It is the theory that there are always plenty of hens to be bought in a
New England farming town; but as a matter of fact, in the month of July,
1892, the country north of Bearcamp presented such a dearth of hens
that, after traveling miles in my efforts to buy some, I returned to my
own neighborhood and hired a contingent for the season. The transaction
was unique, but, on the whole, mutually satisfactory. It had one
drawback. When one owns fowls, the accumulation of family wrath against
the rooster on account of too early crowing on his part always finds
relief in eating him; but when one hires a rooster, his life is charmed
by contract, and he can with impunity crow the family into nervous
prostration. The magnificent Black Spanish cock hired by me began
crowing, on the morning of August 21, at twenty minutes of four. Not a
ray of daylight pierced the bank of mist which filled the east. Nothing
but instinct or a bad conscience could have told Murillo that it was
time to crow. Nevertheless, on this occasion his song was welcome, for I
had counted upon his arousing me early in order that I might spend an
entire day with the Dead Tree.
On the northern shore of Chocorua Lake a broad reach of swampy woodland
is broken by a meadow. At the point where the small and very cool brook
which bounds the meadow on the west enters the lake, a tall pine once
cast its shadow upon a deep pool at its foot. The pine died many years
ago, and its bark has been entirely removed by weather and woodpeckers,
leaving its trunk and eighty-seven branches, or stumps of branches, as
white as bleached bones. A few rods farther from the mouth of the brook
stands a smaller pine of similar character. These two trees form a
famous bird roost, and at their feet I planned to stay from sunrise to
sunset on this August day, in order to see, during consecutive hours,
how many birds would make use of the tree as a perch. From frequent
visits during this and earlier years, I knew that the tree was not only
a rendezvous for the birds living in the meadow and adjoining woods, but
also a _kursaal_ for tourists in feathers, and for all birds coming to
the lake to hunt or to fish.
As I left the house, hermit thrushes were uttering the short complaining
notes of alarm characteristic of them at twilight. Dark as it was, they
were awake and stirring. Reaching the bank of the lake a minute or two
after four, I startled a spotted sandpiper from the beach, and heard his
peeping whistle as he flew from me across the black water, beyond which
only dusky masses of gloom marked the pine woods on the farther shore.
The surface of the water was disturbed by thousands of insects cutting
queer figures upon it. Where they moved, white ripples followed. As I
walked along the moist sand of the beach, pickerel shot out from the
shore, bats squeaked, and frogs jumped into deeper water with nervous
croaks of fear. Then a whippoorwill sang, and as his weird notes echoed
from the woods, Venus sailed clear from the mist bank and reflected her
dazzling beauty in the lake. As I drew near the mouth of the brook, a
solitary tattler ran along the sand in front of me, whistling softly.
When I turned into the bushes, he stopped and resumed his search for
breakfast.
The dead tree rose above me, jet black against the dark sky. Stepping
softly through the bushes, I disturbed the wary catbirds, and their
fretful cries awoke the meadow. At twenty minutes past four, three
whippoorwills were singing, and two catbirds, with several hermit
thrushes, were complaining. A few moments later, the call of a veery was
heard, a song sparrow gave a sharp squeak, and then, so still was the
air, I heard the heavy stamping of my horse in his stable, a quarter of
a mile away, as he gained his feet after a long night’s rest. The stars
were growing paler moment by moment, and outlines becoming sharper in
the bushes and trees near me. A Swainson’s thrush uttered its clear
“_quick_,” expressive of much more vigilance than the cries of the veery
and the hermit, yet less fault-finding than the mew of the catbird.
[Illustration: THE DEAD TREE]
I settled myself comfortably amid the bushes eastward of the dead trees,
near enough to them to see even a humming-bird if one alighted on the
bare branches. At 4.35 I had heard eight kinds of birds, yet the crows,
notorious for early rising, had not spoken. A minute later one cawed
sleepily among the eastern pines where the mist lay thickest, and soon a
dozen voices responded. Dense as was the fog, the light of day made
swift inroads upon the shadows, and when, about quarter to five, a young
chestnut-sided warbler came out of a dewy bush near me, its colors were
plainly distinguishable. The little bird looked sleepy and dull. It
moved languidly, and so did three Maryland yellow-throats which appeared
from the same clump of thick bushes a moment later. As yet no bird of
the day had sung.
Far away in the swampy woods to the north a big red-shouldered hawk
cried “_ky-e, ky-e, ky-e_.” I remembered the morning, just a year
previous, when, sitting in about the same spot, with Puffy perched on a
dead limb over my head, a red-shouldered hawk had flown with stately
wing-beat to one of the lower branches of the dead tree, and then,
suddenly discovering the owl, had thrust its head forward, opened wide
its beak, and, with its fierce eyes glaring, had shrieked its hatred at
the almost unmoved owl. This morning it did not visit the meadow,
probably finding its humble game nearer home.
The first bird to appear flying above the level of the meadow was a
graceful night-hawk. Perhaps he had just come down from a night’s revel
in the cool air over Chocorua’s summit. I wondered whether he had been
one of a company of between two and three hundred of his tribe which
deployed across the sky on the afternoon of the 19th, just in advance of
a violent thunderstorm. Yearly, about the 20th of August, the
night-hawks muster their forces and parade during one or two afternoons.
Yet there seems to be no diminution in the number of the local birds
after the army disappears. Perhaps it is formed of migrants from the
north; or perhaps the display is, after all, only a drill, preparatory
to a later flight.
The Maryland yellow-throats, in moving about the bushes, discovered me,
and began scolding at my intrusion. They came so near to me that they
seemed within reach of my hands. I kept perfectly still, and half closed
my eyes. Their inspection seemed to convince them that I was harmless,
for they went away, and presently the male sang his “_rig-a-jig,
rig-a-jig, rig-a-jig_,” close behind me. I am convinced that closing the
eyes does a great deal to reassure a timid bird. Owls entirely cloak
their evil appearance by simply drawing their eyelids down, and closing
their feathers tightly about them. On discovering a man, birds watch,
not his legs or his body, but his face, and his eyes are the most
conspicuous part of his face and fullest of menace. I have sometimes
fancied that nervous birds knew when they were watched, even though they
could not see the observer.
At 4.48 a kingbird came sailing and fluttering over the meadow, its
chattering cries giving ample warning of its approach. It lighted in the
big tree, and scanned sky, water, and grass, searching for something
with which to quarrel. A flicker passed silently, coming, as the
kingbird had, from the woods, and going to a tree near the lake shore.
Small birds, possibly warblers, flew by, westward. A blue jay screamed
harshly in the edge of the woods, but the fog, which was growing more
and more dense upon the meadow, discouraged its coming to the dead
trees. Just at five o’clock a goldfinch undulated past, and the noisy
rattle of a kingfisher echoed along the edge of the pond, provoking
answers from a red squirrel, whose chatter seemed an imitation of the
call, and from a crow, whose mimicry of the fisher’s rattle was
remarkably good. Probably all bird-calls originated in the efforts of
their makers to reproduce sounds which pleased or startled them. In this
case, Chickaree and Corvus had no sober motive for replying to the
kingfisher; they may neither of them have associated the rattle with the
blue projectile which made it. Both were entertained or attracted by the
sound, and each in its way tried to reproduce it. It is by a similar
process, doubtless, that parrots, crows, and blue jays acquire the power
of producing sounds which correspond to our words. Later, they may gain,
through experience, a knowledge of the meaning or force of such words,
but often no such knowledge lies behind the empty iteration of the
parrot.
For nearly a quarter of an hour there seemed to be a lull in the process
of bird-awakening. The Maryland yellow-throats were moving, and now and
then the male sang a little. Crows called in the distance, and the
catbirds moved restlessly about from one part of the meadow to another,
mewing, but nothing new appeared under the fog mantle. The spell was
broken by the appearance of one of the small tyrant flycatchers, which
are so difficult to identify during the migrations unless they are
killed and closely examined. This one seemed to me to be a least
flycatcher (_Empidonax minimus_), there being almost no trace of yellow
in his coloring. He flew from point to point, in or just over the
bushes, catching small insects with vicious snaps of his beak.
Apparently it was necessary, for the proper working of his machinery, to
have his tail jerk spitefully several times a minute.
About half past five three crows came to the big tree. One of them
sailed softly by, but the other two alighted and began cawing in a
fretful way. They were bedraggled with fog and dew, and their tones told
of hunger and discomfort. When they spoke, they thrust their heads far
forward, giving them a low, mean air. They pulled viciously at their
moist clothing, all the while keeping the keenest watch of their
surroundings and the distance. Suddenly one of them saw me, and with a
low croak flew away, his mate following. Again silence and fog
prevailed. A cedar-bird, alighting on the tip of the old tree, seemed to
shiver. He remained in the dim upper air but a moment, taking a headlong
plunge into the shrubbery below. I thought even the frogs resented the
slow-moving vapors, for they croaked and splashed restlessly.
A red-eyed vireo began his sermon at 6.10, and soon after, blue sky and
scattering rays of sunlight appeared. Then the birds became more
cheerful, and catbirds, crows, kingbirds, Maryland yellow-throats, and
song sparrows vied with each other in activity and noise. Every one of
them was intent upon making a good breakfast. The catbirds ate viburnum
berries; the crows marched upon the lake sand, searching for the waste
of the waves; a barn swallow, the kingbirds, and several smaller
flycatchers hovered or darted in pursuit of insects, and the sparrows
gathered their harvest from the earth. Then a flicker appeared in the
top of the old tree, and, finding a resonant spot in the trunk, beat his
reveille softly upon it. My neck fairly ached when I tried to imagine
the mental and muscular effort required of the bird to produce such
regular and rapid action with his beak. The only way in which a man can
make as many beats to the minute with any regularity is by allowing his
hand to rest in such a position that it will tremble. Then, by grasping
a pencil and resting its tip upon a board, a sound somewhat similar to
the rolling reverberation of the woodpecker’s drumming can be produced.
At half past six an olive-sided flycatcher came to the pine, but on
seeing the kingbird disappeared. A moment later the kingbird flew away,
and the olive-sided at once returned to the highest branch of the tree,
and made it his point of rest during a long series of sallies after
insects. When he caught one of large size, he brought it back to his
perch, and pounded it violently against the branch until its struggles
ceased, and its harder portions were, presumably, reduced to a jelly.
The kingbirds really have more right than any of the migrants to use the
old tree, for they have built, year after year, time out of mind, in the
spreading branches of the nearest living pine overhanging the lake. As
August advances, however, they wander a good deal, paying visits to my
orchard and other good feeding-grounds near the lake. While they are
away, wood pewees and phœbes, olive-sided and least flycatchers, visit
the vicinity, and enjoy the great tree and the fine chances which it
offers of seeing insects over both land and water. About quarter to
seven a solitary sandpiper flew swiftly over the meadow, calling. It
made two great circles, rising above the trees, and then flew westward
so fast that I looked to discover a pursuer, but could discern none. In
the high woods, over which it flew, the crows were chortling. Northward
the peak was clear, although below it a long scarf of mist trailed over
the forest, moving westward. In the tree-top the flicker “flickered,”
and then drummed; called again, and drummed more emphatically. Soon a
second woodpecker appeared, but flew by into the woods. The first one
watched him, and then drummed again, whereupon the new-comer flew to
him, and an animated dialogue took place, the second bird apparently
having much to say in an excited manner. After they had finished their
conference, the second bird flew away, and the first relapsed into a
reverie. It lasted only a few moments, for shortly before seven o’clock
two crows flew into the two dead trees, and the woodpecker hurried away.
Each crow took the topmost perch on his tree, and began his toilet. Just
then a frog jumped with a splash into the pool in front of me, and the
crows, hearing the noise, looked searchingly down, saw me, and flew off
without a caw.
For several years the morning of the 21st of August has been my time for
first seeing Wilson’s blackcap warblers on their autumn journey
southward. Having been in the swamp three hours without seeing one, I
began to think that, 1892 being leap year, the pretty migrants might not
keep their tryst; but I wronged them, for just at seven o’clock I heard
a sharp “_cheep_” behind me, and, turning slowly, found a blackcap
gazing at me nervously. No sooner had my eyes met his than he darted
away.
Between seven and eight the trees were occupied by a flock of twelve
cedar-birds, one or two flickers, several young robins, a pewee, a
humming-bird, and some of the small flycatchers. The humming-bird is a
tyrannical and blustering little bird, giving himself many airs. His
wife is quite as much of a virago as he is of a bully. In this instance
she was determined to drive away the flycatchers. Sitting in the big
tree, and looking smaller than a well-fed dragonfly, she darted, every
now and then, at one of the chebecs, and put him to flight. They tired
her out, however, and after a while she gave up the struggle and
departed. About 7.30 a flock of small birds, including several
chickadees, appeared in the edge of the woods and scattered over the
meadow. Few of them came near enough to me for identification, but there
seemed to be vireos and warblers among them. Their coming aroused other
birds, and a goldfinch, a catbird chasing a veery, one or two Maryland
yellow-throats, and a swift were in sight at one time.
Thirst overtook me at eight, after four hours of watching, and I crept
softly down to the brook. Before I had gone a dozen steps, a huge bird
sprang from the sedgy growth by the lake shore and rose into the air. It
was a blue heron which had been patrolling the sand within forty feet of
me. He flew along the shore for some distance, then rose and passed over
the trees towards the north, seeking, no doubt, my lonely lake, half a
mile away in the forest. One morning, when hidden in the alders and
viburnums which grow at the very foot of the big tree, I heard a queer
guttural call or grunt from the meadow, and the next moment the heron
stood above me, on the lowest limb of the pine. He looked sharply over
the meadow and the lake, stretched first one leg, then the other, then
each wing in turn, and finally fell to preening his blue and gray
plumes. Against a pale blue sky or ruffled water which mingles blue and
gray with bits of white, he is marvelously well protected by his
coloring. No wonder that the poor frogs fall a prey to his patient
spearing. I kept breathlessly still, and watched this largest of our
Chocorua birds. It seemed odd that the old tree should be a perch for
him and for the humming-bird. The hummer is three and a quarter inches
long; the heron spreads six feet with his great wings when he flies, and
measures over four feet when standing. After a while I grew weary of
watching the heron, and of wondering at his macaroni-like legs and his
strangely concentrated stare, which now and then fixed itself on my
hiding-place, so I whistled softly. The heron paused in his
feather-combing and looked towards me. There was no fear in his glance,
only mild interest. I sang, first sad music, then “Nancy Lee,”
“Pinafore,” “Hold the Fort,” everything I could think of, in fact, which
might prompt him to action; but he only stared, now over his beak, then
under it. The latter method of ogling was very effective, for the long
bill was contemplating the skies, while the cold, calculating eyes stood
out each side of its base and glared down across it until I seemed to
feel their clamminess. From music I turned to animal language, and
barked, mewed, mooed, brayed, whinnied, quacked, crowed, cackled,
peeped, hooted, and cawed, until my throat was raw. He was clearly
entertained, and showed no desire to leave me. At last I came down to
plain English, supposing that my voice undisguised by song would
certainly alarm him, but to my great surprise he apparently did not
associate the human voice with its owner in the slightest degree. In
fact, he now seemed bored by my noise, and went on with his preening.
Suddenly, in moving my foot, I snapped a small twig. Before there seemed
to have been time for the sound to reach his brain, the heron was on the
wing, and I saw him no more that day.
At 8.30, as I was watching the big tree, a large, light-colored bird
passed close to its trunk and plunged downward towards the deep pool at
its foot. The sound of splashing water was followed by utter silence.
After remaining motionless for several minutes I crawled carefully
towards the bank of the brook. The bushes were thick, and small dry
twigs covered the ground. Their snapping could not be avoided, and just
before I reached a point where I could see the water and the narrow
strip of muddy beach, a heavy bird rose with a great beating of wings
and flew up-stream. I broke through the cover, headlong, but the bird
was out of sight. The surface of the stream was covered with small, soft
feathers, which I gathered together and dried. They appeared to be from
the breast of a sandpiper. Who the murderer was will never be known,
though I presume that it was a Cooper’s hawk.
My glimpse of this hawk, if such it was, reminded me of an encounter
between a sharp-shinned hawk and a flock of blue jays which I had seen
at the tree the week previous. The hawk arrived when several flickers
were in the tree and hurled himself upon them. They fled, calling
wildly, and brought to their aid, first a kingbird, which promptly
attacked the hawk from above, and then a flock of blue jays, which
abused him from cover below. When the kingbird flew away, as he did
after driving the hawk into the bushes for a few moments, the jays grew
more and more daring in approaching the hawk. In fact they set
themselves to the task of tiring him out and making him ridiculous. They
ran great risks in doing it, frequently flying almost into the hawk’s
face; but they persevered, in spite of his ferocious attempts to strike
them. After nearly an hour the hawk grew weary and edged off to the
woods. Then the jays went up the tree as though it were a circular
staircase, and yelled the news of the victory to the swamp.
As the forenoon passed slowly by, there were periods when the tree was
empty for ten minutes or more at a time, but generally a flicker,
cedar-bird, olive-sided flycatcher, blue jay, crow, or catbird was to be
seen perched in some part of the great skeleton. At ten o’clock I
shifted my place to avoid the heat of the sun, and to keep its light
behind me. My new seat was in the heart of a tangle of bushes, and as I
looked through the network of their stems I suddenly saw a bird’s head,
motionless. My glass aided me in recognizing the little creature as a
red-eyed vireo sitting upon a twig. Close by it was a second vireo also
perfectly passive. I watched them for a long time, and could see nothing
but their eyes move. It is such moods as this, taking possession of
birds, which make some parts of the day silent, and cause the woods to
seem deserted by all their feathered tenants. Another occupant of the
thicket was a yellow-bellied flycatcher, whose activity in the pursuit
of small insects was tireless. He certainly found enough to eat, for
small insects have been unusually abundant this summer, while birds have
been noticeably scarce near Chocorua. Some species, usually well
represented, have seemingly vanished, and others, quite numerous in
average years, have been very sparingly represented. For instance, the
summer has passed without my seeing either an oriole or a winter wren,
while redstarts and chestnut-sided warblers, usually among the most
numerous species, have been represented by a mere handful of birds. The
supposed local causes of this dearth of small birds are a heavy
snowfall, which occurred the last week in May, and a hailstorm, which
did great damage just in the middle of the nesting period. Unusual
numbers of birds are said to have been killed by spring storms in the
Gulf States before the year’s migration really began.
At eleven o’clock a flock of small birds moved rapidly across the
meadow, and four of the number passed through my covert. They were a
chickadee and three Wilson’s blackcaps. I wish the latter bird lived
here in the breeding season, for it is a pretty, confiding, gentle
little creature. The departure of these birds was hastened by the
appearance on the lake shore of a young man, a boy, and a dog. The man
carried a gun, and the dog rushed about in an excited way, doing his
best in cur fashion to aid in the hunt. When the trio reached the brook
at the point where it debouched upon the lake sand, the man cursed the
stream for its width, and the boy, in a loud nasal voice, followed his
example. They stood upon the farther side for several minutes pouring
out blasphemy and filth until a sandpiper attracted their attention and
their gun spoke sharply. The bird escaped, perhaps to die in the meadow
grass, and again the two intelligent human beings invoked wrath upon the
bird, the stream, the meadow, the dog, and the gun. Then they crossed
the brook higher up, where it was narrower, and distance covered their
conversation with a welcome veil. As long as the pleasant memories of
that quiet day linger in my mind, so long will there be drawn through
them a black line of disgust at the vileness of the two representatives
of my own species who offered such a contrast to the purity of nature.
From eleven until one o’clock there was almost unbroken stillness near
the great tree. Now and then some one of the regular residents of the
meadow spoke, a dragonfly buzzed past, a small pickerel stirred in the
brook, or a frog said “_wurro, wurroùh_,” and splashed in the still
water among the reeds. The kingbirds broke the monotony by coming, three
strong, with much noise and fluttering to take possession of the tree.
One of them flew to the sand by the lake ripples and drank. Then all
three came upon the lowest branches of the big tree and looked at the
dark pool below. One flew obliquely against the water, striking it and
dashing a thousand bright drops into the air. He rose chattering and
returned to his perch, shaking himself. I thought he had aimed for a fly
and struck the water unintentionally, but down he went again, making
even more of a splash than before, and presently both the others
followed his example at such frequent intervals that the pool had no
time to smooth its ripples. This odd kind of bathing was continued for
ten minutes, during which time a catbird sneaked down upon the sand and
watched the process silently but with evident interest. Later he saw me
sitting motionless under the bushes, and flew directly at me, turning
sharply just before reaching my head, and making a loud noise both by
striking his wings against branches and by his harsh voice. If his
purpose was to startle me he certainly succeeded.
The afternoon was clear, still, and warm, and the birds were evidently
drowsy. From two until after four nothing perched in the tree. A
sandpiper amused me by his patient search for food, as he waded back and
forth on the mud over which the brook spread as it entered the lake. For
an hour he confined himself to a space less than six feet square and
worked over almost every inch of it. Much of the time he merely prodded
the mud gently with his long, quill-like bill, but occasionally he
seemed to see something squirm, and then he pursued it quickly and
stabbed more vigorously. Much of the time the water was above his knees,
and sometimes he ran into deeper places, so that it lapped upon his
breast. Twice he plunged his head and neck entirely under water, but his
eyes seemed to need no wiping when they emerged as wide open as before.
Sometimes he crossed his legs and stood like a camp-stool, with his thin
props meeting their equally straw-like reflections in the brook. After a
while a second sandpiper appeared, but his method was to travel rapidly
along the water line, and he was soon out of sight.
It was not until nearly six o’clock that the tree became really populous
again. Then the catbirds went upstairs on its branches, flickers and
kingbirds occupied its top; a humming-bird buzzed in the face of a pewee
who was perched fully thirty feet from the ground; a sapsucking
woodpecker came and drummed for a moment, and finally a flock of
cedar-birds rested in it for a while as they had in the morning. The sun
set and night breathed upon the meadow. A single cedar-bird remained in
the tip of the tree and drearily repeated his one dismal word. Below in
the shadows the catbirds were restlessly mewing, and as it grew dark the
lament of the hermits joined in the gloomy chorus. The sky was fair, and
rosy lights flowed and ebbed in the clouds. The stars came, and in the
distant pines a barred owl sounded his long trumpet note. A few minutes
after seven, when catbirds and hermits were silent for the night, I
heard a solitary sandpiper whistling at the mouth of the brook. My glass
brought his tiny form to view, and as I watched him, a second tattler
ran along the gleaming sand and the whistling ceased. Suddenly they flew
together as though startled, and the next moment I saw what I had
supposed to be a bunch of pickerel-weed growing in the shallows move
slowly eastward. The object was several rods from the shore, and moving
across the mouth of the brook. Now it glided a few inches, then it
paused. Ten minutes passed before it progressed as many yards. It was
the heron’s ghostly form. When he reached the eastern shore a light
flashed across the lake and a voice sounded. He flew. I rose to go, but
as I crept out upon the sand I turned to take a last look at the tree,
and saw there the heron, standing on a high limb, black against the sky.