*Part of the material used in this chapter has already appeared in the author's work entitled "Birds of the Rockies," but it is here printed in different form, that of a monograph, with a number of additional facts. The writer feels that the readers of the present volume will relish at least a taste of bird study among the alpine heights of the Rocky Mountains. The article is reprinted from the "Denver Post," whose courtesy is hereby acknowledged.
The common name of the subject of this sketch is the brown-capped rosy finch; in the scientific works on ornithology he is called the brown-capped leucosticte. He is certainly a bird of peculiar habits and out-of-the-way preferences. Should he send you his card from his summer residence, it would read something like this: "At home in the mountains of Colorado, from 10,000 feet above sea-level to the summits of the highest peaks." There is only one other bird in Colorado that has so high a summer range, and that is the white-tailed ptarmigan, usually called, in hunter's parlance, the "mountain quail."
The rosy finch is slightly larger than the bluebird. His general color is light brown, suffused with a beautiful pink or rosy tint, the dark shaft lines and pale edges of the feathers of the back giving it a striped appearance. The forepart of the top of the head is blackish, and the cap is brown, from which he gets the qualifying adjective of his name. In the best nuptial plumage the rosy coloring is heightened to an intense crimson, especially on the wings, tail coverts, and the under parts. The female's attire is paler and duller of tint, the pink being sometimes almost obsolete. Oddly enough, in summer the bills of these birds are deep black, while in winter they become yellow, only the tip remaining black or blackish.
My introduction to the leucostictes occurred on the summit of Pikes Peak, at an elevation of 14,147 feet above the level of the sea. With exhausting toil I climbed the peak one night, and the next morning, when I stepped out of the signal station, where I had secured lodging, a flock of the brown-caps were flitting merrily about the garbage heap, helping themselves to an early breakfast. Their blithe chirping sounded very much like conversation all among themselves, and proclaimed two pleasant traits of character—cheerfulness and good temper. It was evident that they were happy and contented in their alpine home, in the upper story of the world, the rare, cool, exhilarating air, the majestic panoramas, and the unlimited freedom all contributing to the blithesomeness of their spirits. The keepers of the signal station told me that the birds came to the refuse pile every day for their meals.
Two years later, on the twenty-eighth of June, a friend and I clambered up Grays Peak, which is several hundred feet higher than Pikes Peak. It was a long and toilsome climb, winding about the snowbeds of the mountain side. Sometimes we scaled straight up the acclivity on "all fours," throwing ourselves down on the rocks at frequent intervals to rest our aching limbs and fill our lungs with the rarefied air; up and up and up, until at last, with a long pull and a strong pull, we stood on the sky-haunting ridge above all the surrounding elevations, looking down upon the rest of the world, which seemed to be crouching at our feet.
Long before we reached the summit we were saluted by a new bird voice—one that had not been heard farther down the mountain. It was a cordial chirp, which seemed to bid us welcome to the alpine region and to assure us that there was no risk in climbing to these sky-aspiring summits. A glance proved that our little salutarian was the brown-capped rosy finch, which I had not seen since my ascent of Pikes Peak. Down in the green, copsy valley at the base of the mountain we had met with the white-crowned sparrows and Wilson and Audubon warblers; then, as we began to climb the steep shoulder of the mountain, the American pipits had become our comrades, accompanying us about half way up the elevation; now all other birds had disappeared and we entered the arctic precincts of the leucostictes, which, like a gallant bodyguard, escorted us to the summit, cheering us on with their friendly chirping. The bailiwicks of the pipits and the rosy finches slightly overlapped, as did also those of the pipits and the white-crowned sparrows near the great mountain's base. However, no pipits ventured to the upper story of this elevated region—at least, not at the time of our visit, although they may have ascended to the summit later in the season.
How blithe and cheerful were the pretty leucostictes! Now they darted fearlessly about in the air over the summit and the gorges; now they alighted on the wall of the dilapidated old signal station, and anon hopped and flitted about over the extensive snow beds, picking up dainties that were evidently to their taste, all the while beguiling the time with their companionable, half-musical chirping. So far as I observed, they have no real song. If they have, it is strange that they did not furnish a sample of their lyrical gifts on so calm and sweet a summer day in the season of courtship.
What billsome morsels did they find on the snow? We examined their white tablecloth and found a number of small beetles and other insects creeping up through it or crawling around over its surface. Thus Nature spreads her banquet everywhere for her feathered children.
One cannot help falling into the speculative mood as one reflects on these little birds and their remarkable habits. Why do they, of all birds, choose the highest mountain peaks for their summer homes? Might the cause be physiological? Are their lungs, muscles, and nervous systems so constructed as to be adapted to a dry, rare, crisp atmosphere, which would prove injurious, perhaps fatal, to birds of a different structural organization? Who can tell? At all events, they live on these towering elevations all summer long, woo their plainly-clad mates, build their nests, and rear their happy families.
Their nests are set amid the rocks, and are quite bulky, the walls composed of grasses and the lining consisting of soft feathers. In order to procure the grasses required, they must descend at least to the belt of scant vegetation just below the region of bare rocks and boulders. Where they get the downy feathers for the carpet of their nurseries I have not been able to ascertain. No nest has yet been discovered below an elevation of 12,000 feet. Our little bird may, indeed, be called a "haunter of the sky." The height of the breeding season is in the latter part of July. The broods having left the nests, old and young gather in small flocks and range over the peaks and ridges, feeding on the insects to be found on the fields of snow.
No less interesting are the habits of these birds in winter. In October and November most of them descend only to the timber line, where they remain throughout the winter, save as they are driven down into the denser forests by the fierce tempests of this arctic region. What feathered Vikings they are! They do not even make for themselves snow huts for protection from the winter storms. However, a few descend almost to the base of the foothills, while others—perhaps the less hardy—seek a blander climate in the northern part of Mexico.
There are in North America four other species of the genus Leucosticte; the Aleutian, whose habitat is the Aleutian and Prybilof islands and east as far as the island of Kadiak; the gray-crowned, which breeds in British America near the Rocky Mountains, comes to Colorado in winter, and has been taken as far east as western Iowa; the Hepburn, dwelling chiefly in the mountain ranges of the Pacific coast, breeding mostly in the far North, and in winter coming as far south and east as Nevada and Colorado; and, lastly, the black leucosticte, which winters in the central latitudes in the Rocky Mountains and whose summer range and breeding home is unknown to men of science.
If one were to keep on writing monographs of all our interesting avian species, the books that would result would make a good-sized library. The few examples that have been given will illustrate what can be done in this direction with the help of the field glass and the handbook. A few chapters will now be given on what might be called "odds and ends of bird life," and these are written not only for the information they may impart, but also for the purpose of showing how many interesting facts can be gathered along the way by the method of bird study commended in our opening chapter.
The prince of American ornithologists, Dr. Elliott Coues, has somewhere said that he would travel a long distance to discover a new kind of bird, or even to ascertain a new fact about a familiar species. I would applaud and echo that sentiment, for by all means let us have bird news that really is news, instead of revamping the familiar facts again and again, as some amateurish writers do. While I am not able to add any new species to science, I have made note of many pleasing incidents in the bird realm, and these, I venture to hope, may be of not a little general interest.
There is the companionable white-breasted nuthatch which goes scudding up and down the tree trunks with as much ease and aplomb as a fly gliding over a window-pane. I have already told you something about him. I had long been aware that he wedged grains of corn, sunflower seeds, and kernels of nuts in the crannies of the bark; but one day he invented a trick that was a surprise to me. It occurred at a summer resort in northern Indiana, where I noticed a nuthatch hitching up and down and around the slender stem of a sapling, pausing at intervals to thrust something into the crevices of the bark. My curiosity led me to pry into the bird's affairs. Stepping smartly forward, I drove him away, not heeding his vigorous protest of "yank, yank," and examined the bark of the sapling. What did I discover? A colony of black ants were scuttling up and down the tree, apparently under stress of great excitement; and good reason they had, for here and there one of their number was tightly wedged into a chink of the bark, often doubled up into a bow or an angle. They were not killed, at least not all of them, for they were still wiggling their legs and antennas; but they were evidently benumbed, or some of their backs were broken, and they were fastened so securely in the fissures that they could not escape. Does it not look as if the forehanded nuthatch was laying by a supply of ants for a coming time of hunger?
One day a family of wood pewees visited the dooryard of my tent. A multitude of gnats circling about in the air, seemed to be precisely to the taste of the pewee parents and their hungry bairns. The bantlings sat chirping in the saplings, or flitted from twig to twig, twinkling their wings in the coaxing way that is characteristic of young birds, while the papa and mamma swung out into the air, nabbed the insects on the wing, and flew back to the trees, describing many circles, ellipses, and festoons of rare grace and beauty. The snapping of their mandibles could often be heard as they closed upon the fated insects. Most of the gnats thus captured were thrust into the mouths of the young birds, the parents dashing up to them and feeding them without alighting. As lavish a minstrel as the peweepater familiasis under most circumstances, that morning he was too busy to tune his wind harp.
Speaking of the voracious appetites of birds, as exhibited by the young pewees, which never seemed to get enough, I am reminded of something I witnessed one day in a deep, wooded hollow. A red-eyed vireo suddenly appeared in the branches above me, holding an immense green worm in his beak. Then followed a tussle for the "upper hand" that was worth seeing. The bird, holding its squirming victim by one end, proceeded to beat it against the limb, though it was almost too big and recalcitrant for him to handle. Presently the vireo, after a good deal of effort, succeeded in passing his quarry through his bill from end to end, thus reducing it to somewhat smaller dimensions. Still, it was a large morsel for so small a diner.
However, there were some intimations that the bird intended to bolt the worm whole. And that was just what he was planning to do! What a struggle ensued! I would have wagered that the little gourmand had reckoned without his host when he undertook to swallow that immense worm. He twisted his neck this way and that, gulped and squeezed and pried, until I feared he would burst his throat open. At length the worm was partly bolted, but it seemed to stick fast, and the bird stood there with his mandibles pressed far apart, the end of his dinner bulging out of his mouth, and I felt uneasy for a time lest he should choke to death before my very eyes. But, after resting a minute, he gave his neck a number of convulsive twists, and at last succeeded in forcing the unwilling worm down his throat, after which he wiped his bill on the limb with a self-satisfied air and flitted away as happy as a lark, knowing that his faithful craw would do the rest.
A slate-colored junco did a pretty thing in the woods one day of early spring—much more pleasing to see than the incident just described. He had rinsed his feathers in a pool of the little stream down in the hollow, and now he was squatting flat on his belly on the ground in a soft bed of brown leaves, preening and primping his plumes with his little white, conical bill. Now he gave his quills a deft touch, now the feathers of his wing, now those of his dainty breast. Lying there in the sun he presented a perfect picture of feathery laziness. Many a bird I have seen arranging his toilet after a bath while perching on a limb or a twig, and even, as in the case of the brown creeper, while clinging to the bole of a tree, but never before did I see one doing this while lolling on the ground. He was not sick or hurt, simply lazy; for when I went near him he flew away as chipper as a bird could be.
The rambler not only sees many of these pretty bird ways, but he sometimes has a hearty laugh at the birds' expense. During one of my outings a blustering whirlwind started on the summit of a small hill scantily covered with scrub oak. It seized the dead leaves and twirled them about as if in a spasm of anger; then it went scurrying noisily down the steep incline, flinging itself against a couple of large brush heaps in the hollow where a number of fox and Harris sparrows were concealed. They had imagined themselves safe in their brushy covert. Suddenly the whirlwind struck their hiding place with a clang and clatter, sending the birds in a wild panic in every direction. They did not seem to know what had struck them, and, as the wanton breezes tossed them this way and that, they expressed their astonishment in loud and frightened chirping. All over and no harm done, the bird lover burst into a peal of laughter at the discomfiture of his feathered neighbors, who looked at him as if they did not know what to make of his untimely hilarity.
Then, too, one cannot be an observing rambler without stumbling upon some exceedingly odd avian pranks, as the following description will indicate: One day I was sitting on the steep bank of a wooded ravine watching several rare little birds, hoping to discover some of their nests. Presently the susurrus of the hummingbird was heard, and a moment later two ruby-throats, a male and a female, flashed into view on the slope below me. The tiny madam settled on a twig near the ground, while her ruby-throated spouse performed one of the queerest antics I have ever witnessed in featherland. He began to swing back and forth in an arc of almost half a circle, the diameter of which was at least twelve feet, just grazing his mate whenever he reached the lowest point of his concentric movements. Back and forth he swung at least a dozen times, looking like a tiny pendulum moving in an immense arc, and, oddly enough, the segment seemed to be perfectly formed every time. Had the bird wheeled entirely around, he would, I feel sure, have described a circle and not an ellipse. The movement was exceedingly swift, and might well have been called the embodiment of grace. Suddenly, as the diminutive acrobat reached the highest point of his arc, he dashed off to the right in a straight line, followed by his mate, and in a moment both had disappeared. Whether other observers have been witnesses of this curious gambol, I am unable to say.
Have you ever been ill-mannered enough to watch the birds going to bed? I remember spending an evening in the woods playing the role of Paul Pry on my feathered neighbors. The sun was just sinking behind the bluffs on the other side of a broad river—the Missouri—and the moon, which was half full, was hanging high in the blue sky. What were those two large black objects over yonder in the woods? My glass soon revealed their identity—a pair of turkey buzzards perched side by side on a limb, one of them squatted flat on his belly ready to take his first nap. My curiosity led me to go near them, when they spread their broad, sable wings, flew a few rods, and alighted on another horizontal bar. There they sat as long as I could see them in the thickening darkness, turning their heads now and then to see whether their ill-bred visitor was still spying upon them. They made no efforts to conceal themselves, as the small birds do in roosting, for they knew, no doubt, that nothing would carry off fowls of their size.
A little later on the same evening a whip-poor-will darted up from the roadside and flew into the woods a short distance, alighting on a white flag of good size, so that I could plainly see his dark form in the moonlight. Then I was witness of this uncanny bird's table manners, which were entirely unknown to me and may be to others. At irregular intervals he leaped into the air, now in one direction, now in another, captured an insect, and flew back to the top of the flag. Some of his evolutions were quite wonderful, and all of them were the perfection of grace. He described all kinds of curves and loops. On alighting he uttered a low, hollow chuck suggestive of the sepulchral. Another notch had to be cut in the tally-stick of my ornithological journey—I had learned how the whip-poor-will takes his nocturnal dinner of moths and beetles, and I felt that there was still such a thing as news to be gathered in birdland.
Most birds, however, do not take their dinner at night, and therefore it is easier to watch them at theirtable d'hote. One day a red-headed woodpecker was giving a strapping youngster as large as herself his noonday meal. She came close to him with a morsel in her long bill, and, after pounding it awhile against a limb, she thrust it into the screaming youngling's mouth. But she had failed to reduce it to a swallowable size; it stuck in his throat, and, do what he would, he could not bolt it. It was so large that he was choking; what should be done? The simplest thing you can conceive. The mother bird reached over and impatiently jerked the refractory morsel out of her baby's throat, thumped it vigorously several times against the branch, then gave it to him again, as much as to say, "Now try it! I guess you can manage it this time." And he did, for down his gullet it went with very little effort. Then she went after more provender for his spacious craw. Whenever she came with a tidbit, she would first drop it into a kind of pocket in the bark, and pound it a while to reduce it to a proper consistency; the while the youngster would sit near and watch her with hungry eyes, and often scream in his coaxing way and twinkle his wings, until she was ready to deliver up the tempting fragment.
Once, after she had given him all she had brought, he still opened his mouth and whimpered for more. At this exhibition of gluttony she lost her patience. Would he never be satisfied, the great, greedy, overgrown lubber? He was simply making a slave and a drudge of her. She looked at him for a moment with a savage glitter in her dark eyes, then began to peck him angrily right in the mouth, and drove him peremptorily backward down the limb. Mother patience has its limitations in the bird world as well as elsewhere.
On the same day a bank swallow was feeding her little ones, a half dozen or so, which were ranged on a willow stem at the margin of the river. Every time she flew toward them they set up a vigorous calling to be fed. She procured her food by skimming airily over the river and catching the insects that rose from its surface. Having nabbed one, she would dart with it to her little family, and, without alighting, and scarcely pausing in her swift flight, would thrust it into the mouth of one of the birdkins. Thus she fed them one by one until she had gone the round of the little circle, though sometimes, oddly enough, she would serve the same infant twice in succession.
The little family, all perched in a row, looked very attractive, and I was watching them closely most of the time. Suddenly the mother bird disappeared, and was gone for several minutes. I forgot to keep my eye steadily on the youngsters sitting six in a row, and, to my great surprise, when she reappeared they had left their perch, which was in plain sight, and I could not rediscover them for some time. Finally, however, I espied them cuddling among some leafy twigs a few feet away, where the mother resumed her duties of purveyor. My opinion is that she had begun to feel uneasy for their safety in the exposed place where I could see them so plainly, and so, while I was looking elsewhere, had persuaded them to shift their position. Now they were partly screened by the intervening leaves, and she felt that they were secure.
There can be no doubt that birds have a language which the youngsters soon come to understand, however simple and inarticulated it may be. In a shady hollow, one day of early spring, a pair of tufted titmice were supplying the wants of a family of famishing children, and I invited myself to the family reunion. The young birds had left the nest and were perched in a leafy tree. Most of the time they kept up a great clamor for food—or, perhaps, they shrieked merely from force of habit; but every few minutes one of the parent birds would utter a shrill, commanding cry, at which all the noisy clamorings of the youthful family would suddenly cease, and for a few moments perfect quiet would reign in titmouse town; then the hubbub would begin again, and continue until another order for perfect silence was given. So far as I could see, there was no danger from raptorial foes at hand, but the little family seemed to be in training against the approach of a marauder.
It may be a far cry, but from green-robed spring fancy yourself suddenly flung into the lap of snow-bound winter, to look upon scenes quite different from the foregoing. The Frost King had been playing a good many pranks for a week or two, and once, in a spasm of frigid ill humor, had jammed the mercury in our thermometers a dozen or more degrees below zero, and had held it there quite too long for our comfort. More than once had he shrieked and blustered and stamped his feet incontinently, and more than once sent his legions of wind, sleet, and snow howling through the leafless woods. Everybody in our central latitudes knows what an explosive old fellow the Frost King is, and how fierce and savage he can become let the mood once seize him.
Sometimes, too, by the hour he had ground his ice crystals to powder in mid-air and hurled them to the earth, covering its surface with a robe of purest white, thus proving that, with all his rudeness and bluster, he is an old gentleman of aesthetic tastes. One evening his mood became blander, and he dropped his crystals from the sky in large, damp flakes, which clung tenaciously to the branches and twigs; then during the night his breath became chilled and froze the snowy cylinders, and when morning broke the woods were a miracle of loveliness, every leaf and twig bearing a ridge of gleaming pearls, while the sylvan floor was pure white. Soon the sun was shining from an unmarred sky, and the snow-clad earth smiled back in shimmering recognition. It was a day for worship in God's first sanctuary.
Yet it was a day for watching the gambols of the birds, and such occupation by no means interfered with the spirit of worship. In the depths of the woods the white-breasted nuthatches were holding a friendly interview. How affectionately they talked to one another in idioms all their own, saying "Hick! hick!" and "Yank! yank!" and "Ha-ha! ha-ha! ha-ha!" which may mean anything that is kind and cordial and confidential. They were either playing at a game of tag, or were having a peep-show among the bushes, hiding for a moment in some leafy cluster, then dashing in pursuit of one another in the most frolicksome way. I crept in under the arches of the snow-clad bushes to watch their caperings more closely, but the birds at once quieted down, and went about their more prosaic vocation of grub gathering. They were no doubt "aching" to frisk about among the snowy bushes, but would not indulge their playful mood under the eye of a human spectator.
Presently one of them was seen carefully primping his feathers—a function that I had not previously seen a nuthatch perform. His plumes seemed to be really quite damp, and, as there was no water at hand—the streams being mailed with ice as well as nearly a half mile away—he must have used a snowbank for his lavatory. But you ask how he arranged his toilet. I had several times seen the little brown creeper clinging to the vertical wall of a tree and preening his plumes after a bath, and it was natural to suppose that his congener, the nuthatch, being also a bird of reptatory habits, would follow the same formula. But not so! Instead of clinging to the upright bole of a tree, Master Nuthatch perched crosswise on a twig like a robin or a chickadee, and smoothed his ruffled plumes.
After this interesting interview with the nuthatches, I trudged about in the woods for some time without seeing any birds. What had become of my feathered neighbors, my companions in every ramble throughout the winter? Had the storm driven them to other climes where bland winds prevailed? Oh, no! See what prudent creatures they were that wintry day. At the eastern border of the woods, where the sun shone warmly and the keen westerly breeze was broken and tempered, my little friends were found in goodly numbers, well knowing where the Frost King's anger would be softened.
Here were nuthatches and chickadees in plenty, and also tufted tits, tree sparrows, juncos, downy woodpeckers, and, to make the complement as nearly full as possible, a hairy woodpecker drummed andchir-r-r-red, several blue jays complained in the distance, and a goldfinch swinging overhead threaded the air with festoons of black and gold. And here I witnessed a new and pretty antic of a tree sparrow, which flew over from a cornfield hard by and perched on a dogwood sapling only a few feet away; then it plunged its beak into the little snowbank on the twig before it and ate greedily of the snow, some of the crystals clinging to its mandibles, just as the crumbs adhere to the lips of a hungry boy. Had the exclamation not been so much like slang, I would have cried "Next!" And there was a "next," as sure as you live, for the little bird soon flitted to another twig in the same tree and, reaching up, daintily sipped from the dripping underside of the branch just above and in front of it. Its thirst having been assuaged, it flew over into the adjoining field to resume its winter feast of seeds and berries.
And what was happening over in the field? Something worth noting, to be sure. A coterie of juncos and tree sparrows were breakfasting on the seeds of a clump of tall weeds, a few of the little feasters perched on the swaying stems, while others stood on the snow on the ground and picked the seeds from the racemes that were bent down by their burden of crystals. When I went to the place, I could see the delicate tracery of their feet on the snow, as if they had been writing their autographs on an untarnished scroll. Two tiny footprints at regular intervals, one a little before the other, and each pair connected with the next by a slender thread or two traced by the bird's claws—that is a junco's or a tree sparrow's trail in the snow.
A little later a scattering flock of tree sparrows were skipping about on the snowy floor of the woods, picking up at quick intervals a palatable tidbit. Birds often find edibles on the surface of the snow when our duller eyes can see nothing but immaculate whiteness. What long leaps the little birds took across the snow, which looked like a marble pavement with fairies dancing upon it! Near by, on one of the lower twigs of a thorn bush, a sparrow sat with feathers fluffed up and wings hanging negligently at his side, as if he were taking a siesta after a hearty meal of weed seeds and winter berries. Two of his companions soon joined him in his noonday rest, the trio making a pretty picture sitting there within an inch or two of the ground.
It was not very long before a tree sparrow perpetrated another surprise, proving that this species is not without character, as indeed no species is. He leaped to the bole of a sapling, clinging there a few moments like a chickadee or a wren, while he pecked an appetizing morsel from the bark; then he dropped down to the snow for a brief breathing spell, after which he sprang up again to the sapling for a few more bits, repeating the little performance a number of times.
In the same part of the woods a company of chickadees was flitting about in the trees, plunging into the little snowbanks on the twigs, sometimes standing in them up to their white bosoms, and often brushing a segment to the ground, thus making numerous breaches in the white drifts. The racket they made with their scolding and piping might have been called a musical din. Deciding to watch them a while, I flung myself down upon the snow. This act was the signal for a precious to-do among the nervous little potherers. Did any one ever hear or read of such a performance in all the annals of birdland? What in the world did it mean—a man lying flat on the ground out there in the woods? I was highly amused at the hurly-burly, and decided to add still more variety to it. Suddenly I sprang to my feet with a shout. Several of the birds dropped, as if shot, into a thorn bush below them, where they set up a hubbub that would have made on old-time Puritan laugh, even at the risk of being censured for levity. By and by they quieted down, and one of them began to whistle his pretty minor tune with as much serenity as if he had never been excited in his life. My winter outing proved that the Frost King and the hardy birds often go cheek by jowl, as if they were on terms of the most cordial fraternity.
The ornithologist is always interested in noting how the conduct of birds of the same species differs and agrees in different localities. In a previous chapter some of the differences between the avifauna of Ohio and Kansas have been described, but a good deal still remains to be said, teaching more than one lesson in comparative ornithology.
At the beginning of my studies in the Sunflower state the song sparrows proposed an enigma for my solution, whether wittingly or unwittingly, I know not. In Ohio they were the most lavish singers in the outdoor chorus, chanting their sweet lays every month in the year, summer or winter; indeed, their most vigorous recitals were often given in February and March, when there was dearth of other bird music.
But what about the song sparrows of Kansas? The first winter and spring passed, and yet my numerous rambles in their haunts did not bring to my waiting ear one first-class song sparrow concert. A few feeble, half-hearted wisps of melody on days that were especially mild were the only vocal performances they vouchsafed. To put it bluntly and truthfully, I never, during my residence of five and a half years in Kansas, heard a first-rate song sparrow trill. Nor is that all. In the Buckeye state these birds were disposed to be sociable, often selecting their dwellings near our suburban homes, visiting our dooryards, singing their blithe roundels on the ridge of the barn roof or a post of the garden fence. Not only so, but their songs were often heard in some of the principal streets of towns where trees were abundant.
Song Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Quite otherwise was the conduct of their western cousins, which seldom came to town or even near a human residence in the country, but kept themselves ensconced in the matted copses in the banks of the Missouri River or in the deep hollows running back from the broad valley. In these sequestered haunts they were quite wary, usually scuttling out of sight at my approach. True, in Ohio many individuals also chose out-of-the-way places for habitats, but even then they were not timid, for often they would mount to the top of a bush or a sapling in plain sight and trill sweetly by the hour, with never a quaver of fear. At rare intervals a Kansas sparrow would visit the thicket on the vacant lot near my house, but, my! how shy he was! And as for singing, he would only squeak a little score.
Wondering at the reticence of the Kansas sparrows, I wrote to a friend living in Springfield, Ohio, my former home, and inquired what the song sparrows were doing in that locality. His reply was that, as usual, they had been singing with splendid effect on almost every day after the middle of February. What is the reason of this difference between the eastern and western birds? They are, according to the systematists, the same type, and yet they behave so differently. The solution of the problem is, after all, quite simple. In Kansas the song sparrows are winter residents exclusively, passing farther north when the breeding season approaches; only at rare intervals does a pair decide to remain in the state throughout the summer; whereas in the Buckeye state these birds are permanent residents, remaining throughout the year, and therefore they feel sufficiently at home to tune their lyres at all seasons. On the other hand, being only winter visitors in Kansas, they do not seem to be able to overcome their shyness; either that, or their wind harps are out of tune. As a matter of fact, migrating birds seldom sing a great deal in their winter homes, their best lyrical efforts being husbanded for their breeding haunts. I once spent part of the month of June in Minnesota, almost directly north of my Kansas field of research, and there found these charming minstrels as tuneful and affable as the most exacting bird lover could wish. Perhaps some of the very sparrows that spend the winter in silence in northeastern Kansas trill their finest arias in their summer homes on the shores of Lake Minnetonka or in the boggy hollows in the neighborhood of Duluth.
When I first began to plan for moving back to Ohio, I was foolish enough to fear that the song sparrows of that state might have changed their habits during the years of my absence, and that I should be disappointed in them: but no need of borrowing trouble on their account, for they were the same blithe and familiar birds, trilling their sweetest chansons in the trees in the residence portion of the town in which I lived. And sing! Were there ever birds with more dulcet tones, with finer voice register, or with a greater variety of tunes in their repertoire?
Going back to Kansas in winter, we note that the song sparrows, instead of remaining at one place, shifted about a good deal more than I had ever known them to do in the East. In December a pair found a dwelling in the weed clumps and brush heaps of a hollow a short distance from the Missouri River; but they soon deserted this spot, well sheltered as it was, none being seen there until the twenty-third of February. It surprised me to find another pair, and sometimes two pairs, in a thicket right on the bank of the wide river, where they were exposed to many of the winter blasts, especially those that swept down from the frozen north. Up in the deep, winding ravine they might have had excellent shelter and, so far as I could see, just as good feeding. However, I have long ago learned that there is no accounting for tastes in the bird realm any more than in the human realm.
The hardiest of theMniotiltidaetribe are the myrtle warblers, which dapple the whitened edges of winter, both autumn and spring, with their golden rumps and amber brooches. Evidently these birds are shyer of the rigorous Ohio winters than of the more mild-mannered Kansas weather. In the former state I never saw a myrtle warbler after the first or second week in November, while in Kansas I came upon a flock of them in a wooded hollow by the river on the eighth of December, 1897, and then after a severe snowstorm had swept over the region from the western prairies. It seemed odd to find these dainty featherland blossoms when the whole country was covered with an ermine of snow.
Then they disappeared, and I did not expect to see them again until the next spring; but on the fourteenth of February, which was a warm, vernal day thrust into the midst of winter, a flock of perhaps a dozen were flitting and chirping among the trees in the suburbs of the city, their hoarse littlechep, always giving one the impression that the birds have taken a cold which has affected their vocal cords, sounding as familiar as of old. However, that very evening at dusk a black cloud, charged with electricity and bellowing with anger, came up out of the west like a young Lochinvar, and hurled a fierce storm across the hills and valleys, and the next day not a myrtle warbler was to be seen in all the countryside, though I tramped weary miles in search of them. The tempest had doubtless frightened them away to the suaver southland, from which they did not return until the following spring.
One of my most pleasing observations was made on December 19, 1902. There had been a number of days of severe weather, accompanied by hard storms. Six inches of snow lay on the ground. Now the storm had spent its force, the sun was shining genially, and the snow was melting. Warm as it was, I was greatly surprised to find a flock of myrtle warblers in the woods so late in the season. They had braved the storms of the preceding week, and were as chipper and active as myrtle warblers could be. But their employment was a still greater surprise. They were darting about in the air among the treetops, as well as amid the bushes in the deep ravine, catching insects on the wing. That insects should be flying after the wintry weather of the previous week was still more surprising than that the warblers should be here to dine upon them. Soon after that day, however, the little yellow-rumps must have taken the wing route to a more genial climate, for they were seen no more that winter.
Of a more permanent character was the residence of the jolly juncos, which dwelt all winter in northeastern Kansas, let the weather be never so lowering. Always active and alert, flitting from bush to weed, and from the snow-carpeted ground to the gnarled oak saplings, now pilfering a dinner of wild berries and now a luncheon of weed seeds, they seemed to generate enough warmth in their trig little bodies to defy old Boreas to do his best. Water flowing from melting snow must be ice-cold, yet the juncos plunged into the crystal pools and rinsed their plumes with as much apparent relish as if their lavatory were tepid instead of icy, and as if balmy instead of nipping winds were blowing.
One day I watched a member of this family taking his dinner of wild grapes. Finding a dark red cluster, he would pick off the juiciest berry he could reach, press it daintily between his white mandibles for a few moments, swallow a part of the pulp, and drop the rest to the ground. What part of the grape did he eat? That is the precise problem I could not solve with certainty, for on examining the rejected portions that had been flung to the ground I found that one seed still remained, together with part of the pulp and all of the broken rind. I half suspect, though, that Master Junco likes to tipple a little—never enough, however, be it remembered, to make him reel or lose his senses. No! no! a toper Master Junco is not; he is too sane a bird for that! Would that all the citizens of our republic would display as much sound judgment and self-control.
Where all the birds sleep on biting winter nights it would be difficult to say, but the acute little juncos lease the farmer's corn shocks hard by the woods. At dusk you may startle a dozen of them from a single shock. They dart pellmell from their hiding places, chippering their protest, and when you examine the shock you find cozy nooks and ingles among the leaves and stalks, where they find couches and at the same time coverts from the sharp winds. As you stand at the border of the woods in the gloaming you can hear the rustling of the fodder as the juncos move about in their tepees, trying to find the choicest and snuggest berths. Usually they select the tops of the standing shocks, perhaps for safety; yet some may be found also in the shocks that have partly fallen to the ground.
In the latter part of February the juncos began to rehearse their spring songs, which were a welcome sound in the almost unbroken silence of the winter. The nearer the spring approached, the higher they mounted in the trees, and the more prolonged was their flight, as if they were practicing their wing exercises to inure their muscles to the strain that would be put upon them when they undertook their long journey to their northern summer homes; for, of course, the juncos do not breed in our central latitudes, but hie to the northern part of the United States and the Dominion of Canada.
In Ohio the brown creepers and the golden-crowned kinglets were constant winter companions in the woods; but, although Kansas is considerably farther south, they do not seem to be winter residents there—at least, not in the northeastern part of the state—the only exception being that in January, 1903, several creepers were observed in my yard. One may well wonder why these birds are winter residents in Ohio and only migrants in a latitude that is two degrees farther south.
There was some scant compensation in the presence of the winter wren one winter in the Sunflower state. The fourteenth of December brought one of these brown Lilliputians to a deep hollow in town, where he chattered petulantly and scampered along an old paling fence. No more winter wrens were seen until January seventh, when one darted out of some bushes on the bank of a stream about two miles south of town. My next jaunt to this hollow took place on the twenty-seventh, when, to my surprise, a hermit thrush was seen in a clump of bushes and saplings—a bird that I supposed had been sunning himself for at least a month in the genial South. While tramping about trying to get another view of the unconventional thrush, I frightened a winter wren from a cluster of weeds and bushes. My! how alarmed he was! Uttering a loud chirp, he darted down to the center of the stream and slipped into a little cave formed by ice and snow frozen over a clump of low bushes. There he hid himself like an Eskimo in his snow hut. My trudging near by frightened the bird out of the farther doorway, and he dashed away pellmell, hurling a saucy gird of protestation at me, and was seen by me no more. I examined the little snow house. It was very cunning indeed, and might well have made a cozy shelter for the little wren in stormy weather. My next meeting with a winter wren occurred on the fifteenth of February, in the same hollow, but about an eighth of a mile nearer the river. A query arises here: Did I see four different winter wrens during the winter, or only one in four different localities? Who can tell?
That is not all about the winter wrens. My first winter in Kansas was the severest I experienced in that state; yet it was the only winter of the five I spent in Kansas that brought me the winter wren. If it would do any good, one might ask again the question why. Although the winter wren is a migrant in Ohio, as he is for the most part in northeastern Kansas, yet I never heard his song in the former state, while in the latter I was fortunate enough to listen to his tinkling melody three times the first spring I spent there. After that I never heard him, and indeed saw him only a few times. But the sweet, silvery roulade—could there be anything more charming in the world of outdoor music?
My winter rambles—and winter is almost as good a time for bird study as summer—enabled me to note some variety of temperament in the avian realm. One thing we soon learn in our winter outings: Few birds are recluses. No, they are sociable creatures, living in what might be called nomadic communities. In the spring-time, during the mating season, they pair off and become more or less exclusive and secretive, keeping close to the precincts they have selected; but in winter they grow more neighborly, and move about in the woods or over the fields in flocks of various sizes.
The woodland flocks usually consist of a number of species all of which seem to be on the most cordial terms, having, no doubt, a community of interest. As we quietly pursue our way in this wooded vale, we see no birds for some distance. Presently a fine, protesting "chick-a-dee-dee! chick-a-dee-dee!" breaks the silence. It is the warning call of the tomtit or chickadee, which we soon espy tilting about on his trapeze of twigs in the trees or bushes. But you may depend upon it he is not alone; he is only a part of the rim of a feathered colony dwelling near at hand, and consisting, very likely, of tufted titmice, white-breasted nuthatches, juncos, tree sparrows, blue jays, one or two downy woodpeckers, a pair of cardinals, a flicker or two, and a cackling red-breasted woodpecker. There may be even a song sparrow in the company and a couple of brown creepers, and possibly a flock of purple finches, chirping cheerily in the tops of the trees.
While, in the spring and summer, birds are to be found in nearly every part of the woods, never many at one place, the opposite condition prevails in the winter. Sometimes you may walk almost a half mile without seeing or hearing a single bird; then you suddenly come upon a good-sized company of them, somewhat scattered, it is true, but within easy hailing distance. Nor do they always remain in the same localities, but move about, now here, now there, like nomads looking for the best foraging places. For instance, on the first of January, after leaving the city, I saw not a bird until I reached a pleasant sylvan hollow at least a half mile away. Here a merry crowd greeted the pedestrian. It was composed of all the birds I have just named, with flocks of bluebirds and goldfinches thrown in for good measure. On the fourteenth of January a company—either the same or another—was found in a small copsy hollow only a quarter of a mile from the city, while the spot previously occupied was deserted. It is pleasant to think of these feathered troopers roaming about the country in search of Nature's choicest storehouses. The code that obtains in these movable birdvilles is this, as near as I am able to analyze it: Each one for himself, and yet all for one another.
The familiar adage, "Birds of a feather flock together," is not always true, for in winter birds of many a feather often flock together. It may be asked, Why? No doubt largely for social ends. Nothing is more evident to the observer than that most birds love company, and a good deal of it. Their genial conversation among themselves as they pursue their work and play fully proves that. Another object is undoubtedly protection. Birds have enemies, many of them, and when the woods are bare there is little chance for hiding, and so they must be especially on the alert. Let a hawk come gliding silently and slyly down the vale, and before he gets too near some keen little eye espies him, the alarm is sounded, and the whole company scurries into the thickets or trees for safety. The chickadees and titmice seem to be a sort of sentry for the company.
A large part of the time in birdland is spent in solving the "bread-and-butter" problem. And how do our feathered citizens solve this important problem in the cold weather? Nature has spread many a banquet for her avian children, although they must usually rustle for their food just as we must in the human world. The nuthatches, titmice, woodpeckers, and brown creepers find larvae, grubs, borers, and insects' eggs in the crannies of the bark and other nooks and niches; the goldfinches find something to their taste in the buds of the trees and also make many a meal of thistle and sunflower seeds; the juncos and tree sparrows, forming a joint stock company in winter, rifle all kinds of weeds of their seedy treasures; the blue jays lunch on acorns and berries when they cannot find enough juicy grubs to satisfy their appetites, and so on through the whole list.
By playing the spy on the birds we may learn much about their dietary habits. It is the first of January, and we are in a wooded hollow. There is a tufted titmouse; now he flits to the ground, picks up a tidbit, darts up to a twig, places his morsel under his claws, and proceeds to peck it to pieces. Our binocular shows that it is something yellow, but we cannot make out what it is. As we draw near, the bird seizes the fragment with his bill—perhaps he fears we will filch it from him—and flits about among the bushes on the steep bank, looking for a place to stow his "goody." Presently he pushes it into a crevice of the bark, hammers it tightly into place, and darts away with a merry chirp. We go to the spot and find that his hidden treasure is a grain of corn which he has purloined from the farmer's field on the slope. A few minutes later another tit—or the same one—slyly thrusts a morsel in among some leaves and twigs on the bank, even pulling the leaves down over it for a screen. It turns out to be a small acorn. That is one of Master Tit's ways—storing away provisions for a time of need. With his stout, conical beak he is able to break the shell of an acorn, peck a corn grain into swallowable bits, and tear open the toughest casing of a cocoon. He will even break the hard pits of the dogwood berry to secure the kernel within, the ground below often being strewn with the shell fragments. No danger ofParus bicolorcoming to want or going to the poorhouse.
Another day the juncos are feeding on the seeds of the foxtail or pigeon grass, in an old orchard hard by the border of the woods. Sometimes they will make a dinner of berries—the kinds too that are regarded as poisonous to man—eating the juicy pulp in their dainty way, and dropping the seeds and rind to the ground. In the ravine furrowed out by a stream—this is down in one of the hollows—there is a perfect network of bird tracks in the snow beneath a clump of weed stalks. How dainty they are, like tiny chains, twisted and coiled about on the white surface! They were made by the juncos and tree sparrows, and on examining the seed pods and clusters above the bank we note that they are torn and ragged. The feathered banqueters have been here, and while they were industriously culling the pods, some of the seeds fell to the white carpet below, and these have been carefully picked up by the birds, as we see, so that nothing should be wasted.
It is not often you catch a bird in the singing mood in the winter; yet on December 19, a purple finch was piping quite a vivacious tune in the woods. Of course, he was not in his best voice, but his performance was good enough to entitle it to the name of bird music. The finches, by the way, are strong flyers. At your approach, instead of flitting off a little way, perhaps to the next tree or bush, after the manner of the tits and nuthatches and many other birds, the finches tarry in the tree-tops as long as they deem it safe, then take to wing and fly to a distant part of the woods, and you may not see them again that day. However, they may come back to you after a while, as if they relished your company. The goldfinches are also long-distance flyers, not flitters. Usually they give some signal of their presence, either by their vivacious "pe-chick-o-pe" or their childlike and semi-musical calls; but there are times when a good-sized flock of them will suddenly appear in the tree-tops above you, and you cannot tell when they arrived, for you did not see them there at all a few minutes before.