For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,
· · · · · · ·
Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew,
And flowers put on a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new.
The quaint story of Noah’s gathering the animals into the ark is always
linked in my mind with the Pied Piper, and with that strange turn in the
tide of bird life which is called migration. The marvelous music which
charmed the rats and children of Hamelin town must have been used by
Noah to call his creatures into the ark of safety, and it is still to be
heard in the winds of autumn sighing through the Chocorua forests and
calling the birds away to other lands. One day all is calm and serene;
the next, though the sky is just as blue and the sunlight just as warm,
something of unrest is in the air, and the birds are telling each other
the story of the great journey. Songs are forgotten or sung only to
greet the dawn and bless the night; nestlings are trained to flight and
led silent journeys through field, forest, or ether after food; new
scenes are visited, and the weak separated from the strong and left to
die. Then, sometimes by day, sometimes by night, the hosts meet, drawn
together by a force as irresistible and mysterious as magnetism, and
finally the story of the great journey is written in fact once more.
[Illustration: MOUNT CHOCORUA AND CHOCORUA LAKE IN SUMMER]
In the August mornings I hear the Swainson’s thrush by the lake. He was
not there a few days before, he was on the mountain-side. He is drifting
southward, slowly at first, but feeling the thrill of the Pied Piper’s
music in his wings. All through the summer I have listened in vain for
the nasal “_quank, quank, quank_,” of the red nuthatch. Suddenly, in
mid-August, I hear it on the mountain, and an hour or two later every
flock of chickadees brings the northern migrant’s call along with the
jolly chorus of “_dee, dee, dee_.” These chickadees, alert, courageous,
tireless, and generous, are the convoys of the warbler fleets. For an
hour the silence of the forest will be broken only by the tiresome
platitudes of the red-eyed vireo, the dry staccato of the harvest-fly,
and the occasional whistle of a hyla. Then, far away, will be heard the
faint “_dee-dee_” of the titmouse. It comes nearer, and presently a
dozen or twenty little birds are seen hovering, darting, flitting, but
steadily advancing, tree by tree, through the woods. Perhaps not more
than one in ten will be a chickadee, yet it is the chickadee which gives
character and direction to the body. The guided flock of easy-going
warblers and vireos, nuthatches and kinglets, drift on, feeding and
frolicking, heedless of what it passes.
If the observer “squeaks,” or if an owl draws the attention of the
passing birds, the chickadee comes to the front at once, with his sharp
reproving iterations, and his beady eyes snapping indignantly. Along
with him come red-eyed and solitary vireos, nuthatches, golden-crested
kinglets, black-throated blue warblers, Wilson’s blackcaps, young
chestnut-sided warblers, looking puzzlingly unlike their parents.
Blackburnians, with throats aflame; black-throated greens, rich in
spring tints of yellow and tender green; black and white creepers, the
tidiest of birds; the gay magnolias, redstarts, Canadians, and sober
myrtle warblers. Sometimes a single flock contains nearly all of these
courtiers of the woods, while others are composed almost entirely of a
single species, as, for example, the black-throated greens, or the
magnolias.
In these same late August and early September days the cherry and berry
eaters gather together and travel in flocks. Robins by scores, sometimes
by hundreds, combine with the cedar-birds and flickers and range over
the country in search of food. The flickers feed much of the time upon
the ground among the berry-bushes, casting aside woodpecker habits and
seeming more like starlings. The robins are sometimes with them upon the
ground, but oftener in the wild cherry-trees with the cedar-birds,
stripping bough after bough of its dark fruit. When the flock moves, the
cedar-birds mass themselves and fly for a while as though linked
together. Then, without apparent cause, part or the whole turn about and
fly first this way, then that, perhaps coming back, after a few minutes,
to the point of departure. When a flock of red crossbills do this, they
sprinkle the air and the earth with sweet notes; but the cedar-birds
have no joy in their one chilly whistle, and there is more of aimless,
witless indecision in their flights than there is of romping. Whenever I
come near one of their flocks, I scan them carefully, hoping to detect
the white wing-bars of a Bohemian waxwing among them, yet it is more
than likely that I may watch a lifetime without having the fortune to
see in the flesh one of those rare vagabonds of the north. The roving
habits of these birds and of the crossbills contrast strangely with the
simple steadfastness of the grouse, and the clock-like punctuality of
many of the migrants. Something in that cold past with its glaciers and
ice-crushed continents could explain the present temperaments of the
wandering birds, but we may never know what that something is. Whether
we are to know it or not, it is natural to have a feeling akin to pity
for birds so lacking in home life.
The winter wren is an amusing little migrant. He seems to have an
underground railway of his own from the grim northern forest straight
towards a milder clime. Like other underground ways, it has breathing
holes, and out of these he occasionally pops his head and sputters at
the observer. Sometimes he appears at an opening in a stone wall and
scolds mankind for picking blackberries or plucking goldenrod; again he
emerges from the darkness beneath a log in the swamp, and bustles about
with the offensive energy of a special policeman. If he travels in
company, the fact is not often made evident. He certainly seems too
crusty for pleasant companionship on a long journey. One late September
morning a winter wren flew into my hen-house and became my prisoner for
a few hours. I placed him in a room and watched his efforts to escape.
He flew with such speed that he made almost as much of a humming as a
humming-bird. He clung to the woodwork, and hid in the curtains, but
finally dropped to the floor and ran about like a mouse, hiding in
corners or behind the legs of chairs. Once or twice I caught him and
stroked his head and neck. He was quiet enough while I touched him, but
the moment my fingers left him, he slipped away out of sight. When taken
out of doors and set free, he darted into the nearest stone wall and was
seen no more.
Birds of the upper air which feed on insects depart early. The eaves
swallows and martins go while some mothers are still sitting on belated
eggs. Bank swallows, barn swallows, night-hawks, and many of the tyrant
flycatchers have vanished by the time the maples begin to flame upon the
mountain-side. On the 3d of August, 1891, I saw about twenty martins in
the dead tree. They were very noisy, and evidently excited. While
watching them I saw in the zenith what looked like a cloud of insects.
My glass showed it to be a large flock of birds, apparently swallows,
moving in a great circle. After a time all but one of the martins in the
tree flew away and were gone many minutes, the birds in the sky also
disappearing. The martins returned, however, to the one which had not
flown, and shortly after I again discovered the bird cluster in the sky.
After fresh noise and flutterings of wings the martins finally flew, and
no more were seen near the lake that season. Often in an August
afternoon the lake will be apparently without birds, when in a twinkling
the air will be full of graceful forms, and a flock of white-breasted
swallows, barn swallows, or night-hawks will sweep over the blue water,
rise, vanish over the meadow, reappear, fly towards the peak, wheel,
return, and then perhaps speed away, not to greet the fair lake again
until ice and snow have come and gone, and the number of their own light
forms has been sadly diminished in the south.
A field of buckwheat or other small grain is a magnet in the days when
the birds are wandering. To it come the song sparrows, chipping
sparrows, white-throats, juncos, purple finches, field sparrows,
goldfinches, and bay-winged buntings. They love to linger many days in
the stubble; and when bird music is rare, their occasional songs are
precious to the ear. If the field is approached softly there seems to be
no life hidden in its midst, but suddenly wings whirr noisily, and bird
after bird flies up into the neighboring trees and bushes. Sparrows love
fences, stone walls, and their accompanying growths of berry-bushes and
small trees. The latter are our New England substitutes for the
hedgerows of the Old World, and I believe the sparrow tribe takes as
much comfort in wall and briers as in hedge and ditch. The ditch is more
than replaced by countless brooks, always clear and pure, and the wall
gives shade, shelter, food, and many a comfortable perch. While driving
along the narrow roads, bordered by many a mile of rough stone wall, the
rattle of my wagon wheels startles the sparrows and finches from their
cover. The bay-wing runs along the rut in front of the horse; the
goldfinch undulates over the field, turns, and ripples back; the song
sparrow mounts a bush-top and scolds; the white-throat appears for a
moment in a gap between the bushes and then goes on with his scratching
in the leaves. So they go southward along the dusty roads, or the
borders of dry field and dryer pasture. They are thousands strong, yet
they look to be but a few each day, and the careless eye might think
them always the same individuals from mid-August until Indian summer.
Sometimes alone, but often with the field sparrows and bay-wings, or
later with the juncos, flocks of bluebirds travel the autumnal way. This
year, on August 28, I saw a flock of twelve working slowly along a
moor-like pasture ridge in company with double their number of sparrows.
I have seen them by dozens in early October mingle with juncos and
white-throats in gleaning over the stubble just left bare by the melting
of a first snowfall. As they fly from spot to spot, they prefer to
alight on the upper curve of a boulder, the tip of a cedar, or some
equally favorable point for seeing and being seen. They are
comparatively silent, but now and then their sweet “_cheruit_” comes as
a promise that after the long winter spring shall return, and with it
their loveliness and courage. Many of the birds go south cheerfully, or
indifferently, but the bluebirds seem to linger sadly and lovingly, and
to feel that the migration is an enforced exile from the home they love
best.
The Chocorua country is not a good one for starlings and blackbirds; in
fact, I have never seen but one bobolink nearer than Fryeburg
intervales, twenty-five miles away; and with all my watching, no crow
blackbird or meadow lark has ever caught my eye in this region. The old
residents say that years ago, when flax was cultivated hereabouts and
grain-fields were broader, these birds were present in large numbers.
The first flock of rusty grackles which I have ever seen here appeared
this year on a hilltop, about the middle of the afternoon of September
22. The birds were either very tame or very weary, for they remained in
the tops of some locust-trees, while I not only stood beneath them, but
shook their tree, called to them, and clapped my hands. They maintained
a steady flow of _sotto voce_ music charming to the ear.
All migrants are not desirable visitors. An inroad of hawks is far from
pleasant for the birds of a neighborhood, or for other migrants. All
through the month of September hawks abound. They circle round the peak
of Chocorua, seemingly for the pleasure of it. Often a dozen
sharp-shinned and young Cooper’s hawks are in sight there at once.
Sometimes great flocks of hawks pass across the sky, not circling, as
the red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks are so fond of doing, but
sailing straight before the wind like a fleet of mackerelmen running
down the coast wing and wing. I once saw three hundred and thirty
migrating hawks in one forenoon, most of them a thousand feet or less
above the earth, but some so high that a powerful glass only just
brought them into view. The stately progress of these birds, moving many
miles an hour without a wing-beat visible to the observer, is one of the
wonders of nature. The Dead Tree is a resting-place for migrating hawks,
eagles, and ospreys. I doubt not that by night it is used by owls, when
they too move southward as their food grows scarce.
In several different years I have seen my big blue heron sail away
southward. In each instance it has been about four o’clock in the
afternoon. Rising with slow and dignified flight, he makes two or three
immense circles over the lakes, and then, as though partings were said,
landmarks remembered, and bearings taken, he flies with strong and
steady strokes towards the outlet of the Ossipee basin. This year, in
August, ten night herons visited us at one time, remaining in the
neighborhood two or three days. When disturbed by day, they rose, and,
forming an orderly flock, flew away with military precision. The ducks
and geese are, however, the best examples of well-drilled companies.
Geese are not often seen here, although several were killed this spring
in a small lake halfway between Chocorua and the Bearcamp. Wood duck and
black duck begin to fly past us late in August, but their numbers are
comparatively insignificant, a flock of ten being unusually large. In
October and early November the wind-swept lakes are seldom without
little companies of black ducks, sheldrakes, and their less common
relatives.
One of the most interesting of migrants is the loon, or great northern
diver. Loons are said to breed in this vicinity on Whitton Pond, and
they are seen now and then during all the summer months. It is on the
edge of a northeast storm in September, when mackerel clouds deck the
sky and the hazy sunlight spreads gold upon the ripples, that the
migrating loon comes with the force of a cannon-ball, and plunges into
the lake’s waters. His shrill laughter is taken up by all the mocking
forests, and his deep and prolonged diving carries consternation to bass
and pickerel. Restlessly he plows the ruffled water with his broad
breast, and now and then he pounds the waves with his wings, raising his
head high above them. When he flies, the water is churned into foam for
many yards before his unwieldy body is finally raised into the air and
placed under the full control of his powerful wings. Then he rises
little by little, his wings moving faster and faster, until, after
progressing half a mile, he has risen two or three hundred feet.
Turning, he comes back, still rising, and passes in review the lake and
forests which he is to leave. Again and again he tacks, on each new line
rising farther from the earth, until at last, seen against the sky, he
is but a pair of swiftly whirling wings set strangely far back on the
long black line of his head, neck, and body. It is said that hunters
have been killed by being struck by falling loons shot by them on the
wing.
Occasionally a stray sea-bird comes to the mountain lakes. Herring gulls
have been seen on Chocorua Pond, a Wilson’s tern was shot on August 30,
1890, on Ossipee Lake, and a year earlier, on September 30, a black tern
remained half a day on my lonely lake.
Late in September and in October there are days when the rush of
migrating birds is like the stampede of a defeated army. I recall one
such day, the 25th of September, 1891, when a torrent of migrants swept
past my red-roofed cottage in the hour following sunrise. Before
breakfast, and without going out of sight of my door, I saw over two
hundred birds go by, including sixty pigeon woodpeckers, several
sapsuckers, nuthatches, chickadees, crows, blue jays, robins, catbirds,
seven kinds of warblers, solitary and red-eyed vireos, four kinds of
sparrows, a tanager, pewees, and a flock of cedar-birds. Most of these
birds were on the trees, bushes, or ground, busily feeding, yet
restlessly progressing southwestward, as though haunted by some
irresistible impulse to keep in motion. The day was hot and still, and
my notes mention the fact that we heard the splash of an osprey as he
plunged into the lake, more than a quarter of a mile away. That evening
the whippoorwills were singing their farewells in the soft moonlight.
As the early October days glide by, these waves of migration come faster
and faster, their acceleration seeming, as one looks back upon it, like
the ever quicker throbbing of the air under the wing-beats of the
grouse. Even as the drumming suddenly ceases and the summer air seems
still and heavy in the silence which follows, so the migration suddenly
ends, and the woods and fields become very still in the late Indian
summer. Now and then the scream of a blue jay falls upon the ear, or a
faint note of a tree sparrow comes from the weeds by the roadside; but
as a rule nature is dumb, and the leaves fall like tears. All the beauty
of sky and autumn foliage cannot bring the birds back to the silent
forest. Warm though the sun may be, and soft the haze on the cheek of
Passaconaway, these charms cannot woo back the birds from their
migration. The music of the Pied Piper has bewitched them, they are
dreaming of gushing waters and flowers of fairest hue; and many a
frosty, starlit night will pass before their wings beat once more in the
clear Chocorua air.