called in the scientific manuals _Erismatura rubida_. As I sat on a rock
on the shore, watching the aquatic fowl, one of the male ruddy ducks,
accompanied by three or four females, swam out from the reeds into an
open space where I could see him plainly with my field-glass. A
beautiful picture he presented, as he glided proudly about on the water,
surrounded by his devoted harem. Imagine, if you can, how regal he must
have appeared--his broad, flat bill, light blue, widening out at the
commissure, and seeming to shade off into the large white cheeks, which
looked like snowy puffballs on the sides of his head; his crown, black
and tapering; his neck, back, and sides, a rich, glossy brownish-red;
his lower parts, "silky, silvery white, 'watered' with dusky, yielding,
gray undulations"; and his wing-coverts and jauntily perked-up tail,
black. If that was not a picture worthy of an artist's brush I have
never seen one in the outdoor world.
No less quaint was his conduct. That he was proud and self-conscious, no
one seeing him could doubt; and it was just as plain from his
consequential mien, that he was posing before his train of plainly clad
wives, who, no doubt, looked upon him as the greatest "catch" of the
lake. Unlike most ducks, in swimming this haughty major carries his head
erect, and even bent backward at a sharp angle; and his short tail is
cocked up and bent forward, so that his glossy back forms a graceful
half-circle or more, and does not slope downward, as do the backs of
most ducks on the water.
Of all the odd gestures, this fellow's carried off the palm. He would
draw his head up and back, then thrust it forward a few inches, extend
his blue bill in a horizontal line, and at the same time emit a low,
coarse squawk that I could barely hear. Oddly enough, all the females,
staid as they were, imitated their liege lord's deportment. It was their
way of protesting against my ill-bred intrusion into their demesne.
Presently a second male came out into the open space, accompanied by a
retinue of wives, and then a third emerged, similarly attended. With
this there was a challenging among the rivals that was interesting to
witness; they fairly strutted about on the water, now advancing, now
retreating, and occasionally almost, but never quite, closing in combat.
Sometimes one would pursue another for a rod or more, in a swift rush
that would make the spray fly and cut a swath on the smooth bosom of
the lake.
Several coots now appeared on the scene. Between them and the ruddy
ducks there seemed to be a feud of more or less intensity, each being on
the offensive or the defensive as the exigencies of naval warfare
demanded. Once I was moved to laughter as a coot made a fierce dash
toward one of the ducks, and was almost upon her, and I thought she was
destined to receive a severe trouncing, when she suddenly dodged her
pursuer by diving. He just as suddenly gave up the chase, looking as if
it were a case of "sour grapes," anyway.
After watching the antics of these birds for a long time, I turned my
attention to another pretty scene,--a pair of coots leading their family
of eight or ten little ones out into the clear area from their
hiding-place among the reeds, presenting a picture of unruffled domestic
bliss. How sweet and innocent the little coots were! Instead of the
black heads and necks of their parents, and the white bills and frontal
bones, these parts were tinted with red, which appeared quite bright and
gauze-like in the sunshine.
The process of feeding the juvenile birds was interesting. The parents
would swim about, then suddenly dip their heads into the water, or else
dive clear under, coming up with slugs in their bills. Turning to the
youngsters, which were always close upon their heels--or perhaps I
would better say their tails--they would hold out their bills, when the
little ones would swim up and pick off the toothsome morsel. It must not
be supposed that the bantlings opened their mouths, as most young birds
do, to receive the tidbits. No, indeed! That is not coot vogue. The
little ones picked the insects from the sides of the papa's or mamma's
beak, turning their own little heads cunningly to one side as they
helped themselves to their luncheon.
The other waterfowl of the lake acted in an ordinary way, and therefore
need no description. It was strange, however, that this was the only
lake seen in all my Rocky Mountain touring where I found waterfowl. At
Seven Lakes, Moraine Lake, and others in the vicinity of Pike's Peak,
not a duck, crane, or coot was to be seen; and the same was true of
Cottonwood Lake, twelve miles from Buena Vista, right in the heart of
the rugged mountains.
[Illustration: "_From their place among the reeds_"]
Two facts may account for the abundance of birds at the little lake near
Buena Vista; first, here they were protected from gunners and pot
hunters by the owner, whose residence commanded a full view of the whole
area; and, second, large spaces of the upper end of the lake was thickly
grown with flags and rushes, which were cut off from the shore by a
watery space of considerable breadth. In this place these birds found
coverts from enemies and suitable sites for their nests.
A BIRD MISCELLANY
It shall be my purpose in this chapter to describe with more or less
fulness a number of Rocky Mountain birds which have either not been
mentioned in previous chapters or have received only casual attention.
On reaching Colorado one is surprised to find none of our common blue
jays which are so abundant in the Eastern and Middle States. In my
numerous Rocky Mountain jaunts not one was seen. Yet this region does
not need to go begging for jays, only they belong to different groups of
the _Garrulinae_ subfamily. The most abundant and conspicuous of these
western forms are the long-crested jays, so called on account of the
long tuft of black feathers adorning the occiput. This distinguishing
mark is not like the firm pyramidal crest of the eastern jay, but is
longer and narrower, and so flexible that it sways back and forth as the
bird flits from branch to branch or takes a hop-skip-and-jump over the
ground. Its owner can raise and lower it at will.
The forehead of this jay is prettily sprinkled with white; his head and
neck are black, in decided contrast with the umber-brown of the back;
his rump and belly are pale blue, and his wings and tail are rich
indigo-blue, somewhat iridescent and widely barred with black. Thus it
will be seen that he has quite a different costume from that of our
eastern jay, with his gaudy trimmings of white and black and purplish
blue. The westerner cannot boast of _cristata's_ dressy black collar,
but otherwise he is more richly attired, although he may not be quite so
showy.
The long-crested jays have a wide range among the mountains, breeding
from the base of the foothills to the timber-line, although their nests
are not commonly found below an altitude of seven thousand feet. In many
places from nine to eleven thousand feet up the acclivities of the
mountains they were seen flitting among the pines or the quaking asps.
Like their eastern relatives, some individuals seem to prefer the
society of man, dwelling in the villages or in the vicinity of country
homes, while others choose the most secluded and solitary localities for
their habitat. The fact is, I rarely made an excursion anywhere without
sooner or later discovering that these jays had pre-empted the place for
feeding or breeding purposes, sometimes with loud objurgations bidding
me be gone, and at other times making no to-do whatever over my
intrusion. Perhaps the proximity or remoteness of their nests was the
chief cause of this variableness in their behavior.
A pretty picture is one of these jays mounting from branch to branch
around the stem of a pine tree, from the lower limbs to the top, as if
he were ascending a spiral staircase. This seems to be one of their
regulation habits when they find themselves under inspection. If you
intrude on their domestic precincts, their cry is quite harsh, and bears
no resemblance to the quaint calls of the eastern jays; nor does the
plaintive note of the eastern representative, so frequently heard in the
autumnal woods, ever issue from any of the numerous jay throats of the
West.
Far be it from me to blacken the reputation of any bird, but there is at
least circumstantial evidence that the long-crested jay, like his
eastern cousin, is a nest robber; for such birds as robins, tanagers,
flycatchers, and vireos make war upon him whenever he comes within their
breeding districts, and this would indicate that they are only too well
aware of his predatory habits. More than that, he has the sly and
stealthy manners of the sneak-thief and the brigand. Of course, he is by
no means an unmixed evil, for you will often see him leaping about on
the lawns, capturing beetles and worms which would surely be injurious
to vegetation if allowed to live and multiply.
There are other jays in the Rockies that deserve attention. The Rocky
Mountain jay--_Perisoneus canadensis capitalis_--is a bird of the higher
altitudes, remaining near the timber-line all the year round, braving
the most rigorous weather and the fiercest mountain storms during the
winter. Although not an attractive species, his hardiness invests him
with not a little interest. One can imagine him seeking a covert in the
dense pineries when a storm sweeps down from the bald, snow-mantled
summits, squawking his disapproval of the ferocity of old Boreas, and
yet able to resist his most violent onsets.
[Illustration: _The Rocky Mountain Jay_
"_Seeking a covert in the dense pineries when a storm sweeps down from
the mountains_"]
Early in April, at an altitude of from eight thousand to eleven thousand
five hundred feet, these jays begin to breed. At that height this is
long before the snow ceases to fall; indeed, on the twentieth of June,
while making the descent from Pike's Peak, I was caught in a snowfall
that gave the ground quite a frosty aspect for a few minutes. One can
readily fancy, therefore, that the nests of these birds are often
surrounded with snow, and that the bantlings may get their first view
of the world in the swirl of a snow-squall. The nests are built in pine
bushes and trees at various distances from the ground. Of all the
hurly-burlies ever heard, that which these birds are able to make when
you go near their nests, or discover them, bears off the palm, their
voices being as raucous as a buzz-saw, fairly setting your teeth on
edge.
Those of us who live in the East are so accustomed to the adjective
"blue" in connection with the jay that we are surprised to find that _P.
c. capitalis_ wears no blue whatever, but dons a sombre suit of leaden
gray, somewhat relieved by the blackish shade of the wings and tail,
with their silvery or frosted lustre. He is certainly not an attractive
bird, either in dress or in form, for he appears very "thick-headed" and
lumpish, as if he scarcely knew enough to seek shelter in a time of
storm; but, of course, a bird that contrives to coax a livelihood out of
such unpromising surroundings must possess a fine degree of
intelligence, and, therefore, cannot be so much of a dullard as his
appearance would indicate.
He has some interesting ways, too, as will be seen from the following
quotation from a Colorado writer: "White-headed, grave, and sedate, he
seems a very paragon of propriety, and if you appear to be a suitable
personage, he will be apt to give you a bit of advice. Becoming
confidential, he sputters out a lot of nonsense which causes you to
think him a veritable 'whiskey Jack.' Yet, whenever he is disposed, a
more bland, mind-your-own-business appearing bird will be hard to find;
as will also many small articles around camp after one of his visits,
for his whimsical brain has a great fancy for anything which may be
valuable to you, but perfectly useless to himself." This habit of
purloining has won him the title of "camp robber" among the people of
the Rocky Mountains.
Woodhouse's jay, also peculiar to the Rocky Mountain region, is mostly
to be found along the base of the foothills and the lower wooded
mountains. While he may be called a "blue" jay, having more of that
color in his plumage than even the long-crested, he belongs to the
_Aphelcoma_ group--that is, he is without a crest.
Every observer of eastern feathered folk is familiar with our "little
boy blue," the indigo-bird, whose song is such a rollicking and saucy
air, making you feel as if the little lyrist were chaffing you. In
Colorado, however, you do not meet this animated chunk of blue, but
another little bird that belongs to the same group, called the "painted
finches," although their plumes are not painted any more than those of
other species. This bird is the lazuli bunting. He wears a great deal of
blue, but it is azure, and not indigo, covering the head, neck, most of
the upper parts, and the lining of the wings; and, as if to give
variety to the bird's attire, the nape and back are prettily shaded with
brown, and the wings and tail with black. But his plumage is still more
variegated, for he bears a conspicuous white spot on the greater
wing-coverts, and his breast is daintily tinted with chestnut-brown,
abruptly cut off from the blue of the throat, while the remaining under
parts are snowy white. From this description it will be seen that he is
quite unlike the indigo-bird, which has no brown or white in his
cerulean attire. Handsome as Master Indigo is, the lazuli finch, with
his sextet of hues, is a more showily dressed bird; in fact, a lyric in
colors.
The habits of the two birds are quite similar. However, the lazuli
seemed to be much shyer than his relative, for the latter is a familiar
figure at the border of our eastern woodlands, about our country homes,
and even in the neighborhood of our town dwellings, when there are
bushes and trees close at hand. My saunterings among the mountains took
me into the haunts of the lazulis, but I regret to have to confess that
all my alertness was of so little avail that I saw only three males and
one female. One day, while rambling among the cottonwoods that broidered
the creek flowing south of Colorado Springs, I was brought to a
standstill by a sharp chirp, and the next moment a pair of lazulis
appeared on the lower branches and twigs of a tree. There they sat quiet
enough, watching me keenly, but allowing me to peer at them at will
with my field-glass. I could not understand why birds that otherwise
were so shy should now permit a prolonged inspection and manifest so
little anxiety; but perhaps they reasoned that they had been discovered
anyway, and there was no need of pretending that no lazulis dwelt in the
neighborhood. How elegant the little husband looked in his variegated
attire! The wife was soberly clad in warm brown, slightly streaked with
dusk, but she was trig and pretty and worthy of her more richly
apparelled spouse. In the bushes below I found a well-made nest, which I
felt morally certain belonged to the little couple that was keeping such
faithful surveillance over it. As yet it contained no eggs.
In order to make certainty doubly sure, I visited the place a week or so
later, and found that my previous conclusion had been correct. I flushed
the little madame from the nest, and saw her flit with a chirp to the
twigs above, where she sat quietly watching her visitor, exhibiting no
uneasiness whatever about her cot in the bushes with its three precious
eggs. It was pleasing to note the calmness and dignity with which she
regarded me. But where was that important personage, the little husband?
He was nowhere to be seen, although I lingered about the charmed spot
for over two hours, hoping to get at least a glimpse of him. A friend,
who understands the sly ways of the lazulis, suggested that very likely
the male was watching me narrowly all the while from a safe hiding-place
in the dense foliage of some tree not far away.
My friend told me that I would not be able to distinguish the song of
the lazuli from those of the summer and mountain warblers. We shall see
whether he was right. One evening I was searching for a couple of blue
grosbeaks at the border of Colorado Springs, where I had previously seen
them, when a loud, somewhat percussive song, much like the summer
warbler's, burst on my ear, coming from a clump of willow bushes hard by
the stream. At once I said to myself, "That is not the summer warbler's
trill. It resembles the challenging song of the indigo-bird, only it is
not quite so loud and defiant. A lazuli finch's song, or I am sadly
astray! Let me settle the question now."
I did settle it to my great satisfaction, for, after no little effort, I
succeeded in obtaining a plain view of the elusive little lyrist, and,
sure enough, it proved to be the lazuli finch. Metaphorically I patted
myself with a great deal of self-complacency, as I muttered: "The idea
of Mr. Aiken's thinking I had so little discrimination! I know that
hereafter I shall be able to detect the lazuli's peculiar intonations
every time." So I walked home in a very self-confident frame of mind. A
few days later I heard another song lilting down from the upper branches
of a small tree. "Surely that is the lazuli again," I muttered. "I know
that voice." For a while I eyed the tree, and presently caught sight of
the little triller, and behold, it was--a summer warbler! All my
self-complacency vanished in a moment; I wasn't cock-sure of anything;
and I am obliged to confess that I was led astray in a similar manner
more than once afterward. It may indicate an odd psychological condition
to make the claim; but, absurd or not, I am disposed to believe that,
whenever I really heard the lazuli, I was able to recognize his song
with a fair degree of certainty, but when I heard the summer warbler I
was thrown into more or less confusion, not being quite sure whether it
was that bird or the other.
The most satisfactory lazuli song I heard was on the western side of the
range, at the resort called Glenwood. This time, as was usually the
case, I heard the little triller before seeing him, and was sure it was
_Passerina amoena_, as the bunting strains were plainly discernible.
He was sitting on a telephone wire, and did not flit away as I stood
below and peered at him through my glass, and admired his trig and
handsome form. I studied his song, and tried to fix the peculiar
intonations in my mind, and felt positive that I could never be caught
again--but I was.[8]
[8] In the foregoing remarks the lazuli finches have been
represented as excessively shy. So they were in 1899 in the
neighborhoods then visited. Strangely enough, in the vicinity of
Denver in 1901, these birds were abundant and as easily approached
and studied as are the indigoes of the East. See the chapter
entitled, "Plains and Foothills."
The lazuli finch does not venture very high into the mountains, seldom
reaching an altitude of more than seven thousand feet. He is a lover of
the plains, the foothills, and the lower ranges of the mountains. In
this respect he differs from some other little birds, which seek a
summer home in the higher regions. On the southern slope of Pike's Peak,
a little below the timber-line, I found a dainty little bird which was a
stranger to me. It was Audubon's warbler. At first sight I decided that
he must be the myrtle warbler, but was compelled to change my conclusion
when I got a glimpse of his throat, which was golden yellow, whereas the
throat of _Dendroica coronata_ is pure white. Then, too, the myrtle
warbler is only a migrant in Colorado, passing farther north to breed.
Audubon's, it must be said, has extremely rich habiliments, his upper
parts being bluish-ash, streaked with black, his belly and under
tail-coverts white, and his breast in high feather, black, prettily
skirted with gray or invaded with white from below; but his yellow
spots, set like gleaming gold in various parts of his plumage,
constitute his most marked embellishment, being found on the crown,
rump, throat, and each side of the chest.
On my first excursion to some meadows and wooded low-grounds south of
Colorado Springs, while listening to a concert given by western
meadow-larks, my attention was attracted to a large, black bird circling
about the fields and then alighting on a fence-post. My first thought
was: "It is only a crow blackbird." But on second thought I decided that
the crow blackbird did not soar and circle about in this manner. At all
events, there seemed to be something slightly peculiar about this bird's
behavior, so I went nearer to inspect him, when he left his perch on the
post, flapped around over the meadow, and finally flew to a large,
partially decayed cottonwood tree in a pasture field. If I could believe
my eyes, he clung to the upright stems of the branches after the style
of a woodpecker! That was queer indeed--a woodpecker that looked
precisely like a blackbird! Such a featherland oddity was certainly
foreign to any of my calculations; for, it must be remembered, this was
prior to my making acquaintance with Williamson's sapsucker.
Closer inspection proved that this bird was actually hitching up and
down the branches of the tree in the regular woodpecker fashion.
Presently he slipped into a hole in a large limb, and the loud, eager
chirping of young birds was heard. It was not long before his mate
appeared, entered the cavity, and fed the clamorous brood. The birds
proved to be Lewis's woodpeckers, another distinctly western type. My
field-glass soon clearly brought out their peculiar markings.
A beautiful bird-skin, bought of Mr. Charles E. Aiken, now lies on my
desk and enables me to describe the fine habiliments of this kind from
an actual specimen. His upper parts are glossy black, the sheen on the
back being greenish, and that on the wings and tail bluish or purplish,
according to the angle of the sun's light; a white collar prettily
encircles the neck, becoming quite narrow on the nape, but widening out
on the side so as to cover the entire breast and throat. This pectoral
shield is mottled with black and lightly stained with buff in spots; the
forehead, chin, superciliary line, and a broad space on the cheek are
dyed a deep crimson; and, not least by any means, the abdomen is washed
with pink, which is delicately stencilled with white, gray, and buff. A
most gorgeous bird, fairly rivalling, but not distancing, Williamson's
sapsucker.
By accident I made a little discovery relative to the claws of this
woodpecker which, I suppose, would be true of all the _Picidae_ family.
The claws of the two fore toes are sharply curved and extremely acute,
making genuine hooks, so that when I attempt to pass my finger over them
the points catch at the skin. Could a better hook be contrived for
enabling the bird to clamber up the trunks and branches of trees? But
note: the claws of the two hind toes are not so sharply decurved, nor
so acute at the points, the finger slipping readily over them. Who can
deny the evidence of design in nature? The fore claws are highly
specialized for clinging, the very purpose for which they are needed,
while the hind claws, being used for a different purpose--only that of
support--are moulded over a different pattern.
Like our common red-head, this bird has the habit of soaring out into
the air and nabbing insects on the wing. The only other pair of these
woodpeckers I was so fortunate as to meet with were found in the ravine
leading up from Buena Vista to Cottonwood Lake.[9] Their nest was in a
dead tree by the roadside. While the first couple had been entirely
silent, one of the second pair chirped somewhat uneasily when I lingered
beneath his tree, suspecting, no doubt, that I had sinister designs upon
his nest. Unlike some of their kinsmen, these pickers of wood seem to be
quiet and dignified, not given to much demonstration, and are quite
leisurely in their movements both on the branch and on the wing.
[9] Two years later a pair were seen on a mountain near Golden,
Colorado, and probably twenty individuals were watched a long time
from a canyon above Boulder as they circled gracefully over the
mountains, catching insects on the wing.