make one shiver even in bed--the western robins opened the day's concert
with a splendid voluntary, waking me out of my slumbers and forcing me
out of doors for an early walk. No one but a systematic ornithologist
would be able to mark the difference between the eastern and western
types of robins, for their manners, habits, and minstrelsy are alike,
and their markings, too, so far as ordinary observation goes. The
carolling of the two varieties is similar, so far as I could
discern--the same cherry ringing melody, their voices having a like
propensity to break into falsetto, becoming a veritable squeak,
especially early in the season before their throat-harps are well tuned.
With his powerful muscles and wide stretch of wing the robin is
admirably adapted to the life of a mountaineer. You find him from the
plains to the timber-line, sometimes even in the deepest canyons and on
the most precipitous mountain sides, always the same busy, noisy, cheery
body. One day I saw a robin dart like a meteor from the top of a high
ridge over the cliffs to the valley below, where he alighted on a
cultivated field almost as lightly as a flake of snow. He--probably she
(what a trouble these pronouns are, anyway!)--gathered a mouthful of
worms for his nestlings, then dashed up to the top of the ridge again,
which he did, not by flying out into the air, but by keeping close up to
the steep, cliffy wall, striking a rock here and twig there with his
agile feet to help him in rising. The swiftness of the robin's movements
about the gorges, abysses, and precipices of the mountains often
inspires awe in the beholder's breast, and, on reflection, stirs him
with envy. Many nests were found in the Georgetown valley, in woodsy and
bushy places on the route to Gray's Peak as far as the timber-line, in
the neighborhood of Boulder, in the Platte River Canyon, in South Park,
and in the Blue River region beyond the Divide. Some of the nests
contained eggs, others young in various stages of plumage, and still
others were already deserted. For general ubiquity as a species, commend
me to the American robin, whether of the eastern or western type.
Wherever found he is a singer, and it is only to be regretted that--
"All will not hear thy sweet, out-pouring joy
That with morn's stillness blends the voice of song,
For over-anxious cares their souls employ,
That else, upon thy music borne along
And the light wings of heart-ascending prayer,
Had learned that Heaven is pleased thy simple joys to share."
[Illustration: _Western Robin_
"_Out-pouring joy_"]
In Georgetown, Silver Plume, and other mountain towns the lovely
violet-green swallow is frequently seen--a distinctly western species
and one of the most richly apparelled birds of the Rockies. It nests in
all sorts of niches and crannies about the houses, often sits calmly on
a telegraph wire and preens its iridescent plumes, and sometimes utters
a weak and squeaky little trill, which, no doubt, passes for first-rate
music in swallowdom, whatever we human critics might think of it. Before
man came and settled in those valleys, the violet-greens found the
crevices of rocks well enough adapted to their needs for nesting sites,
but now they prefer cosey niches and crannies in human dwellings, and
appear to appreciate the society of human beings.
For over a week we made Georgetown our headquarters, going off every day
to the regions round about. Among my most treasured finds here was the
nest of Audubon's warbler--my first. It was saddled in the crotch of a
small pine a short distance up an acclivity, and was prettily roofed
over with a thick network of branches and twigs. Four white, daintily
speckled eggs lay in the bottom of the cup. While I was sitting in the
shadow of the pine, some motion of mine caused the little owner to
spring from her nest, and this led to its discovery. As she flitted
about in the bushes, she uttered a sharp _chip_, sometimes consisting of
a double note. The nest was about four feet from the ground, its walls
built of grasses and weed-stems, and its concave little floor carpeted
with cotton and feathers. A cosey cottage it was, fit for the little
poets that erected it. Subsequently I made many long and tiresome
efforts to find nests of the Audubons, but all these efforts were
futile.
One enchanting day--the twenty-fourth of June--was spent in making a
trip, with butterfly-net and field-glass, to Green Lake, an emerald gem
set in the mountains at an altitude of ten thousand feet, a few miles
from Georgetown. Before leaving the town, our first gray-headed junco
for this expedition was seen. He had come to town for his breakfast, and
was flitting about on the lawns and in the trees bordering the street,
helping himself to such dainties as pleased his palate. It may be said
here that the gray-headed juncos were observed at various places all
along the way from Georgetown to Green Lake and far above that body of
water. Not so with the broad-tailed hummers, which were not seen above
about eight thousand five hundred feet, while the last warbling vireo of
the day was seen and heard at an altitude of nine thousand feet,
possibly a little more, when he decided that the air was as rare as was
good for his health.
A short distance up the canyon of the west branch of Clear Creek, a new
kind of flycatcher was first heard, and presently seen with my glass. He
sat on a cliff or flitted from rock to bush. He uttered a sharp call,
"Cheep, cheep, cheep"; his under parts were bright yellow, his upper
parts yellow-olive, growing darker on the crown, and afterwards a nearer
view revealed dark or dusky wings, yellowish or gray wing-bars, and
yellow eye-rings. He was the western flycatcher, and bears close
likeness to our eastern yellow-breasted species. Subsequently he was
quite frequently met with, but never far above the altitude of
Georgetown.
In the same canyon a beautiful Macgillivray's warbler was observed, and
two water-ousels went dashing up the meandering stream, keeping close
to the seething and roaring waters, but never stopping to sing or bid us
the time of day. Very few ousels were observed in our rambles in this
region, and no nests rewarded my search, whereas in the vicinity of
Colorado Springs, as the reader will recall, these interesting birds
were quite frequently near at hand. A mother robin holding a worm in her
bill sped down the gulch with the swiftness of an arrow. We soon reached
a belt of quaking asps where there were few birds. This was succeeded by
a zone of pines. The green-tailed towhees did not accompany us farther
in our climb than to an elevation of about nine thousand three hundred
feet, but the siskins were chirping and cavorting about and above us all
the way, many of them evidently having nests in the tops of the tall
pines on the dizzy cliffs. Likewise the hermit thrushes were seen in
suitable localities by the way, and also at the highest point we reached
that day, an elevation of perhaps ten thousand five hundred feet.
While some species were, so to speak, our "companions in travel" the
entire distance from the town to the lake, and others went with us only
a part of the way, still other species found habitats only in the higher
regions clambering far up toward the timber-line. Among these were the
mountain jays, none of which were found as far down the range as
Georgetown. They began to proclaim their presence by raucous calls as
soon as we arrived in the vicinity of Green Lake. A family of them were
hurtling about in the pine woods, allowing themselves to be inspected at
short range, and filling the hollows with their uncanny calls. What a
voice the mountain jay has! Nature did a queer thing when she put a
"horse-fiddle" into the larynx of this bird--but it is not ours to ask
the reason why, simply to study her as she is. In marked contrast with
the harsh calls of these mountain hobos were the roulades of the sweet
and musical ruby-crowned kinglets, which had absented themselves from
the lower altitudes, but were abundant in the timber belts about ten
thousand feet up the range and still higher.
[Illustration: _Red-naped Sapsuckers_
"_Chiselling grubs out of the bark_"]
On the border of the lake, among some gnarly pines, I stumbled upon a
woodpecker that was entirely new to my eastern eyes--one that I had not
seen in my previous touring among the heights of the Rockies. He was
sedulously pursuing his vocation--a divine call, no doubt--of chiselling
grubs out of the bark of the pine trees, making the chips fly, and
producing at intervals that musical snare-drumming which always sets
the poet to dreaming of sylvan solitudes. What was the bird? The
red-naped sapsucker, a beautifully habited Chesterfield in plumes. He
presently ambled up the steep mountain side, and buried himself in the
pine forest, and I saw him no more, and none of his kith.
When I climbed up over a tangle of rocks to a woodsy ravine far above
the lake, it seemed at first as if there were no birds in the place,
that it was given up entirely to solitude; but the winged creatures were
only shy and cautious for the nonce, waiting to learn something about
the errand and disposition of their uninvited, or, rather, self-invited,
guest, before they ventured to give him a greeting. Presently they
discovered that he was not a collector, hunter, nest-robber, or ogre of
any other kind, and there was the swish of wings around me, and a medley
of chirps and songs filled the sequestered spot. Away up here the
gray-headed juncos were trilling like warblers, and hopping about on
their pine-needle carpet, creeping in and out among the rocks, hunting
for tidbits. Here also was the mountain chickadee, found at this season
in the heights hard by the alpine zone, singing his dulcet minor strain,
"Te-te-re-e-e, te-eet," sometimes adding another "te-eet" by way of
special emphasis and adornment. Oh, the sweet little piper piping only
for Pan! The loneliness of the place was accentuated by the sad cadenzas
of the mountain hermit thrushes. Swallows of some kind--cliff-swallows,
no doubt--were silently weaving invisible filigree across the sky above
the tops of the stately pines.
In the afternoon we made our way, with not a little laborious effort, to
the farther end of the lake, across which a red-shafted flicker would
occasionally wing its galloping flight; thence through a wilderness of
large rocks and fallen pines to a beckoning ridge, where, to our
surprise, another beautiful aqueous sheet greeted our vision in the
valley beyond. Descending to its shores, we had still another
surprise--its waters were brown instead of green. Here were two mountain
lakes not more than a quarter of a mile apart, one of which was green
and the other brown, each with a beauty all its own. In the brown lake
near the shore there were glints of gold as the sun shone through its
ripples on the rocks at the bottom. Afterwards we learned that the name
of this liquid gem was Clear Lake, and that the western branch of Clear
Creek flows through it, tarrying a while to sport and dally with the
sunbeams. While Green Lake was embowered in a forest of pine, its
companion lay in the open sunlight, unflecked by the shadow of a tree.
At the upper end of Clear Lake we found a green, bosky and bushy corner,
which formed the summer tryst of white-crowned sparrows, Wilson's
warblers, and broad-tailed humming-birds, none of which could find a
suitable habitat on the rocky, forest-locked shores of Green Lake. A
pigeon hawk, I regretted to note, had settled among the bushes, and was
watching for quarry, making the only fly in the amber of the enchanted
spot. A least flycatcher flitted about in the copse some distance up a
shallow runway. I trudged up the valley about a mile above Clear Lake,
and found a green, open meadow, with clumps of bushes here and there, in
which a few white-crowned sparrows and Wilson's warblers had taken up at
least a temporary dwelling; but the wind was blowing shiveringly from
the snow-capped mountains not many miles away, and there was still a
wintry aspect about the vale. The cold evidently affected the birds as
it did myself, for they lisped only a few bars of song in a half-hearted
way. Evening was approaching, and the two travellers--the human ones, I
mean--started on the trail down the valleys and canyons toward
Georgetown, which they reached at dusk, tired, but thankful for the
privilege of spending an idyllic day among their winged companions.
[Illustration: _Pigeon Hawk_
"_Watching for quarry_"]
Following a wagon road, the next day, across a pass some distance below
Georgetown brought us into another valley, whose green meadows and
cultivated fields lay a little lower, perhaps a couple hundred feet,
than the valley from which we had come. Here we found many Brewer's
blackbirds, of which there were very few in the vicinity of Georgetown.
They were feeding their young, some of which had already left the nest.
No red-winged blackbirds had been seen in the Georgetown valley, while
here there was a large colony of them, many carrying food to the
bantlings in grass and bush. Otherwise there was little difference
between the avi-fauna of the two valleys.
One morning I climbed the steep mountain just above Georgetown, the one
that forms the divide between the two branches of Clear Creek. A western
chipping sparrow sat trilling on the top of a small pine, as unafraid as
the chippie that rings his silvery peals about your dooryard in the
East; nor could I distinguish any difference between the minstrelsy of
this westerner and his well-known cousin of Ohio. He dexterously caught
an insect on the wing, having learned that trick, perhaps, from his
neighbor, the little western flycatcher, which also lived on the slope.
Hermit thrushes, Audubon's warblers, and warbling vireos dwelt on the
lower part of the acclivity. When I climbed far up the steep wall,
scarcely able to cling to its gravelly surface, I found very few birds;
only a flycatcher and an Audubon's warbler, while below me the hermit
thrushes were chanting a sacred oratorio in the pine woods.
On another day the train bore us around the famous "Loop" to Silver
Plume. In the beautiful pine grove at the terminus of the railway there
were many birds--siskins, chipping sparrows, western robins and
ruby-crowned kinglets; and they were making the place vocal with melody,
until I began to inspect them with my glass, when they suddenly lapsed
into a silence that was as trying as it was profound. By and by,
discretion having had her perfect work, they metaphorically came out of
their shells and permitted an inspection. Above the railway I saw one of
the few birds of my entire Rocky Mountain outing that I was unable to
identify. That little feathered Sphinx--what could he have been? To
quote from my note-book, "His song, as he sits quietly on a twig in a
pine tree, is a rich gurgling trill, slightly like that of a house-wren,
but fuller and more melodious, with an air about it that makes me feel
almost like writing a poem. The bird is in plain view before me, and I
may watch him either with or without my glass; he has a short, conical
bill; his upper parts are gray or olive-gray; cervical patch of a
greenish tinge; under parts whitish, spotted with dusk or brown. The
bill is white or horn-color, and is quite heavy, I should say heavier
than that of any sparrow I know. The bird continued to sing for a long
time and at frequent intervals, not even stopping when the engine near
at hand blew off steam, although he turned his head and looked a little
startled." I saw this species nowhere else in my Colorado rambles, and
can find no description in the systematic manuals that helps to clear up
the mystery, and so an _avis incognita_ he must remain for the present.
Has mention been made of a few house-finches that were seen in
Georgetown? Only a few, however, for they prefer the towns and cities of
the plain. Several house-wrens were also seen in the vicinity of the
Georgetown Loop as well as elsewhere in the valley. The "Loop," although
a monumental work of human genius and daring, has its peculiar
attractions for the student of natural history, for in the canyon itself,
which is somewhat open and not without bushy haunts, and on the
precipitous mountain sides, a few birds set up their Lares and Penates,
and mingle their songs of domestic felicity with the roar of the torrent
and the passing trains. Darting like zigzag lightning about the cliffs,
the broad-tailed humming-bird cuts the air with his sharp, defiant buzz,
until you exclaim with the poet:
"Is it a monster bee,
Or is it a midget bird,
Or yet an air-born mystery
That now yon marigold has stirred?"
[Illustration: "_Solo singing in the thrush realm_"]
Among the birds that dwell on the steep mountain sides above the "Loop"
hollow are the melodious green-tailed towhees, lisping their chansons of
good-will to breeze and torrent, while in the copse of asps in the
hollow itself the warbling vireo and the western flycatcher hold sway,
the former rehearsing his recitative all the day long, and the latter
chirping his protest at every human intrusion. On a pine-clad shelf
between the second fold of the "Loop" and what is known as the "Great
Fill" I settled (at least, to my own satisfaction) a long-disputed
point in regard to the vocalization of the mountain hermit thrush.
Again and again I had noticed a peculiarity about the hermit's
minstrelsy--whenever the music reached my ear, it came in two runs, the
first quite high in the scale, the second perhaps an octave lower. For a
long time I supposed that two thrushes were singing responsively, but
here at the "Loop," after listening for a couple of hours, it occurred
to me as improbable that there would invariably be a respondent when a
thrush lifted up his voice in song. Surely there would sometimes, at
least, be solo singing in the thrush realm. And so the conclusion was
forced upon me that both strains emanated from the same throat, that
each vocalist was its own respondent. It was worth while to clamber
laboriously about the "Loop" to settle a point like that--at all events,
it was worth while for one admirer of the birds.
HO! FOR GRAY'S PEAK!
[Illustration: PLATE VI
TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE--_Myiadestes townsendii_]
[Illustration]
By the uninitiated it may be regarded simply as fun and pastime to climb
a mountain whose summit soars into cloudland; in reality it is serious
business, not necessarily accompanied with great danger, but always
accomplished by laborious effort. However, it is better for the
clamberer to look upon his undertaking as play rather than work. Should
he come to feel that it is actual toil, he might soon weary of a task
engaged in so largely for its own sake, and decide to expend his time
and energy in something that would "pay better." Moreover, if he is
impelled by a hobby--ornithology, for instance--in addition to the mere
love of mountaineering, he will find that something very near akin to
wings has been annexed to the climbing gear of which he is naturally
possessed.
The morning of June 27 saw my youthful companion and myself mounted each
upon a shaggy burro, scrambling up the steep hill above Georgetown, en
route for Gray's Peak, the ascent of which was the chief goal of our
ambition in coming to the Rockies on the present expedition. The
distance from Georgetown to the summit of this peak is fourteen miles,
and the crest itself is fourteen thousand four hundred and forty-one
feet above sea-level, almost three hundred feet higher than Pike's Peak,
and cannot be scaled by means of a cog-wheel railway or any other
contrivance that uses steam or electricity as a motor. Indeed, the only
motor available at the time of our ascent--that is, for the final
climb--was "shank's horses," very useful and mostly safe, even if a
little plebeian. We had been wise enough not to plunge at once among the
heights, having spent almost a week rambling over the plains, mesas,
foothills, and lower ranges, then had been occupied for five or six days
more in exploring the valleys and mountain sides in the vicinity of
Georgetown, and thus, by gradually approaching them, we had become
inured to "roughing it" in the higher altitudes when we reached them,
and suffered no ill effects from the rarefied atmosphere.
We passed the famous "Georgetown Loop," crept at a snail's pace--for
that is the natural gait of the burro--through the town of Silver Plume,
and pursued our leisurely journey toward the beckoning, snow-clad
heights beyond. No, we did not hurry, for two reasons: First, our
little four-footers would not or could not quicken their pace, urge them
as we would; second, we desired to name all the birds along the route,
and that "without a gun," as Emerson mercifully enjoins.
Have you ever ridden a burro? Have you ever been astride of an old one,
a hirsute, unkempt, snail-paced, obstinate one, which thinks he knows
better what gait he ought to assume than you do? If you have not, I
venture to suggest modestly that your education and moral discipline are
not quite complete. The pair which we had hired were slow and headstrong
enough to develop the patience of Job in a most satisfactory way, and to
test it, too. They were as homely as the proverbial "mud fence" is
supposed to be. Never having seen a fence of that kind, I speak with
some degree of caution, not wanting to cast any disparagement upon
something of which I have so little knowledge. If our long-eared
companions had ever seen a curry-comb, it must have been in the days of
Noah. You see, we were "tenderfoots," as far as having had any
experience with burros was concerned, or we might have selected a more
sprightly pair for our fellow-pilgrims. A fine picture, fit for the
camera or the artist's brush, we presented as we crept with the speed of
a tortoise along the steep mountain roads and trails. Our "jacks," as
Messrs. Longears are called colloquially, were not lazy--oh, no! they
were simply averse to leaving home! Their domestic ties were so strong
they bound them with cords of steel and hooks of iron to stall and
stable-yard! The thought of forsaking friends and kindred even for only
a few days wrung their loving hearts with anguish! No wonder we had a
delicate and pathetic task on hand when we attempted to start our
caravan up the mountain road. From side to side the gentle animals
wabbled, their load of grief weighing them down tenfold more than the
loads on their backs, and times without count they were prompted to veer
about and "turn again home."
Much labor and time and patience were expended in persuading our steeds
to crawl up the hill, but I am delighted to say that no profane history
was quoted, as we were a strictly moral crowd. At length we arrived in
state at the village of Silver Plume. Canter into the town like a gang
of border ruffians we did not; we entered deliberately, as became a
dignified company of travellers. But here a new difficulty confronted
us, stared us blankly in the face. Our little charges could not be
convinced that there was any occasion for going farther than the town.
They seemed to have conscientious scruples about the matter; so they
stopped without any invitation from their riders, sidled off, turned in
toward the residences, stores, groceries, shoe-shops, drugstores, barns,
and even the saloons, the while the idlers on the streets and the small
boys were gawking at us, smiling in a half-suppressed way, and making
quaint remarks in which we could see no wisdom nor humor. We had not
come into the town, like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, merely to furnish
the villagers amusement. Applying our canes and straps forcibly to the
haunches and rumps of our burros only seemed to embarrass the poor
creatures, for you can readily see how they would reason the matter out
from their own premises: If they were to go no farther, as had been
decided by themselves, why should their riders belabor them in that
merciless way? For downright dialectics commend me to the Rocky Mountain
burro.