MORNING IN MAINE
One would not think that forty or fifty girls could go on a hike
without making such a noise that any well regulated bird would
immediately take to the deepest wood. Under the direction, however,
of the little lady whom the girls affectionately called “Mother
Nature”, “Birdie”, or “Puss in Boots” when she donned rubber boots,
the first bird hike was quite successful. The girls slipped quietly
down the grassy road, or stood on the rocks together, and the little
Maine warblers who were out getting their breakfast never paid a bit
of attention. The big pine tree by the side of the road was full of
pine siskins, and every so often a Maryland yellow-throat would pop
up from some bush, exhibit his bright yellow breast and black mask,
and drop back again.
The Greycliff girls, of course, had brought their field glasses, in
the hope of discovering new birds in a different state. “Not a bit
of wind this morning, and warm,” said Hilary, “so of course the
birds are out.”
“I don’t call this warm, this cool morning air,” returned Lilian.
“I mean the bright sunshine and everything. O, look!”
A plump little indigo bunting, shining a bright green-blue in the
sun, flew across the lane and dropped to the ground not far in front
of them.
“Hark!” whispered Lilian. A Maryland yellow-throat was singing now,
“We _greet_ you, we _greet_ you, we _greet_ you!” as Lilian
interpreted it.
“He does say that,” confirmed Hilary. “It’s funny, isn’t it? They
say he says ‘wichity’, but I almost always hear him accent the song
differently. The other day I heard one say, ‘We beat you, we beat
you, Phoebe!’”
“Let’s go over on the rocks near those birches. I hear a lot of wood
warblers singing over there.”
Silently the girls climbed across rocks and bushes. It was indeed
warbler land. Hilary, who lived where the warblers often pass
through quickly in the spring migration, on account of hot days, was
especially interested. “There are a lot of redstarts,” said she. “I
think that the ones we see near our cabin, and the yellow warbler
there, too, are nesting in those bushes by us.”
“I wish I could see the chap that’s singing that song,” said Betty,
“Listen.”
“Zee, zoo, zee-zee, zoo,” hummed Lilian. “The ‘zee-zee’ is musical,
a sort of whistle, but the other notes sound like an insect, or some
low tones on a ‘cello’.”
“Say, Lilian, aren’t you a scientist!” said Isabel, hitching along
on the same rock.
“I am. I’m getting bird songs. That ‘right here’ of the chewink is
new to me. See him?”
“Sh-sh!” The girls stopped their low conversation as the long, sweet
notes of a white-throated sparrow began. Two or three others took up
the fairy music, while the girls sat quiet to hear it.
“The dears!” exclaimed Cathalina, as the song ended.
“Of course those crows would have to caw,” said Isabel. “I call them
the dogs of the bird world, always barking like watch dogs to tell
that we are here. Once I went into a dandy woods and the crows made
such a fuss that I didn’t see a bird.”
“Did you ever see anything prettier than these blueberries?” asked
Hilary. “They look like flowers growing over there on the big rocks
and between. I shall always think of grey rocks, moss, lichens and
blueberries. They match the sky and bay, don’t they? The color of
the little green plant is pretty, too. I shall never get them mixed
with huckleberries again. These taller plants are a sort of
blueberry, too, somebody said. They are dark, almost black, when
they are ripe.”
“I think I’ve eaten a quart already. I don’t know whether to eat
blueberries or look at birds,” and Isabel put a fresh handful into
her mouth. “There is a dark berry called dog-berry, so be sure you
know the difference in the dark berries before you eat ’em when
they’re ripe. I’m not one of those that taste everything and get
poisoned. Dogberries are poisonous. But these heavenly berries!”
“Look, girls!” called Mother Nature, breaking the laws of silence
for once, that all might see the immense eagle which was flying
over. “See his white head and tail.”
The party moved on, for the hike was to cover the distance to “First
Trott’s” and back. In Merrymeeting parlance, “First Trott’s” marked
a distance of a mile and a half to where lived a family by the name
Trott, while “Second Trott’s” was located a mile further out.
Birches, arborvitæ trees, tall or tiny, balsams, white pines, oaks,
and other trees characteristic of the Maine woods lined the way.
Back in the shade of the pine trees grew that strange ghost flower,
the Indian pipe. Isabel counted the slender trunks in one clump of
young birches and found fifteen.
“I’m going to bring my camera here and take a picture of some of you
girls sitting on that wonderful big rock that slopes back above this
exquisite fern bed. These are so delicate.”
“New growth, I guess,” said Hilary. “But look at those across the
road now. They are more than half as tall as Isabel.”
“Take a leaf of this sweet fern between your fingers and squeeze it.
It is just as spicy as can be. But we’d better hurry up a little,”
continued Betty. “The rest of them are ahead of us.”
“Well, what is here!” exclaimed Isabel just then, stopping where on
each side of the road there was a row of immense, brown ant-hills,
built up high from the level ground. “They must be years old. See
how the grass is growing out from the top of that one, and look at
the big holes toward the bottom! I suppose those are the tunnels
going back from the openings.”
With interest the girls watched the busy inhabitants of this curious
apartment house. “Looks like sawdust on top,” said one.
Along the more shady portions of the pretty, winding road few birds
were seen. All seemed to be out where sunshine lit up their dining
rooms. Occasionally a squirrel or chipmunk scolded them roundly, as
the girls passed too near their place of abode. As they returned to
camp, Hilary and Lilian lingered in the rear. “It was right here in
these bushes,” Hilary was saying. “I did not get a good look at it
all over, but I hope and think that it is a black-billed cuckoo, for
I so seldom see one, that is, to be sure of it. Let’s creep up real
softly and maybe we’ll see it. I think it stays around here.”
The cuckoo proved to be a very accommodating bird, for when they
reached the neighborhood of the bushes, out it flew from one near
them, retreating to one which was farther off, but had so much less
foliage that the heavy bird was easily seen.
“It is!” whispered Hilary. “It lifted its head and I saw every bit
of its bill. And when it flew there was no sign of black in its
tail.”
“That will be another point for you, Hilary.”
“But you identified it, too.”
“Yes, but you saw it yesterday and thought it was the blackbilled.”
“All right. Maybe some other girl has seen it, though, and reported
on it first.”
“I don’t believe so. I got the black and white creeping warbler
first while we were all at the rocks, you know, and I saw the least
flycatcher first too,—two points for me on birds so far.”
“Somebody reported the tree swallow this morning before I had a
chance to, but I found its nest in the knot of that apple tree near
the club house. Come on and I’ll show you. Isn’t it pathetic that
those poor kingbirds have to watch their nest so, or think they have
to?”
“Where?”
“Didn’t you notice the kingbird’s nest on the very end of the tree
next to the klondike opposite us? There is a white string hanging
down from it. You’ll only have to look that way to see it. I suppose
they never dreamed that all this crowd of girls would come, when
they built the nest.”
“Most of the birds are so hard to see. The foliage is so thick, and
then they are nesting, too, and that makes them shy.”
“Been on the hike?” asked Nora, as the girls reached the cabin. “I
couldn’t wake up enough. It’s inhuman to expect anybody to get up
before six o’clock.”
“It was fine. Better go the next time, Pat,” said Frances.
Later Lilian found that her little “zee, zoo” bird was a
black-throated green warbler, and saw some baby ones in the bushes
near the pine grove. Hilary soon had quite a list of warblers that
nested about Merrymeeting. The gulls, chiefly the Herring Gull, came
in numbers every day to be fed. A Laughing Gull was seen near Bath,
and a Ring-Billed Gull near the boys’ island. On the Wiscasset trip
much later, a fish hawk’s nest was seen on one of the piles common
in the river. To the great amusement of the party one little city
girl asked “How do the fishes get up there?”
After the birds had been duly studied, and the bright colored
pictures put up in the club house as each bird was reported, the
attention of the girls was turned to the wild flowers, of which
there were so many. At first five flowers brought to the nature
teacher gave one point. Finally, when the common flowers had all
been reported, one of the rarer flowers made a point for its
discoverer. Some funny mistakes were made, and no wonder, for why is
not “pussy-foot” clover just as good a name as rabbit’s-foot clover,
or “scrambled eggs” as good as butter and eggs? And what is the
difference between “church steeple” and steeple bush?
It was Cathalina who showed the members of the Greycliff nature club
the wintergreen with its waxen berries and the trailing arbutus
plants along the lane.
“Are you sure it’s wintergreen?” inquired the cautious Isabel before
tasting the young leaves, as Cathalina invited her to do.
“Yes, it tastes just like wintergreen candy, or tooth paste!”
During the season, odd and beautiful bouquets adorned the tables at
meals. Indian pipe standing high in a bit of greenery; Canadian
lilies, wood lilies, meadow sweet, steeple bush, bunch berries, milk
wort, Indian paintbrush, buttercups or daisies, fall dandelions in
prickly juniper, wild roses as late as August, or the stately
cardinal flower,—all these by turns found their way into the vases
and bowls.