About the middle of May a gaily colored bird from his winter home in
neo-tropical regions visits the United States. His body is bright
scarlet, his slightly forked tail and his wings intense black and his
bill sea green. The ornithologist names him the scarlet tanager—tanager
being a Brazilian word applied to this class of birds. But he is also
sometimes called the “pocket bird,” because his jetty wings when closed
upon his red sides are fancifully thought to resemble pockets. He is
also known as the black-winged redbird. It takes three years for his
gaudy plumage to become perfect. His mate is clad in green, so that she
is easily concealed when on her nest amid the leaves of the swamp oak or
some other favorite nesting tree. The nest is shallow and loosely woven,
so that the eggs may be seen from beneath. But it is strong enough to
hold the young birds securely until fledged. The eggs, three to five in
number, are greenish-blue, spotted with brown and purple. The young
birds are a clownish looking set in parti-colored robes of scarlet
yellow and olive green. The song of the tanager somewhat resembles that
of the robin in modulation; but the quality of the song is so soft and
wavering that there are observers who call him a lazy bird, too lazy to
sing. But others declare that it is worth while to take a long tramp in
order to listen to his beautiful notes. Mr. Abbott calls him a “gayly
colored blunder” without peculiarity of voice or manner. His song has
been translated “Pshaw—wait—wait—wait for me.” His call note is
“Chirp-chirr.”
There are some three hundred and eighty species of tanagers, and they
are peculiar to America. They are perching birds and have usually
conical bills, triangular at the base, with cutting edges near the tip
of the upper mandible: this distinguishes them from the finches, to
which they are closely allied. It is said that this genus is remarkable
in having no gizzard.
The tanagers feed chiefly on ripe fruits and insects.
The organist tanager of San Domingo is purplish black, with forehead,
rump and underparts yellow, and a cap of blue. Its tones are said to be
extremely rich and full. But if our scarlet tanager is not so fine a
musician as his cousin, if he has no such organ-like tones, yet we could
ill spare the blaze of his scarlet coat and the sight of his black
pockets, as he sits on the hedge very early in the morning—the rising
sun emphasizing his brilliancy. Then he is an early riser I am sure, as
I have seen him before four o’clock in the morning. But he has always
been silent at that time as if not wide awake yet. In manners he is a
most unobtrusive bird. He is rightly entitled to some of the plunder of
the fruit trees. For there is no doubt that we owe all kinds of fruit to
the agency of birds as seed distributors. Besides, the tanager is very
destructive to larvae that injure fruit.
Belle Paxson Drury.
THE BIRDS IN THEIR WINTER HOME. II.
(In the Fields.)
A half day’s tramp through the pastures and fields of a Mississippi
“second bottom” any sunshiny day from the first of December till the
first of March will reveal some of the reasons why this is a veritable
birds’ paradise in winter. Fields once in cultivation, but now abandoned
to sedge and Bermuda grass, cultivated fields, where giant cockle burrs
wrestle with morning glory vines for the possession of the soil, tracts
of palmlike palmeto and marshy jungles of willows, pampass grass and
briars afford attractive feeding grounds by day and safe roosting places
by night to myriads of winter visitants. In such places are found
abundant supplies of the insects, berries and seeds which this humid,
semi-tropical climate produces in great profusion. Good shelter and
plenty to eat settle the problem of living for the present for our
little feathered friends.
Walk out on these broad savannas about the first of February before a
tint of white or pale green has appeared on the chicasaw plum (Prunus
chicasa) and take note of the abundance and vigor of bird life before
spring has begun to make serious inroads upon it. In the drier parts of
these lowlands, especially where stubby plum bushes and haws abound, our
old friend the field sparrow meets us with the same innocent, confiding
air that we remember as characteristic of him in the region of Lake Erie
and Lake Michigan. He is one of the birds that we can talk about in the
indicative mood without “ifs” or apologies; the good that he does in
disposing of surplus insect life is not offset by tolls levied on our
ripest and juiciest fruit; he never goes over to the enemy to plunder
those who trust him. Even the robin, whose praises are in everybody’s
mouth, becomes a pirate when our cherries and mulberries ripen, and we
wish he would stay away from our premises till the berry season is over.
The pale red or horn-colored beak of this bird will help us to
distinguish him from another, often mistaken for him—the chippy, or
chipping sparrow, a bird of the same general appearance and size. Even
with the naked eye you can detect differences enough to distinguish the
two species. Both are small birds with chestnut or rufous crown caps;
the chippy has a patch of black on his forehead and bill of the same
color; his brother of the fields wears no black, and his bill, as before
stated, is a pale red or horn color. In Central Mississippi, as in parts
of Northern Ohio, field sparrows are very numerous, but chippies quite
rare.
In the grass or crouched down close to the brown earth and gray weed
stems we see another of our friends. With a “chip” he jumps up out of
the grass and is away before you can see what particular shade of gray
or brown is most conspicuous. However, he doesn’t fly far, but suddenly
drops into some inviting tuft, spreading out his tail like a fan as he
does so, as if on purpose to show you its margin of white. This is the
only one of our common sparrows that shows the white feather—the vesper
sparrow, or bay-winged bunting. The field sparrow, as one authority
says, had better be called the tree sparrow, because of his marked
fondness for bushes and shrubs, but both of the former’s names fit; he
is rightly called the vesper sparrow from his delightful custom of
singing his choicest hymns to the dying sun, and bay-winged bunting from
the conspicuous patch of bay or rufous on the lesser wing coverts.
Sometimes in company with the vespers we see the slate-colored junco, or
snow bird; at other times a gorgeous, distinguished looking sparrow,
named from his partiality to these broad, low fields, the savanna
sparrow. He is the dandy of this winter resort. His plaid coat and
striped shirt eclipse the somber colors of all his cousins. The
epaulettes of gold on his shoulders indicate his high rank; but for all
that he is no dude, for he works as hard as anybody to find his own
breakfast and enjoys it all the more that he eats his crickets in the
sweat of his brow. A simple “chip” is the only remark he makes to us or
to his companions as he runs along the cotton rows in quest of food.
Ornithologists, however, tell us that up in Canada in his summer home he
sings a weak, grasshopper-like song in marked contrast to the musical
efforts of his neutral tinted cousin, the vesper.
The fields of broom sedge are the favorite haunts of one of the birds
whose cheerful music and winning ways help to make June in the North
“the high tide of the year, when all of life that has ebbed away comes
rippling back into each inlet and creek and bay.” I never see the meadow
lark or hear his cheery whistle that I do not smell the blossoming
clover and hear the ringing “spink, spank, spink” of the bobolink or
catch the subtle suggestion of strawberries that comes floating to my
nostrils on the warm June breeze. In a thirty minutes’ walk through the
sedge I have flushed as many as two or three hundred of these birds.
They are called “field larks” by the negroes, who regard them as
legitimate game. The lark’s whistle—it can hardly be called a
song—contains a bit of good advice habitually disregarded by the
negroes. They interpret it as “laziness will kill you.”
The colored people have an ornithology all their own, in which their own
observations are strangely mingled with superstition. They tell us of
two kinds of mockingbirds, “de real” and “de French” varieties. The real
mockingbird deserves an article all to himself. His winning ways,
playful disposition and ability as a singer give him a place second to
none among our American birds. I am pleased to see the spirit of
Americanism growing in our literature, that conventional allusions to
the skylark and the nightingale, birds few of us have ever seen or
heard, are becoming rarer and rarer, while those to the robin, the
mockingbird and the wood thrush are becoming more frequent. The
mockingbird, like other singers, does his best during the courting and
nesting seasons, but does not confine his concerts to that joyous time.
On warm days in winter he loves to perch in the cedars and give his
listeners a sample of what he can do, an earnest of the floods of melody
that spring will bring. Balmy air, green of cedar and water oak and bird
music disarrange our mental almanac. Even the nodding narcissus
contributes to the illusion that it is not February, but May.
The “French mockingbird” is no mockingbird at all, but the logger-headed
shrike, or butcher bird. Like some people, he tries to occupy a front
seat, even if his music wins for him one of the lowest seats of the
choir. A beanpole in the garden, the topmost wire of the fence and the
top of a solitary shrub or tree are alike acceptable to him, for it’s
all one to him if he gets to see all that is going on in his little
world. No doubt he does do mischief during the nesting season, when eggs
or tender nestlings are easier to find or more acceptable to his
fastidious palate than the mice and insects which compose his winter
diet. Just now he is a most pleasing bit of decided color, black, white
and blue-gray, very refreshing to the eye, amid the browns and grays of
last year’s vegetation.
When a cold wave comes, what a scurrying takes place! Each winter
visitor packs his grip and strikes for the nearest shelter, be it
canebrake or swampy jungle, where tall grass and cat-tails above, briars
and water below, make a retreat impregnable to assault from the enemy
flying through the air or creeping along the ground. If the cold wave
continues until the ground freezes the birds suffer. At such times
half-starved robins gorge themselves on the berries of the China tree
(Melia azederach) and have a general “drunk.” They never eat many of the
berries unless they are the only provisions obtainable, unless driven to
it by stress of the weather, an excuse for drunks that cannot always be
truthfully given by the lords of creation. While the silly birds are
sitting around trying to throw off the effects of their debauch an enemy
comes upon the scene. The negroes take advantage of the robin’s
disability to manage his own affairs and feast high on roast robin,
fried robin, stewed robin, etc., much to the detriment of next spring’s
music in Northern fields and orchards.
The warm breath of the Gulf steals in upon our little world and a change
comes. The birds remember that they are due in a few days in an Ohio
orchard or on an Illinois prairie, so they pack and go. The allurements
of a Southern spring, with all its fragrance and charm, do not hold
them. Without a goodby they are gone, not to return till once more
“Frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.”
James Stephen Compton.