Northern Shrike(Lanius borealis) Shrike familyCalled also: BUTCHER-BIRD; NINE-KILLERLength—9.5 to 10.5 inches. About the size of the robin.Male—Upper parts slate-gray; wing quills and tail black, edged and tipped with white, conspicuous in flight; a white spot on centre of outer wing feathers. A black band runs from bill, through eye to side of throat. Light gray below, tinged with brownish, and faintly marked with waving lines of darker gray. Bill hooked and hawk-like.Female—With eye-band more obscure than male's, and with more distinct brownish cast on her plumage.Range—Northern North America. South in winter to middle portion of United States.Migrations—November, April. A roving winter resident."Matching the bravest of the brave among birds of prey in deeds of daring, and no less relentless than reckless, the shrike compels that sort of deference, not unmixed with indignation, we are accustomed to accord to creatures of seeming insignificance whose exploits demand much strength, great spirit, and insatiate love for carnage. We cannot be indifferent to the marauder who takes his own wherever he finds it—a feudal baron who holds his own with undisputed sway—and an ogre whose victims are so many more than he can eat, that he actually keeps a private graveyard for the balance." Who is honestly able to give the shrikes a better character than Dr. Coues, just quoted? A few offer them questionable defence by recording the large numbers of English sparrowsthey kill in a season, as if wanton carnage were ever justifiable.Not even a hawk itself can produce the consternation among a flock of sparrows that the harsh, rasping voice of the butcher-bird creates, for escape they well know to be difficult before the small ogre swoops down upon his victim, and carries it off to impale it on a thorn or frozen twig, there to devour it later piecemeal. Every shrike thus either impales or else hangs up, as a butcher does his meat, more little birds of many kinds, field-mice, grasshoppers, and other large insects than it can hope to devour in a week of bloody orgies. Field-mice are perhaps its favorite diet, but even snakes are not disdained.More contemptible than the actual slaughter of its victims, if possible, is the method by which the shrike often lures and sneaks upon his prey. Hiding in a clump of bushes in the meadow or garden, he imitates with fiendish cleverness the call-notes of little birds that come in cheerful response, hopping and flitting within easy range of him. His bloody work is finished in a trice. Usually, however, it must be owned, the shrike's hunting habits are the reverse of sneaking. Perched on a point of vantage on some tree-top or weather-vane, his hawk-like eye can detect a grasshopper going through the grass fifty yards away.What is our surprise when some fine warm day in March, just before our butcher, ogre, sneak, and fiend leaves us for colder regions, to hear him break out into song! Love has warmed even his cold heart, and with sweet, warbled notes on the tip of a beak that but yesterday was reeking with his victim's blood, he starts for Canada, leaving behind him the only good impression he has made during a long winter's visit.Bohemian Waxwing(Ampelis garrulus) Waxwing familyCalled also: BLACK-THROATED WAXWING; LAPLAND WAXWING; SILKTAILLength—8 to 9.5 inches. A little smaller than the robin.Male and Female—General color drab, with faint brownish wash above, shading into lighter gray below. Crest conspicuous,being nearly an inch and a half in length; rufous at the base, shading into light gray above. Velvety-black forehead, chin, and line through the eye. Wings grayish brown, with very dark quills, which have two white bars; the bar at the edge of the upper wing coverts being tipped with red sealing-wax-like points, that give the bird its name. A few wing feathers tipped with yellow on outer edge. Tail quills dark brown, with yellow band across the end, and faint red streaks on upper and inner sides.Range—Northern United States and British America. Most common in Canada and northern Mississippi region.Migrations—Very irregular winter visitor.When Charles Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, who was the first to count this common waxwing of Europe and Asia among the birds of North America, published an account of it in his "Synopsis," it was considered a very rare bird indeed. It may be these waxwings have greatly increased, but however uncommon they may still be considered, certainly no one who had ever seen a flock containing more than a thousand of them, resting on the trees of a lawn within sight of New York City, as the writer has done, could be expected to consider the birds "very rare."The Bohemian waxwing, like the only other member of the family that ever visits us, the cedar-bird, is a roving gipsy. In Germany they say seven years must elapse between its visitations, which the superstitious old cronies are wont to associate with woful stories of pestilence—just such tales as are resurrected from the depths of morbid memories here when a comet reappears or the seven-year locust ascends from the ground.The goings and comings of these birds are certainly most erratic and infrequent; nevertheless, when hunger drives them from the far north to feast upon the juniper and other winter berries of our Northern States, they come in enormous flocks, making up in quantity what they lack in regularity of visits and evenness of distribution.Surely no bird has less right to be associated with evil than this mild waxwing. It seems the very incarnation of peace and harmony. Part of a flock that has lodged in a tree will sit almost motionless for hours and whisper in softly hissed twitterings, very much as a company of Quaker ladies, similarly dressed, might sit at yearly meeting. Exquisitely clothed in silky-gray feathers that no berry juice is ever permitted to stain, they aredainty, gentle, aristocratic-looking birds, a trifle heavy and indolent, perhaps, when walking on the ground or perching; but as they fly in compact squads just above the tree-tops their flight is exceedingly swift and graceful.Bay-breasted Warbler(Dendroica castanea) Wood Warbler familyLength—5.25 to 5.75 inches. A little smaller than the English sparrow.Male—Crown, chin, throat, upper breast, and sides dull chestnut. Forehead, sides of head, and cheeks black. Above olive-gray, streaked with black. Underneath buffy. Two white wing-bars. Outer tail quills with white patches on tips. Cream-white patch on either side of neck.Female—Has more greenish-olive above.Range—Eastern North America, from Hudson's Bay to Central America. Nests north of the United States. Winters in tropical limit of range.Migrations—May. September. Rare migrant.The chestnut breast of this capricious little visitor makes him look like a diminutive robin. In spring, when these warblers are said to take a more easterly route than the one they choose in autumn to return by to Central America, they may be so suddenly abundant that the fresh green trees and shrubbery of the garden will contain a dozen of the busy little hunters. Another season they may pass northward either by another route or leave your garden unvisited; and perhaps the people in the very next town may be counting your rare bird common, while it is simply perverse.Whether common or rare, before your acquaintance has had time to ripen into friendship, away go the freaky little creatures to nest in the tree-tops of the Canadian coniferous forests.Chestnut-sided Warbler(Dendroica pennsylvanica) Wood Warbler familyCalled also: BLOODY-SIDED WARBLER {Illustrations facing pp.94and122)Length—About 5 inches. More than an inch shorter than the English sparrow.Male—Top of head and streaks in wings yellow. A black linerunning through the eye and round back of crown, and a black spot in front of eye, extending to cheeks. Ear coverts, chin, and underneath white. Back greenish gray and slate, streaked with black. Sides of bird chestnut. Wings, which are streaked with black and yellow, have yellowish-white bars. Very dark tail with white patches on inner vanes of the outer quills.Female—Similar, but duller. Chestnut sides are often scarcely apparent.Range—Eastern North America, from Manitoba and Labrador to the tropics, where it winters.Migrations—May. September. Summer resident, most common in migrations.In the Alleghanies, and from New Jersey and Illinois northward, this restless little warbler nests in the bushy borders of woodlands and the undergrowth of the woods, for which he forsakes our gardens and orchards after a very short visit in May. While hopping over the ground catching ants, of which he seems to be inordinately fond, or flitting actively about the shrubbery after grubs and insects, we may note his coat of many colors—patchwork in which nearly all the warbler colors are curiously combined. With drooped wings that often conceal the bird's chestnut sides, which are his chief distinguishing mark, and with tail erected like a redstart's, he hunts incessantly. Here in the garden he is as refreshingly indifferent to your interest in him as later in his breeding haunts he is shy and distrustful. His song is bright and animated, like that of the yellow warbler.Golden-winged Warbler(Helminthophila chrysoptera) Wood Warbler familyLength—About 5 inches. More than an inch shorter than the English sparrow.Male—Yellow crown and yellow patches on the wings. Upper parts bluish gray, sometimes tinged with greenish. Stripe through the eye and throat black. Sides of head, chin, and line over the eye white. Underneath white, grayish on sides. A few white markings on outer tail feathers.Female—Crown duller; gray where male is black, with olive upper parts and grayer underneath.Range—From Canadian border to Central America, where it winters.Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.After one has seen a golden-winged warbler fluttering hither and thither about the shrubbery of a park within sight and sound of a great city's distractions and with blissful unconcern of them all, partaking of a hearty lunch of insects that infest the leaves before one's eyes, one counts the bird less rare and shy than one has been taught to consider it. Whoever looks for a warbler with gaudy yellow wings will not find the golden-winged variety. His wings have golden patches only, and while these are distinguishing marks, they are scarcely prominent enough features to have given the bird the rather misleading name he bears. But, then, most warblers' names are misleading. They serve their best purpose in cultivating patience and other gentle virtues in the novice.Such habits and choice of haunts as characterize the blue-winged warbler are also the golden-winged's. But their voices are quite different, the former's being sharp and metallic, while the latter'szee, zee, zeecomes more lazily and without accent.Myrtle Warbler(Dendroica coronata) Wood Warbler familyCalled also: YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER; MYRTLE-BIRD; YELLOW-CROWNED WARBLERLength—5 to 5.5 inches. About an inch smaller than the English sparrow.Male—In summer plumage: A yellow patch on top of head, lower back, and either side of the breast. Upper parts bluish slate, streaked with black. Upper breast black; throat white; all other under parts whitish, streaked with black. Two white wing-bars, and tail quills have white spots near the tip.Inwinter: Upper parts olive-brown, streaked with black; the yellow spot on lower back the only yellow mark remaining. Wing-bars grayish.Female—Resembles male in winter plumage.Range—Eastern North America. Occasional on Pacific slope. Summers from Minnesota and northern New England northward to Fur Countries. Winters from Middle States southwardinto Central America; a few often remaining at the northern United States all the winter.Migrations—April. October. November. Also, but more rarely, a winter resident.The first of the warblers to arrive in the spring and the last to leave us in the autumn, some even remaining throughout the northern winter, the myrtle warbler, next to the summer yellowbird, is the most familiar of its multitudinous kin. Though we become acquainted with it chiefly in the migrations, it impresses us by its numbers rather than by any gorgeousness of attire. The four yellow spots on crown, lower back, and sides are its distinguishing marks; and in the autumn these marks have dwindled to only one, that on the lower back or rump. The great difficulty experienced in identifying any warbler is in its restless habit of flitting about.For a few days in early May we are forcibly reminded of the Florida peninsula, which fairly teems with these birds; they become almost superabundant, a distraction during the precious days when the rarer species are quietly slipping by, not to return again for a year, perhaps longer, for some warblers are notoriously irregular in their routes north and south, and never return by the way they travelled in the spring.But if we look sharply into every group of myrtle warblers, we are quite likely to discover some of their dainty, fragile cousins that gladly seek the escort of birds so fearless as they. By the last of May all the warblers are gone from the neighborhood except the constant little summer yellowbird and redstart.In autumn, when the myrtle warblers return after a busy enough summer passed in Canadian nurseries, they chiefly haunt those regions where juniper and bay-berries abound. These latter (Myrica cerifera), or the myrtle wax-berries, as they are sometimes called, and which are the bird's favorite food, have given it their name. Wherever the supply of these berries is sufficient to last through the winter, there it may be found foraging in the scrubby bushes. Sometimes driven by cold and hunger from the fields, this hardiest member of a family that properly belongs to the tropics, seeks shelter and food close to the outbuildings on the farm.Parula Warbler(Compsothlypis americana) Wood Warbler familyCalled also: BLUE YELLOW-BACKED WARBLERLength—4.5 to 4.75 inches. About an inch and a half shorter than the English sparrow.Male and Female—Slate-colored above, with a greenish-yellow or bronze patch in the middle of the back. Chin, throat, and breast yellow. A black, bluish, or rufous band across the breast, usually lacking in female. Underneath white, sometimes marked with rufous on sides, but these markings are variable. Wings have two white patches; outer tail feathers have white patch near the end.Range—Eastern North America. Winters from Florida southward.Migrations—April. October. Summer resident.Through an open window of an apartment in the very heart of New York City, a parula warbler flew this spring of 1897, surely the daintiest, most exquisitely beautiful bird visitor that ever voluntarily lodged between two brick walls.A number of such airy, tiny beauties flitting about among the blossoms of the shrubbery on a bright May morning and swaying on the slenderest branches with their inimitable grace, is a sight that the memory should retain into old age. They seem the very embodiment of life, joy, beauty, grace; of everything lovely that birds by any possibility could be. Apparently they are wafted about the garden; they fly with no more effort than a dainty lifting of the wings, as if to catch the breeze, that seems to lift them as it might a bunch of thistledown. They go through a great variety of charming posturings as they hunt for their food upon the blossoms and tender fresh twigs, now creeping like a nuthatch along the bark and peering into the crevices, now gracefully swaying and balancing like a goldfinch upon a slender, pendent stem. One little sprite pauses in its hunt for the insects to raise its pretty head and trill a short and wiry song.But the parula warbler does not remain long about the gardens and orchards, though it will not forsake us altogether for the Canadian forests, where most of its relatives pass the summer. It retreats only to the woods near the water, if may be, or to just as close a counterpart of a swampy southern woods, where theSpanish or Usnea "moss" drapes itself over the cypresses, as it can find here at the north. Its rarely beautiful nest, that hangs suspended from a slender branch very much like the Baltimore oriole's, is so woven and festooned with this moss that its concealment is perfect.CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLERCHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLERBLUEBIRDBLUEBIRDBlack-throated Blue Warbler(Dendroica cærulescens) Wood Warbler familyLength—-5.30 inches. About an inch shorter than the English sparrow.Male—Slate-color, not blue above; lightest on forehead and darkest on lower back. Wings and tail edged with bluish. Cheeks, chin, throat, upper breast, and sides black. Breast and underneath white. White spots on wings, and a little white on tail.Female—Olive-green above; underneath soiled yellow. Wing-spots inconspicuous. Tail generally has a faint bluish tinge.Range—Eastern North America, from Labrador to tropics, where it winters.Migrations—May. September. Usually a migrant only in the United States.Whoever looks for this beautifully marked warbler among the bluebirds, will wish that the man who named him had possessed a truer eye for color. But if the name so illy fits the bright slate-colored male, how grieved must be his little olive-and-yellow mate to answer to the name of black-throated blue warbler when she has neither a black throat nor a blue feather! It is not easy to distinguish her as she flits about the twigs and leaves of the garden in May or early autumn, except as she is seen in company with her husband, whose name she has taken with him for better or for worse. The white spot on the wings should always be looked for to positively identify this bird.Before flying up to a twig to peck off the insects, the birds have a pretty vireo trick of cocking their heads on one side to investigate the quantity hidden underneath the leaves. They seem less nervous and more deliberate than many of their restless family.Most warblers go over the Canada border to nest, but there are many records of the nests of this species in the Alleghanies as far south as Georgia, in the Catskills, in Connecticut, northernMinnesota and Michigan. Laurel thickets and moist undergrowth of woods in the United States, and more commonly pine woods in Canada, are the favorite nesting haunts. A sharpzip,zip, like some midsummer insect's noise, is the bird's call-note, but its love-song,zee,zee,zee, ortwee,twea,twea-e-e, as one authority writes it, is only rarely heard in the migrations. It is a languid, drawling little strain, with an upward slide that is easily drowned in the full bird chorus of May.BLUE AND BLUISH BIRDSBluebirdIndigo BuntingBelted KingfisherBlue JayBlue GrosbeakBarn SwallowCliff SwallowMourning DoveBlue-gray GnatcatcherLook also among Slate-colored Birds in preceding group, particularly among the Warblers there, or in the group of Birds conspicuously, Yellow and Orange.The Bluebird(Sialia sialis) Thrush familyCalled also: BLUE ROBIN{Illustration facing p.95)Length—7 inches. About an inch longer than the English sparrow.Male—Upper parts, wings, and tail bright blue, with rusty wash in autumn. Throat, breast, and sides cinnamon-red. Underneath white.Female—Has duller blue feathers, washed with gray, and a paler breast than male.Range—North America, from Nova Scotia and Manitoba to Gulf of Mexico. Southward in winter from Middle States to Bermuda and West Indies.Migrations—March. November. Summer resident. A few sometimes remain throughout the winter.With the first soft, plaintive warble of the bluebirds early in March, the sugar camps, waiting for their signal, take on a bustling activity; the farmer looks to his plough; orders are hurried off to the seedsmen; a fever to be out of doors seizes one: spring is here. Snowstorms may yet whiten fields and gardens, high winds may howl about the trees and chimneys, but the little blue heralds persistently proclaim from the orchard and garden that the spring procession has begun to move.Tru-al-ly,tru-al-ly, they sweetly assert to our incredulous ears.The bluebird is not always a migrant, except in the more northern portions of the country. Some representatives there are always with us, but the great majority winter south and drop out of the spring procession on its way northward, the males a little ahead of their mates, which show housewifely instincts immediately after their arrival. A pair of these rather undemonstrative, matter-of-fact lovers go about looking for some deserted woodpecker's hole in the orchard, peering into cavities in the fence-rails,or into the bird-houses that, once set up in the old-fashioned gardens for their special benefit, are now appropriated too often by the ubiquitous sparrow. Wrens they can readily dispossess of an attractive tenement, and do. With a temper as heavenly as the color of their feathers, the bluebird's sense of justice is not always so adorable. But sparrows unnerve them into cowardice. The comparatively infrequent nesting of the bluebirds about our homes at the present time is one of the most deplorable results of unrestricted sparrow immigration. Formerly they were the commonest of bird neighbors.Nest-building is not a favorite occupation with the bluebirds, that are conspicuously domestic none the less. Two, and even three, broods in a season fully occupy their time. As in most cases, the mother-bird does more than her share of the work. The male looks with wondering admiration at the housewifely activity, applauds her with song, feeds her as she sits brooding over the nestful of pale greenish-blue eggs, but his adoration of her virtues does not lead him into emulation."Shifting his light load of song,From post to post along the cheerless fence,"Lowell observed that he carried his duties quite as lightly.When the young birds first emerge from the shell they are almost black; they come into their splendid heritage of color by degrees, lest their young heads might be turned. It is only as they spread their tiny wings for their first flight from the nest that we can see a few blue feathers.With the first cool days of autumn the bluebirds collect in flocks, often associating with orioles and kingbirds in sheltered, sunny places where insects are still plentiful. Their steady, undulating flight now becomes erratic as they take food on the wing—a habit that they may have learned by association with the kingbirds, for they have also adopted the habit of perching upon some conspicuous lookout and then suddenly launching out into the air for a passing fly and returning to their perch. Long after their associates have gone southward, they linger like the last leaves on the tree. It is indeed "good-bye to summer" when the bluebirds withdraw their touch of brightness from the dreary November landscape.The bluebirds from Canada and the northern portions of NewEngland and New York migrate into Virginia and the Carolinas; the birds from the Middle States move down into the Gulf States to pass the winter. It was there that countless numbers were cut off by the severe winter of 1894-95, which was so severe in that section.Indigo Bunting(Passerina cyanea) Finch familyCalled also: INDIGO BIRDLength—5.5 to 6 inches. Smaller than the English sparrow, or the size of a canary.Male—In certain lights rich blue, deepest on head. In another light the blue feathers show verdigris tints. Wings, tail, and lower back with brownish wash, most prominent in autumn plumage. Quills of wings and tail deep blue, margined with light.Female—Plain sienna-brown above. Yellowish on breast and shading to white underneath, and indistinctly streaked. Wings and tail darkest, sometimes with slight tinge of blue in outer webs and on shoulders.Range—North America, from Hudson Bay to Panama. Most common in eastern part of United States. Winters in Central America and Mexico.Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.The "glowing indigo" of this tropical-looking visitor that so delighted Thoreau in the Walden woods, often seems only the more intense by comparison with the blue sky, against which it stands out in relief as the bird perches singing in a tree-top. What has this gaily dressed, dapper little cavalier in common with his dingy sparrow cousins that haunt the ground and delight in dust-baths, leaving their feathers no whit more dingy than they were before, and in temper, as in plumage, suggesting more of earth than of heaven? Apparently he has nothing, and yet the small brown bird in the roadside thicket, which you have misnamed a sparrow, not noticing the glint of blue in her shoulders and tail, is his mate. Besides the structural resemblances, which are, of course, the only ones considered by ornithologists in classifying birds, the indigo buntings have several sparrow-like traits. They feed upon the ground, mainly upon seeds of grasses and herbs, with a few insects interspersed to give relishto the grain; they build grassy nests in low bushes or tall, rank grass; and their flight is short and labored. Borders of woods, roadside thickets, and even garden shrubbery, with open pasture lots for foraging grounds near by, are favorite haunts of these birds, that return again and again to some preferred spot. But however close to our homes they build theirs, our presence never ceases to be regarded by them with anything but suspicion, not to say alarm. Their metalliccheep,cheep, warns you to keep away from the little blue-white eggs, hidden away securely in the bushes; and the nervous tail twitchings and jerkings are pathetic to see. Happily for the safety of their nest, the brooding mother has no tell-tale feathers to attract the eye. Dense foliage no more conceals the male bird's brilliant coat than it can the tanager's or oriole's.With no attempt at concealment, which he doubtless understands would be quite impossible, he chooses some high, conspicuous perch to which he mounts by easy stages, singing as he goes; and there begins a loud and rapid strain that promises much, but growing weaker and weaker, ends as if the bird were either out of breath or too weak to finish. Then suddenly he begins the same song over again, and keeps up this continuous performance for nearly half an hour. The noonday heat of an August day that silences nearly every other voice, seems to give to the indigo bird's only fresh animation and timbre.BELTED KINGFISHERBELTED KINGFISHER(Upper Figure, Female; Lower Figure, Male)BLUE JAYBLUE JAYThe Belted Kingfisher(Ceryle alcyon) Kingfisher familyCalled also: THE HALCYON(Illustration facing p.48)Length—12 to 13 inches. About one-fourth as large again as the robin.Male—Upper part grayish blue, with prominent crest on head reaching to the nape. A white spot in front of the eye. Bill longer than the head, which is large and heavy. Wings and the short tail minutely speckled and marked with broken bands of white. Chin, band around throat, and underneath white. Two bluish bands across the breast and a bluish wash on sides.Female—Female and immature specimens have rufous bands where the adult male's are blue. Plumage of both birds oily.Range—North America, except where the Texan kingfisherreplaces it in a limited area in the Southwest. Common from Labrador to Florida, east and west. Winters chiefly from Virginia southward to South America.Migrations—March. December. Common summer resident. Usually a winter resident also.If the kingfisher is not so neighborly as we could wish, or as he used to be, it is not because he has grown less friendly, but because the streams near our homes are fished out. Fish he must and will have, and to get them nowadays it is too often necessary to follow the stream back through secluded woods to the quiet waters of its source: a clear, cool pond or lake whose scaly inmates have not yet learned wisdom at the point of the sportsman's fly.In such quiet haunts the kingfisher is easily the most conspicuous object in sight, where he perches on some dead or projecting branch over the water, intently watching for a dinner that is all unsuspectingly swimming below. Suddenly the bird drops—dives; there is a splash, a struggle, and then the "lone fisherman" returns triumphant to his perch, holding a shining fish in his beak. If the fish is small it is swallowed at once, but if it is large and bony it must first be killed against the branch. A few sharp knocks, and the struggles of the fish are over, but the kingfisher's have only begun. How he gags and writhes, swallows his dinner, and then, regretting his haste, brings it up again to try another wider avenue down his throat! The many abortive efforts he makes to land his dinner safely below in his stomach, his grim contortions as the fishbones scratch his throat-lining on their way down and up again, force a smile in spite of the bird's evident distress. It is small wonder he supplements his fish diet with various kinds of the larger insects, shrimps, and fresh-water mollusks.Flying well over the tree-tops or along the waterways, the kingfisher makes the woodland echo with his noisy rattle, that breaks the stillness like a watchman's at midnight. It is, perhaps, the most familiar sound heard along the banks of the inland rivers. No love or cradle song does he know. Instead of softening and growing sweet, as the voices of most birds do in the nesting season, the endearments uttered by a pair of mated kingfishers are the most strident, rattly shrieks ever heard by lovers.It sounds as if they were perpetually quarrelling, and yet they are really particularly devoted.The nest of these birds, like the bank swallow's, is excavated in the face of a high bank, preferably one that rises from a stream; and at about six feet from the entrance of the tunnel six or eight clear, shining white eggs are placed on a curious nest. All the fishbones and scales that, being indigestible, are disgorged in pellets by the parents, are carefully carried to the end of the tunnel to form a prickly cradle for the unhappy fledglings. Very rarely a nest is made in the hollow trunk of a tree; but wherever the home is, the kingfishers become strongly attached to it, returning again and again to the spot that has cost them so much labor to excavate. Some observers have accused them of appropriating the holes of the water-rats.In ancient times of myths and fables, kingfishers or halcyons were said to build a floating nest on the sea, and to possess some mysterious power that calmed the troubled waves while the eggs were hatching and the young birds were being reared, hence the term "halcyon days," meaning days of fair weather.Blue Jay(Cyanocitta cristata) Crow and Jay family(Illustration facing p.103)Length—11 to 12 inches. A little larger than the robin.Male and Female—Blue above. Black band around the neck, joining some black feathers on the back. Under parts dusky white. Wing coverts and tail bright blue, striped transversely with black. Tail much rounded. Many feathers edged and tipped with white. Head finely crested; bill, tongue, and legs black.Range—Eastern coast of North America to the plains, and from northern Canada to Florida and eastern Texas.Migrations—Permanent resident. Although seen in flocks moving southward or northward, they are merely seeking happier hunting grounds, not migrating.No bird of finer color or presence sojourns with us the year round than the blue jay. In a peculiar sense his is a case of "beauty covering a multitude of sins." Among close students of bird traits, we find none so poor as to do him reverence. Dishonest, cruel, inquisitive, murderous, voracious, villainous, aresome of the epithets applied to this bird of exquisite plumage. Emerson, however, has said in his defence he does "more good than harm," alluding, no doubt, to his habit of burying nuts and hard seeds in the ground, so that many a waste place is clothed with trees and shrubs, thanks to his propensity and industry.He is mischievous as a small boy, destructive as a monkey, deft at hiding as a squirrel. He is unsociable and unamiable, disliking the society of other birds. His harsh screams, shrieks, and most aggressive and unmusical calls seem often intended maliciously to drown the songs of the sweet-voiced singers.From April to September, the breeding and moulting season, the blue jays are almost silent, only sallying forth from the woods to pillage and devour the young and eggs of their more peaceful neighbors. In a bulky nest, usually placed in a tree-crotch high above our heads, from four to six eggs, olive-gray with brown spots, are laid and most carefully tended.Notwithstanding the unlovely characteristics of the blue jay, we could ill spare the flash of color, like a bit of blue sky dropped from above, which is so rare a tint even in our land, that we number not more than three or four true blue birds, and in England, it is said, there is none.Blue Grosbeak(Guiraca cærulea) Finch familyLength—7 inches. About an inch larger than the English sparrow.Male—Deep blue, dark, and almost black on the back; wings and tail black, slightly edged with blue, and the former marked with bright chestnut. Cheeks and chin black. Bill heavy and bluish.Female—Grayish brown above, sometimes with bluish tinge on head, lower back, and shoulders. Wings dark olive-brown, with faint buff markings; tail same shade as wings, but with bluish-gray markings. Underneath brownish cream-color, the breast feathers often blue at the base.Range—United States, from southern New England westward to the Rocky Mountains and southward into Mexico and beyond. Most common in the Southwest. Rare along the Atlantic seaboard.Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.This beautiful but rather shy and solitary bird occasionallywanders eastward to rival the bluebird and the indigo bunting in their rare and lovely coloring, and eclipse them both in song. Audubon, we remember, found the nest in New Jersey. Pennsylvania is still favored with one now and then, but it is in the Southwest only that the blue grosbeak is as common as the evening grosbeak is in the Northwest. Since rice is its favorite food, it naturally abounds where that cereal grows. Seeds and kernels of the hardest kinds, that its heavy, strong beak is well adapted to crack, constitute its diet when it strays beyond the rice-fields.Possibly the heavy bills of all the grosbeaks make them look stupid whether they are or not—a characteristic that the blue grosbeak's habit of sitting motionless with a vacant stare many minutes at a time unfortunately emphasizes.When seen in the roadside thickets or tall weeds, such as the field sparrow chooses to frequent, it shows little fear of man unless actually approached and threatened, but whether this fearlessness comes from actual confidence or stupidity is by no means certain. Whatever the motive of its inactivity, it accomplishes an end to be desired by the cleverest bird; its presence is almost never suspected by the passer-by, and its grassy nest on a tree-branch, containing three or four pale bluish-white eggs, is never betrayed by look or sign to the marauding small boy.YOUNG CRESTED FLYCATCHERSYOUNG CRESTED FLYCATCHERS WITH HAIR STANDING ON END.
Northern Shrike(Lanius borealis) Shrike family
Called also: BUTCHER-BIRD; NINE-KILLER
Length—9.5 to 10.5 inches. About the size of the robin.
Male—Upper parts slate-gray; wing quills and tail black, edged and tipped with white, conspicuous in flight; a white spot on centre of outer wing feathers. A black band runs from bill, through eye to side of throat. Light gray below, tinged with brownish, and faintly marked with waving lines of darker gray. Bill hooked and hawk-like.
Female—With eye-band more obscure than male's, and with more distinct brownish cast on her plumage.
Range—Northern North America. South in winter to middle portion of United States.
Migrations—November, April. A roving winter resident.
"Matching the bravest of the brave among birds of prey in deeds of daring, and no less relentless than reckless, the shrike compels that sort of deference, not unmixed with indignation, we are accustomed to accord to creatures of seeming insignificance whose exploits demand much strength, great spirit, and insatiate love for carnage. We cannot be indifferent to the marauder who takes his own wherever he finds it—a feudal baron who holds his own with undisputed sway—and an ogre whose victims are so many more than he can eat, that he actually keeps a private graveyard for the balance." Who is honestly able to give the shrikes a better character than Dr. Coues, just quoted? A few offer them questionable defence by recording the large numbers of English sparrowsthey kill in a season, as if wanton carnage were ever justifiable.
Not even a hawk itself can produce the consternation among a flock of sparrows that the harsh, rasping voice of the butcher-bird creates, for escape they well know to be difficult before the small ogre swoops down upon his victim, and carries it off to impale it on a thorn or frozen twig, there to devour it later piecemeal. Every shrike thus either impales or else hangs up, as a butcher does his meat, more little birds of many kinds, field-mice, grasshoppers, and other large insects than it can hope to devour in a week of bloody orgies. Field-mice are perhaps its favorite diet, but even snakes are not disdained.
More contemptible than the actual slaughter of its victims, if possible, is the method by which the shrike often lures and sneaks upon his prey. Hiding in a clump of bushes in the meadow or garden, he imitates with fiendish cleverness the call-notes of little birds that come in cheerful response, hopping and flitting within easy range of him. His bloody work is finished in a trice. Usually, however, it must be owned, the shrike's hunting habits are the reverse of sneaking. Perched on a point of vantage on some tree-top or weather-vane, his hawk-like eye can detect a grasshopper going through the grass fifty yards away.
What is our surprise when some fine warm day in March, just before our butcher, ogre, sneak, and fiend leaves us for colder regions, to hear him break out into song! Love has warmed even his cold heart, and with sweet, warbled notes on the tip of a beak that but yesterday was reeking with his victim's blood, he starts for Canada, leaving behind him the only good impression he has made during a long winter's visit.
Bohemian Waxwing(Ampelis garrulus) Waxwing family
Called also: BLACK-THROATED WAXWING; LAPLAND WAXWING; SILKTAIL
Length—8 to 9.5 inches. A little smaller than the robin.
Male and Female—General color drab, with faint brownish wash above, shading into lighter gray below. Crest conspicuous,being nearly an inch and a half in length; rufous at the base, shading into light gray above. Velvety-black forehead, chin, and line through the eye. Wings grayish brown, with very dark quills, which have two white bars; the bar at the edge of the upper wing coverts being tipped with red sealing-wax-like points, that give the bird its name. A few wing feathers tipped with yellow on outer edge. Tail quills dark brown, with yellow band across the end, and faint red streaks on upper and inner sides.
Range—Northern United States and British America. Most common in Canada and northern Mississippi region.
Migrations—Very irregular winter visitor.
When Charles Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, who was the first to count this common waxwing of Europe and Asia among the birds of North America, published an account of it in his "Synopsis," it was considered a very rare bird indeed. It may be these waxwings have greatly increased, but however uncommon they may still be considered, certainly no one who had ever seen a flock containing more than a thousand of them, resting on the trees of a lawn within sight of New York City, as the writer has done, could be expected to consider the birds "very rare."
The Bohemian waxwing, like the only other member of the family that ever visits us, the cedar-bird, is a roving gipsy. In Germany they say seven years must elapse between its visitations, which the superstitious old cronies are wont to associate with woful stories of pestilence—just such tales as are resurrected from the depths of morbid memories here when a comet reappears or the seven-year locust ascends from the ground.
The goings and comings of these birds are certainly most erratic and infrequent; nevertheless, when hunger drives them from the far north to feast upon the juniper and other winter berries of our Northern States, they come in enormous flocks, making up in quantity what they lack in regularity of visits and evenness of distribution.
Surely no bird has less right to be associated with evil than this mild waxwing. It seems the very incarnation of peace and harmony. Part of a flock that has lodged in a tree will sit almost motionless for hours and whisper in softly hissed twitterings, very much as a company of Quaker ladies, similarly dressed, might sit at yearly meeting. Exquisitely clothed in silky-gray feathers that no berry juice is ever permitted to stain, they aredainty, gentle, aristocratic-looking birds, a trifle heavy and indolent, perhaps, when walking on the ground or perching; but as they fly in compact squads just above the tree-tops their flight is exceedingly swift and graceful.
Bay-breasted Warbler(Dendroica castanea) Wood Warbler family
Length—5.25 to 5.75 inches. A little smaller than the English sparrow.
Male—Crown, chin, throat, upper breast, and sides dull chestnut. Forehead, sides of head, and cheeks black. Above olive-gray, streaked with black. Underneath buffy. Two white wing-bars. Outer tail quills with white patches on tips. Cream-white patch on either side of neck.
Female—Has more greenish-olive above.
Range—Eastern North America, from Hudson's Bay to Central America. Nests north of the United States. Winters in tropical limit of range.
Migrations—May. September. Rare migrant.
The chestnut breast of this capricious little visitor makes him look like a diminutive robin. In spring, when these warblers are said to take a more easterly route than the one they choose in autumn to return by to Central America, they may be so suddenly abundant that the fresh green trees and shrubbery of the garden will contain a dozen of the busy little hunters. Another season they may pass northward either by another route or leave your garden unvisited; and perhaps the people in the very next town may be counting your rare bird common, while it is simply perverse.
Whether common or rare, before your acquaintance has had time to ripen into friendship, away go the freaky little creatures to nest in the tree-tops of the Canadian coniferous forests.
Chestnut-sided Warbler(Dendroica pennsylvanica) Wood Warbler family
Called also: BLOODY-SIDED WARBLER {Illustrations facing pp.94and122)
Length—About 5 inches. More than an inch shorter than the English sparrow.
Male—Top of head and streaks in wings yellow. A black linerunning through the eye and round back of crown, and a black spot in front of eye, extending to cheeks. Ear coverts, chin, and underneath white. Back greenish gray and slate, streaked with black. Sides of bird chestnut. Wings, which are streaked with black and yellow, have yellowish-white bars. Very dark tail with white patches on inner vanes of the outer quills.
Female—Similar, but duller. Chestnut sides are often scarcely apparent.
Range—Eastern North America, from Manitoba and Labrador to the tropics, where it winters.
Migrations—May. September. Summer resident, most common in migrations.
In the Alleghanies, and from New Jersey and Illinois northward, this restless little warbler nests in the bushy borders of woodlands and the undergrowth of the woods, for which he forsakes our gardens and orchards after a very short visit in May. While hopping over the ground catching ants, of which he seems to be inordinately fond, or flitting actively about the shrubbery after grubs and insects, we may note his coat of many colors—patchwork in which nearly all the warbler colors are curiously combined. With drooped wings that often conceal the bird's chestnut sides, which are his chief distinguishing mark, and with tail erected like a redstart's, he hunts incessantly. Here in the garden he is as refreshingly indifferent to your interest in him as later in his breeding haunts he is shy and distrustful. His song is bright and animated, like that of the yellow warbler.
Golden-winged Warbler(Helminthophila chrysoptera) Wood Warbler family
Length—About 5 inches. More than an inch shorter than the English sparrow.
Male—Yellow crown and yellow patches on the wings. Upper parts bluish gray, sometimes tinged with greenish. Stripe through the eye and throat black. Sides of head, chin, and line over the eye white. Underneath white, grayish on sides. A few white markings on outer tail feathers.
Female—Crown duller; gray where male is black, with olive upper parts and grayer underneath.
Range—From Canadian border to Central America, where it winters.
Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.
After one has seen a golden-winged warbler fluttering hither and thither about the shrubbery of a park within sight and sound of a great city's distractions and with blissful unconcern of them all, partaking of a hearty lunch of insects that infest the leaves before one's eyes, one counts the bird less rare and shy than one has been taught to consider it. Whoever looks for a warbler with gaudy yellow wings will not find the golden-winged variety. His wings have golden patches only, and while these are distinguishing marks, they are scarcely prominent enough features to have given the bird the rather misleading name he bears. But, then, most warblers' names are misleading. They serve their best purpose in cultivating patience and other gentle virtues in the novice.
Such habits and choice of haunts as characterize the blue-winged warbler are also the golden-winged's. But their voices are quite different, the former's being sharp and metallic, while the latter'szee, zee, zeecomes more lazily and without accent.
Myrtle Warbler(Dendroica coronata) Wood Warbler family
Called also: YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER; MYRTLE-BIRD; YELLOW-CROWNED WARBLER
Length—5 to 5.5 inches. About an inch smaller than the English sparrow.
Male—In summer plumage: A yellow patch on top of head, lower back, and either side of the breast. Upper parts bluish slate, streaked with black. Upper breast black; throat white; all other under parts whitish, streaked with black. Two white wing-bars, and tail quills have white spots near the tip.Inwinter: Upper parts olive-brown, streaked with black; the yellow spot on lower back the only yellow mark remaining. Wing-bars grayish.
Female—Resembles male in winter plumage.
Range—Eastern North America. Occasional on Pacific slope. Summers from Minnesota and northern New England northward to Fur Countries. Winters from Middle States southwardinto Central America; a few often remaining at the northern United States all the winter.
Migrations—April. October. November. Also, but more rarely, a winter resident.
The first of the warblers to arrive in the spring and the last to leave us in the autumn, some even remaining throughout the northern winter, the myrtle warbler, next to the summer yellowbird, is the most familiar of its multitudinous kin. Though we become acquainted with it chiefly in the migrations, it impresses us by its numbers rather than by any gorgeousness of attire. The four yellow spots on crown, lower back, and sides are its distinguishing marks; and in the autumn these marks have dwindled to only one, that on the lower back or rump. The great difficulty experienced in identifying any warbler is in its restless habit of flitting about.
For a few days in early May we are forcibly reminded of the Florida peninsula, which fairly teems with these birds; they become almost superabundant, a distraction during the precious days when the rarer species are quietly slipping by, not to return again for a year, perhaps longer, for some warblers are notoriously irregular in their routes north and south, and never return by the way they travelled in the spring.
But if we look sharply into every group of myrtle warblers, we are quite likely to discover some of their dainty, fragile cousins that gladly seek the escort of birds so fearless as they. By the last of May all the warblers are gone from the neighborhood except the constant little summer yellowbird and redstart.
In autumn, when the myrtle warblers return after a busy enough summer passed in Canadian nurseries, they chiefly haunt those regions where juniper and bay-berries abound. These latter (Myrica cerifera), or the myrtle wax-berries, as they are sometimes called, and which are the bird's favorite food, have given it their name. Wherever the supply of these berries is sufficient to last through the winter, there it may be found foraging in the scrubby bushes. Sometimes driven by cold and hunger from the fields, this hardiest member of a family that properly belongs to the tropics, seeks shelter and food close to the outbuildings on the farm.
Parula Warbler(Compsothlypis americana) Wood Warbler family
Called also: BLUE YELLOW-BACKED WARBLER
Length—4.5 to 4.75 inches. About an inch and a half shorter than the English sparrow.
Male and Female—Slate-colored above, with a greenish-yellow or bronze patch in the middle of the back. Chin, throat, and breast yellow. A black, bluish, or rufous band across the breast, usually lacking in female. Underneath white, sometimes marked with rufous on sides, but these markings are variable. Wings have two white patches; outer tail feathers have white patch near the end.
Range—Eastern North America. Winters from Florida southward.
Migrations—April. October. Summer resident.
Through an open window of an apartment in the very heart of New York City, a parula warbler flew this spring of 1897, surely the daintiest, most exquisitely beautiful bird visitor that ever voluntarily lodged between two brick walls.
A number of such airy, tiny beauties flitting about among the blossoms of the shrubbery on a bright May morning and swaying on the slenderest branches with their inimitable grace, is a sight that the memory should retain into old age. They seem the very embodiment of life, joy, beauty, grace; of everything lovely that birds by any possibility could be. Apparently they are wafted about the garden; they fly with no more effort than a dainty lifting of the wings, as if to catch the breeze, that seems to lift them as it might a bunch of thistledown. They go through a great variety of charming posturings as they hunt for their food upon the blossoms and tender fresh twigs, now creeping like a nuthatch along the bark and peering into the crevices, now gracefully swaying and balancing like a goldfinch upon a slender, pendent stem. One little sprite pauses in its hunt for the insects to raise its pretty head and trill a short and wiry song.
But the parula warbler does not remain long about the gardens and orchards, though it will not forsake us altogether for the Canadian forests, where most of its relatives pass the summer. It retreats only to the woods near the water, if may be, or to just as close a counterpart of a swampy southern woods, where theSpanish or Usnea "moss" drapes itself over the cypresses, as it can find here at the north. Its rarely beautiful nest, that hangs suspended from a slender branch very much like the Baltimore oriole's, is so woven and festooned with this moss that its concealment is perfect.
CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLERCHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER
BLUEBIRDBLUEBIRD
Black-throated Blue Warbler(Dendroica cærulescens) Wood Warbler family
Length—-5.30 inches. About an inch shorter than the English sparrow.
Male—Slate-color, not blue above; lightest on forehead and darkest on lower back. Wings and tail edged with bluish. Cheeks, chin, throat, upper breast, and sides black. Breast and underneath white. White spots on wings, and a little white on tail.
Female—Olive-green above; underneath soiled yellow. Wing-spots inconspicuous. Tail generally has a faint bluish tinge.
Range—Eastern North America, from Labrador to tropics, where it winters.
Migrations—May. September. Usually a migrant only in the United States.
Whoever looks for this beautifully marked warbler among the bluebirds, will wish that the man who named him had possessed a truer eye for color. But if the name so illy fits the bright slate-colored male, how grieved must be his little olive-and-yellow mate to answer to the name of black-throated blue warbler when she has neither a black throat nor a blue feather! It is not easy to distinguish her as she flits about the twigs and leaves of the garden in May or early autumn, except as she is seen in company with her husband, whose name she has taken with him for better or for worse. The white spot on the wings should always be looked for to positively identify this bird.
Before flying up to a twig to peck off the insects, the birds have a pretty vireo trick of cocking their heads on one side to investigate the quantity hidden underneath the leaves. They seem less nervous and more deliberate than many of their restless family.
Most warblers go over the Canada border to nest, but there are many records of the nests of this species in the Alleghanies as far south as Georgia, in the Catskills, in Connecticut, northernMinnesota and Michigan. Laurel thickets and moist undergrowth of woods in the United States, and more commonly pine woods in Canada, are the favorite nesting haunts. A sharpzip,zip, like some midsummer insect's noise, is the bird's call-note, but its love-song,zee,zee,zee, ortwee,twea,twea-e-e, as one authority writes it, is only rarely heard in the migrations. It is a languid, drawling little strain, with an upward slide that is easily drowned in the full bird chorus of May.
BLUE AND BLUISH BIRDS
BluebirdIndigo BuntingBelted KingfisherBlue JayBlue GrosbeakBarn SwallowCliff SwallowMourning DoveBlue-gray Gnatcatcher
Look also among Slate-colored Birds in preceding group, particularly among the Warblers there, or in the group of Birds conspicuously, Yellow and Orange.
The Bluebird(Sialia sialis) Thrush family
Called also: BLUE ROBIN{Illustration facing p.95)
Length—7 inches. About an inch longer than the English sparrow.
Male—Upper parts, wings, and tail bright blue, with rusty wash in autumn. Throat, breast, and sides cinnamon-red. Underneath white.
Female—Has duller blue feathers, washed with gray, and a paler breast than male.
Range—North America, from Nova Scotia and Manitoba to Gulf of Mexico. Southward in winter from Middle States to Bermuda and West Indies.
Migrations—March. November. Summer resident. A few sometimes remain throughout the winter.
With the first soft, plaintive warble of the bluebirds early in March, the sugar camps, waiting for their signal, take on a bustling activity; the farmer looks to his plough; orders are hurried off to the seedsmen; a fever to be out of doors seizes one: spring is here. Snowstorms may yet whiten fields and gardens, high winds may howl about the trees and chimneys, but the little blue heralds persistently proclaim from the orchard and garden that the spring procession has begun to move.Tru-al-ly,tru-al-ly, they sweetly assert to our incredulous ears.
The bluebird is not always a migrant, except in the more northern portions of the country. Some representatives there are always with us, but the great majority winter south and drop out of the spring procession on its way northward, the males a little ahead of their mates, which show housewifely instincts immediately after their arrival. A pair of these rather undemonstrative, matter-of-fact lovers go about looking for some deserted woodpecker's hole in the orchard, peering into cavities in the fence-rails,or into the bird-houses that, once set up in the old-fashioned gardens for their special benefit, are now appropriated too often by the ubiquitous sparrow. Wrens they can readily dispossess of an attractive tenement, and do. With a temper as heavenly as the color of their feathers, the bluebird's sense of justice is not always so adorable. But sparrows unnerve them into cowardice. The comparatively infrequent nesting of the bluebirds about our homes at the present time is one of the most deplorable results of unrestricted sparrow immigration. Formerly they were the commonest of bird neighbors.
Nest-building is not a favorite occupation with the bluebirds, that are conspicuously domestic none the less. Two, and even three, broods in a season fully occupy their time. As in most cases, the mother-bird does more than her share of the work. The male looks with wondering admiration at the housewifely activity, applauds her with song, feeds her as she sits brooding over the nestful of pale greenish-blue eggs, but his adoration of her virtues does not lead him into emulation.
"Shifting his light load of song,From post to post along the cheerless fence,"
"Shifting his light load of song,From post to post along the cheerless fence,"
Lowell observed that he carried his duties quite as lightly.
When the young birds first emerge from the shell they are almost black; they come into their splendid heritage of color by degrees, lest their young heads might be turned. It is only as they spread their tiny wings for their first flight from the nest that we can see a few blue feathers.
With the first cool days of autumn the bluebirds collect in flocks, often associating with orioles and kingbirds in sheltered, sunny places where insects are still plentiful. Their steady, undulating flight now becomes erratic as they take food on the wing—a habit that they may have learned by association with the kingbirds, for they have also adopted the habit of perching upon some conspicuous lookout and then suddenly launching out into the air for a passing fly and returning to their perch. Long after their associates have gone southward, they linger like the last leaves on the tree. It is indeed "good-bye to summer" when the bluebirds withdraw their touch of brightness from the dreary November landscape.
The bluebirds from Canada and the northern portions of NewEngland and New York migrate into Virginia and the Carolinas; the birds from the Middle States move down into the Gulf States to pass the winter. It was there that countless numbers were cut off by the severe winter of 1894-95, which was so severe in that section.
Indigo Bunting(Passerina cyanea) Finch family
Called also: INDIGO BIRD
Length—5.5 to 6 inches. Smaller than the English sparrow, or the size of a canary.
Male—In certain lights rich blue, deepest on head. In another light the blue feathers show verdigris tints. Wings, tail, and lower back with brownish wash, most prominent in autumn plumage. Quills of wings and tail deep blue, margined with light.
Female—Plain sienna-brown above. Yellowish on breast and shading to white underneath, and indistinctly streaked. Wings and tail darkest, sometimes with slight tinge of blue in outer webs and on shoulders.
Range—North America, from Hudson Bay to Panama. Most common in eastern part of United States. Winters in Central America and Mexico.
Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.
The "glowing indigo" of this tropical-looking visitor that so delighted Thoreau in the Walden woods, often seems only the more intense by comparison with the blue sky, against which it stands out in relief as the bird perches singing in a tree-top. What has this gaily dressed, dapper little cavalier in common with his dingy sparrow cousins that haunt the ground and delight in dust-baths, leaving their feathers no whit more dingy than they were before, and in temper, as in plumage, suggesting more of earth than of heaven? Apparently he has nothing, and yet the small brown bird in the roadside thicket, which you have misnamed a sparrow, not noticing the glint of blue in her shoulders and tail, is his mate. Besides the structural resemblances, which are, of course, the only ones considered by ornithologists in classifying birds, the indigo buntings have several sparrow-like traits. They feed upon the ground, mainly upon seeds of grasses and herbs, with a few insects interspersed to give relishto the grain; they build grassy nests in low bushes or tall, rank grass; and their flight is short and labored. Borders of woods, roadside thickets, and even garden shrubbery, with open pasture lots for foraging grounds near by, are favorite haunts of these birds, that return again and again to some preferred spot. But however close to our homes they build theirs, our presence never ceases to be regarded by them with anything but suspicion, not to say alarm. Their metalliccheep,cheep, warns you to keep away from the little blue-white eggs, hidden away securely in the bushes; and the nervous tail twitchings and jerkings are pathetic to see. Happily for the safety of their nest, the brooding mother has no tell-tale feathers to attract the eye. Dense foliage no more conceals the male bird's brilliant coat than it can the tanager's or oriole's.
With no attempt at concealment, which he doubtless understands would be quite impossible, he chooses some high, conspicuous perch to which he mounts by easy stages, singing as he goes; and there begins a loud and rapid strain that promises much, but growing weaker and weaker, ends as if the bird were either out of breath or too weak to finish. Then suddenly he begins the same song over again, and keeps up this continuous performance for nearly half an hour. The noonday heat of an August day that silences nearly every other voice, seems to give to the indigo bird's only fresh animation and timbre.
BELTED KINGFISHERBELTED KINGFISHER(Upper Figure, Female; Lower Figure, Male)
BLUE JAYBLUE JAY
The Belted Kingfisher(Ceryle alcyon) Kingfisher family
Called also: THE HALCYON(Illustration facing p.48)
Length—12 to 13 inches. About one-fourth as large again as the robin.
Male—Upper part grayish blue, with prominent crest on head reaching to the nape. A white spot in front of the eye. Bill longer than the head, which is large and heavy. Wings and the short tail minutely speckled and marked with broken bands of white. Chin, band around throat, and underneath white. Two bluish bands across the breast and a bluish wash on sides.
Female—Female and immature specimens have rufous bands where the adult male's are blue. Plumage of both birds oily.
Range—North America, except where the Texan kingfisherreplaces it in a limited area in the Southwest. Common from Labrador to Florida, east and west. Winters chiefly from Virginia southward to South America.
Migrations—March. December. Common summer resident. Usually a winter resident also.
If the kingfisher is not so neighborly as we could wish, or as he used to be, it is not because he has grown less friendly, but because the streams near our homes are fished out. Fish he must and will have, and to get them nowadays it is too often necessary to follow the stream back through secluded woods to the quiet waters of its source: a clear, cool pond or lake whose scaly inmates have not yet learned wisdom at the point of the sportsman's fly.
In such quiet haunts the kingfisher is easily the most conspicuous object in sight, where he perches on some dead or projecting branch over the water, intently watching for a dinner that is all unsuspectingly swimming below. Suddenly the bird drops—dives; there is a splash, a struggle, and then the "lone fisherman" returns triumphant to his perch, holding a shining fish in his beak. If the fish is small it is swallowed at once, but if it is large and bony it must first be killed against the branch. A few sharp knocks, and the struggles of the fish are over, but the kingfisher's have only begun. How he gags and writhes, swallows his dinner, and then, regretting his haste, brings it up again to try another wider avenue down his throat! The many abortive efforts he makes to land his dinner safely below in his stomach, his grim contortions as the fishbones scratch his throat-lining on their way down and up again, force a smile in spite of the bird's evident distress. It is small wonder he supplements his fish diet with various kinds of the larger insects, shrimps, and fresh-water mollusks.
Flying well over the tree-tops or along the waterways, the kingfisher makes the woodland echo with his noisy rattle, that breaks the stillness like a watchman's at midnight. It is, perhaps, the most familiar sound heard along the banks of the inland rivers. No love or cradle song does he know. Instead of softening and growing sweet, as the voices of most birds do in the nesting season, the endearments uttered by a pair of mated kingfishers are the most strident, rattly shrieks ever heard by lovers.It sounds as if they were perpetually quarrelling, and yet they are really particularly devoted.
The nest of these birds, like the bank swallow's, is excavated in the face of a high bank, preferably one that rises from a stream; and at about six feet from the entrance of the tunnel six or eight clear, shining white eggs are placed on a curious nest. All the fishbones and scales that, being indigestible, are disgorged in pellets by the parents, are carefully carried to the end of the tunnel to form a prickly cradle for the unhappy fledglings. Very rarely a nest is made in the hollow trunk of a tree; but wherever the home is, the kingfishers become strongly attached to it, returning again and again to the spot that has cost them so much labor to excavate. Some observers have accused them of appropriating the holes of the water-rats.
In ancient times of myths and fables, kingfishers or halcyons were said to build a floating nest on the sea, and to possess some mysterious power that calmed the troubled waves while the eggs were hatching and the young birds were being reared, hence the term "halcyon days," meaning days of fair weather.
Blue Jay(Cyanocitta cristata) Crow and Jay family
(Illustration facing p.103)
Length—11 to 12 inches. A little larger than the robin.
Male and Female—Blue above. Black band around the neck, joining some black feathers on the back. Under parts dusky white. Wing coverts and tail bright blue, striped transversely with black. Tail much rounded. Many feathers edged and tipped with white. Head finely crested; bill, tongue, and legs black.
Range—Eastern coast of North America to the plains, and from northern Canada to Florida and eastern Texas.
Migrations—Permanent resident. Although seen in flocks moving southward or northward, they are merely seeking happier hunting grounds, not migrating.
No bird of finer color or presence sojourns with us the year round than the blue jay. In a peculiar sense his is a case of "beauty covering a multitude of sins." Among close students of bird traits, we find none so poor as to do him reverence. Dishonest, cruel, inquisitive, murderous, voracious, villainous, aresome of the epithets applied to this bird of exquisite plumage. Emerson, however, has said in his defence he does "more good than harm," alluding, no doubt, to his habit of burying nuts and hard seeds in the ground, so that many a waste place is clothed with trees and shrubs, thanks to his propensity and industry.
He is mischievous as a small boy, destructive as a monkey, deft at hiding as a squirrel. He is unsociable and unamiable, disliking the society of other birds. His harsh screams, shrieks, and most aggressive and unmusical calls seem often intended maliciously to drown the songs of the sweet-voiced singers.
From April to September, the breeding and moulting season, the blue jays are almost silent, only sallying forth from the woods to pillage and devour the young and eggs of their more peaceful neighbors. In a bulky nest, usually placed in a tree-crotch high above our heads, from four to six eggs, olive-gray with brown spots, are laid and most carefully tended.
Notwithstanding the unlovely characteristics of the blue jay, we could ill spare the flash of color, like a bit of blue sky dropped from above, which is so rare a tint even in our land, that we number not more than three or four true blue birds, and in England, it is said, there is none.
Blue Grosbeak(Guiraca cærulea) Finch family
Length—7 inches. About an inch larger than the English sparrow.
Male—Deep blue, dark, and almost black on the back; wings and tail black, slightly edged with blue, and the former marked with bright chestnut. Cheeks and chin black. Bill heavy and bluish.
Female—Grayish brown above, sometimes with bluish tinge on head, lower back, and shoulders. Wings dark olive-brown, with faint buff markings; tail same shade as wings, but with bluish-gray markings. Underneath brownish cream-color, the breast feathers often blue at the base.
Range—United States, from southern New England westward to the Rocky Mountains and southward into Mexico and beyond. Most common in the Southwest. Rare along the Atlantic seaboard.
Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.
This beautiful but rather shy and solitary bird occasionallywanders eastward to rival the bluebird and the indigo bunting in their rare and lovely coloring, and eclipse them both in song. Audubon, we remember, found the nest in New Jersey. Pennsylvania is still favored with one now and then, but it is in the Southwest only that the blue grosbeak is as common as the evening grosbeak is in the Northwest. Since rice is its favorite food, it naturally abounds where that cereal grows. Seeds and kernels of the hardest kinds, that its heavy, strong beak is well adapted to crack, constitute its diet when it strays beyond the rice-fields.
Possibly the heavy bills of all the grosbeaks make them look stupid whether they are or not—a characteristic that the blue grosbeak's habit of sitting motionless with a vacant stare many minutes at a time unfortunately emphasizes.
When seen in the roadside thickets or tall weeds, such as the field sparrow chooses to frequent, it shows little fear of man unless actually approached and threatened, but whether this fearlessness comes from actual confidence or stupidity is by no means certain. Whatever the motive of its inactivity, it accomplishes an end to be desired by the cleverest bird; its presence is almost never suspected by the passer-by, and its grassy nest on a tree-branch, containing three or four pale bluish-white eggs, is never betrayed by look or sign to the marauding small boy.
YOUNG CRESTED FLYCATCHERSYOUNG CRESTED FLYCATCHERS WITH HAIR STANDING ON END.