twitter in chorus,
“Our thoughts in this sharp winter air,
Through which the chill ice drops are falling
O’er treetops so wind-torn and bare?
“We remember our love in the spring time—
Ah, life to us then was so dear,
As we drifted through days joy-laden,
And nights filled with moonbeams so clear.
“We remember the sunshine of summer,
When the hours floated by like a dream,
And the air was alive with bird-music
And the world was a shimmer of green.
“We remember, too, winter is fleeting,
Though now it is snow-bound and drear;
But sometime the sunshine will loosen
The ice chains and spring will be here.
“We remember”—the little heads quiver
And the voices sound drowsily deep,
As they come from ’way down among feathers;
“We remember”—a pause—“then we sleep.”
—Alberta A. Field.
SOME OF OUR WINTER BIRDS.
IN EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS.
One of our most interesting winter birds and (with the exception of the
English sparrow) perhaps the commonest, is the little black-cap
chicadee. He is frequently seen in one’s orchard and around the door,
and a stroll into the woods will reveal him at any time. He may be
easily distinguished by his jet black cap, his bluish drab back and
wings, and a yellow tinge on his downy breast. Cedar trees are a special
delight of his and, in the winter season, he may be found in nearly
every grove of these evergreens. As one walks along through the woods,
he is attracted by their notes, usually the simple, cheerful
“chic-a-dee-ee e e,” varied with squeaks and chirps, or if it be in
February or March, he may hear a beautiful whistle (“pee-a-wee-a”), and
possibly catch a pretty warbling song. They are always lively and
cheerful and on a gloomy winter day they cause one to forget everything
but them and their pleasant notes. They feed principally on berries and
seeds, such as can be found in cold weather when the ground is covered
with snow. But our little friends are seldom alone; as almost constant
companions they have the nuthatches, snowbirds, tree sparrows and
goldfinches.
Another very common cold weather bird is the slate colored snowbird or
junco. Bluish slate above and grayish below, with some white tail
feathers which show as he flies, he is a pretty sight to behold when one
starts a flock of them from some frozen swamp or meadow, where they feed
upon seeds and berries. They utter a loud chirp when you disturb them in
the winter time, and as they hop about keep up an incessant twittering,
which are the only notes you will hear from them, unless you are lucky
enough to hear their song which they seldom sing before starting for
their summer homes. When it is stormy or severely cold they come up to
one’s door and eat bread crumbs and other things which may be thrown
out. They are real friendly and will come quite near to you, and a man
once told me that the reason for this was blindness on the part of the
birds, and even as he spoke one of the birds flew to a nearby fence and,
cocking his head, looked my informer over as if to give him the lie.
John B. Tabb has written a short poem, which nicely describes him:
When snow, like silence visible,
Hath hushed the summer bird,
Thy voice, a never frozen rill
Of melody, is heard.
But when from winter’s lethargy
The buds begin to blow,
Thy voice is mute, and suddenly
Thou vanishest like snow.
The tree sparrow, one of our most interesting sparrows, is another bird
who does not fear the winter winds and storms. Although he carries the
name of tree sparrow, he is most emphatically a bird of the ground, and
may be seen during the winter months in almost any remote patch of
plowed ground where there are old weed stalks for him to eat. They are
especially addicted to old tomato fields and seem to delight in the
seeds of this plant. This sparrow looks like a large chippy, our door
yard neighbor of the summer months, excepting that he has distinguishing
white bars across his wings. They travel in large flocks, and where one
sees a few of them scratching in the snow, a step too close will scare
dozens of them away. They associate considerably with snowbirds and
where there are members of one family you will most always find the
others either with them or close by.
One of our prettiest winter birds is the downy woodpecker, his glossy
black and white, with the bright red spot on his head, showing up
strongly from some tree trunk, where he raps for insects, as he goes up,
propping himself with his tail as he works. One notices him by hearing
his rapping on a branch or his loud note, which he utters frequently. He
delights in boring holes in trees and, especially in the spring, he
drills out complete nests which he probably has no intention of ever
using. The hairy woodpecker has almost precisely the same habits and
colors as the downy, and differs only in size. He, also, is one of our
winter residents, but not so commonly as the other.
The flicker or yellow hammer is another woodpecker that is with us in
winter as well as summer. He varies somewhat from the rest of his family
in habits, in that, he feeds considerably on the ground, consuming a
large number of ants. He is quiet during the winter, but his loud and
cheerful notes are one of the first bird songs of spring.
A bird which resembles the woodpecker in his method of feeding, is the
brown creeper, a pretty little brown bird, with a long curved bill and
long sharp claws, who spends most of his time in climbing trees. Unlike
a woodpecker, he goes up the trunk by going spirally around it, thus
going over the whole tree before he flies to the next one and repeats
the operation. The color of his back closely resembles the bark of a
tree, and when disturbed he will sometimes crouch close to the tree
where it is almost impossible to see him. In the spring, before
departing north to breed, they often sing their pretty tune to us,
which, however, we are lucky to hear. In the coldest weather they are
frequently seen on trees by the wayside, and I have seen them on
Boylston street, Boston, as busy and contented as ever.
The nuthatch is another bird which climbs, and, unlike either the
woodpeckers or creepers, he goes down the tree head first, instead of
backing down, and for this reason has been nicknamed “Devil Downhead.”
There are two nuthatches which are fairly common during the winter
months, the white-breasted and the red-breasted. The former more
commonly frequents orchards and the roadside, while the latter prefers
to frolic, with the chicadees, among the evergreens. They seldom stay
with us in the summer, usually nesting farther north.
The goldfinch is also a regular winter visitor; but at this season he
has none of his bright colors of the summer time; but is a plain little
olive green bird, with dark wings and a gray breast. They feed
considerably on thistles, but when the snow falls they take whatever
berries they can find. I remember seeing four or five of them, one day
two winters ago, coming up and feeding upon the berries of a honeysuckle
vine near my window, and at another time I saw them eating with
chicadees in some cedars.
Cedar birds, although they do not stay with us any length of time, may
be seen at different periods during the winter. They are very pretty
birds, being brownish drab above and sulphur yellow below, while the
wings are marked by spots of bright red. They travel in very large
flocks and soon have one locality completely cleared of food, when they
depart elsewhere. One is first attracted by their peculiar lisping
notes, which, coming from so many throats, make quite a noise, and upon
looking up, he will see them perhaps in flight or more probably roosting
on the branches of some elm or oak; or flitting about a cedar, stripping
it of its berries. They are also great lovers of cherries, and when this
fruit is ripe they may be seen in large numbers in some orchard.
A journey into the woods on a cold winter day may reveal to one a flock
of small birds, which have the appearance of a lot of sparrows which had
been dyed purple, the colors of the sparrow plainly showing, beneath the
purple tinge or wash on their backs and heads. These are lesser redpoll
linnets. Very hard working little birds, that usually delight in the
arctic regions, we see them only when the severest cold drives them
south. They fly in very large flocks, and Miss Blanchan says of them,
“First, we see a quantity of dots, like a shake of pepper, in the cloud
above, then the specks grow larger and larger, and finally the birds
seem to drop from the sky upon some tall tree that they completely
cover—a veritable cloudburst of birds.”
The red crossbill is a similar bird to the redpoll, but is larger and
has the two mandibles of his bill crossed, by the means of which he
extracts the seeds from the pine cones. We only see him in the coldest
winters, but then he is very tame and may allow one to pick him up, and
he has even been known to stay in a cage without a murmur.
These are all our important winter birds, but the robin and bluejay
might be mentioned although they are more birds of the summer than
winter.
Winthrop Smith.
[Illustration: BROAD-WINGED HAWK.
(Buteo latissimus.)
½ Life-size.
FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.]
THE BROAD-WINGED HAWK.
(_Buteo latissimus._)
And up through the rifled tree-tops
That signaled the wayward breeze
I saw the hulk of the hawk becalmed
Far out on the azure seas.
—James Whitcomb Riley, “A Vision of Summer.”
The Broad-winged Hawk has a wide range, including the whole of North
America, east of the great plains and extending from New Brunswick and
the Saskatchewan region on the north to Northern South America on the
south. It nests throughout its range within the borders of the United
States.
Its confidence in man is not surpassed by that of any other hawk. Dr.
Fisher says that “of all our hawks this species seems to be the most
unsuspicious, often allowing a person to approach within a few yards of
it, and when startled flies but a short distance before it alights
again.” As a rule it is a very quiet bird, but during the nesting period
it is fully as noisy and demonstrative as are many of the other hawks.
If disturbed while on its nest its shrill call notes will soon attract
its mate, when both will continue noisily complaining till the intruder
retreats. Though solicitous for their eggs or young, they will never
attack a person. It is said that “for days after they have been robbed
these birds will utter their complaints when anyone approaches their
homes.” They are good parents, both sexes assisting in the care of the
eggs and young.
Not infrequently this Hawk will sit for hours on the dead top of a tall
tree at the edge of a forest, and with its body erect and motionless
will often seem almost a part of the tree. Its food is usually procured
on the ground, and it is near the ground or among the denser growths of
the forest, where it may find insect larvæ, that it is more often seen.
The Broad-winged Hawk may truthfully be called a friend of the
agriculturist, for it seldom feeds on bird life of any kind, but rather
upon mice and other rodents, toads, frogs and insects.
Dr. Fisher, in his valuable work, “The Hawks and Owls of the United
States,” says: “The only act of the Broad-winged Hawk which seems
injurious to agriculture is the killing of toads and small snakes, the
former of which are exclusively insect eaters, the latter very largely
so. In one respect its enormous value ranks above all other birds, and
that is in the destruction of immense numbers of injurious larvæ of
large moths, which most birds are either unable or disinclined to cope
with.” In the examination of stomachs of sixty-five of these Hawks Dr.
Fisher obtained the following results: Two contained small birds;
fifteen contained mice and thirteen other mammals; in eleven the remains
of reptiles, and in thirteen batrachians were found; thirty contained
the remains of insects, two earthworms, four crawfish and seven were
empty. The results were surely in favor of the bird. Well may the farmer
listen to the words of Alexander Wilson:
“Kill not thy friend, who thy whole harvest shields,
And sweeps ten thousand vermin from thy fields.”
The poultry yard is safe from the depredations of these quiet birds,
which, though sluggish and heavy in flight, can move with great rapidity
and soar high in the air if they so desire. Even the small birds in the
woods seem to consider them to be harmless, for they give them but
little attention. When this bird does attack small birds it is either,
as a rule, when they are very young or injured in some manner.
Its nest is usually made of sticks and twigs and lined with soft fibrous
strips of bark, leaves and feathers that fall from the breasts of the
setting birds. The nests are placed in either evergreen or deciduous
trees, and seldom more than thirty or forty feet from the ground. They
are frequently much lower and occasionally in the tops of very tall
trees. They have been known to use the deserted nests of other birds,
especially that of the crow, which is nearly as large as their own
structure.
Dr. Fisher says that one of its notes quite closely resembles that of
the wood pewee. Another writer says that “their call note is a peevish
‘chee-e-e-e,’ prolonged at pleasure and uttered in a high key. However,
to fully appreciate their shrill note of complaint it must be heard.”