Bird Neighbors Part 1

Bird Neighbors.

by Neltje Blanchan.

INTRODUCTION

I write these few introductory sentences to this volume only to second so worthy an attempt to quicken and enlarge the general interest in our birds.

The book itself is merely an introduction, and is only designed to place a few clews in the reader's hands which he himself or herself is to follow up. I can say that it is reliable and is written in a vivacious strain and by a real bird lover, and should prove a help and a stimulus to any one who seeks by the aid of its pages to become better acquainted with our songsters. The various grouping of the birds according to color, season, habitat, etc., ought to render the identification of the birds, with no other weapon than an opera gla.s.s, an easy matter.

When I began the study of the birds I had access to a copy of Audubon, which greatly stimulated my interest in the pursuit, but I did not have the opera gla.s.s, and I could not take Audubon with me on my walks, as the reader may this volume.

But you do not want to make out your bird the first time; the book or your friend must not make the problem too easy for you. You must go again and again, and see and hear your bird under varying conditions and get a good hold of several of its characteristic traits. Things easily learned are apt to be easily forgotten. Some ladies, beginning the study of birds, once wrote to me, asking if I would not please come and help them, and set them right about certain birds in dispute. I replied that that would be getting their knowledge too easily; that what I and any one else told them they would be very apt to forget, but that the things they found out themselves they would always remember. We must in a way earn what we have or keep. Only thus does it become ours, a real part of us.

Not very long afterward I had the pleasure of walking with one of the ladies, and I found her eye and ear quite as sharp as my own, and that she was in a fair way to conquer the bird kingdom without any outside help. She said that the groves and fields, through which she used to walk with only a languid interest, were now completely transformed to her and afforded her the keenest pleasure; a whole new world of interest had been disclosed to her; she felt as if she was constantly on the eve of some new discovery; the next turn in the path might reveal to her a new warbler or a new vireo. I remember the thrill she seemed to experience when I called her attention to a purple finch singing in the tree-tops in front of her house, a rare visitant she had not before heard. The thrill would of course have been greater had she identified the bird without my aid. One would rather bag one's own game, whether it be with a bullet or an eyebeam.

The experience of this lady is the experience of all in whom is kindled this bird enthusiasm. A new interest is added to life; one more resource against ennui and stagnation. If you have only a city yard with a few sickly trees in it, you will find great delight in noting the numerous stragglers from the great army of spring and autumn migrants that find their way there. If you live in the country, it is as if new eyes and new ears were given you, with a correspondingly increased capacity for rural enjoyment.

The birds link themselves to your memory of seasons and places, so that A song, a call, a gleam of color, set going a sequence of delightful reminiscences in your mind. When a solitary great Carolina wren came one August day and took up its abode near me and sang and called and warbled as I had heard it long before on the Potomac, how it brought the old days, the old scenes back again, and made me for the moment younger by all those years!

A few seasons ago I feared the tribe of bluebirds were on the verge of extinction from the enormous number of them that perished from cold and hunger in the South in the winter of '94. For two summers not a blue wing, not a blue warble. I seemed to miss something kindred and precious from my environment -- the visible embodiment of the tender sky and the wistful soil. What a loss, I said, to the coming generations of dwellers in the country -- no bluebird in the spring! What will the farm-boy date from? But the fear was groundless: the birds are regaining their lost ground; broods of young blue-coats are again seen drifting from stake to stake or from mullen-stalk to mullen-stalk about the fields in summer, and our April air will doubtless again be warmed and thrilled by this lovely harbinger of spring. -- JOHN BURROUGHS, August 19, 1897

PREFACE

Not to have so much as a bowing acquaintance with the birds that nest in our gardens or under the very eaves of our houses; that haunt our wood-piles; keep our fruit-trees free from slugs; waken us with their songs, and enliven our walks along the roadside and through the woods, seems to be, at least, a breach of etiquette toward some of our most kindly disposed neighbors.

Birds of prey, game and water birds are not included in the book. The following pages are intended to be nothing more than a familiar introduction to the birds that live near us. Even in the princ.i.p.al park of a great city like New York, a bird-lover has found more than one hundred and thirty species; as many, probably, as could be discovered in the same sized territory anywhere.

The plan of the book is not a scientific one, if the term scientific is understood to mean technical and anatomical. The purpose of the writer is to give, in a popular and accessible form, knowledge which is accurate and reliable about the life of our common birds. This knowledge has not been collected from the stuffed carca.s.ses of birds in museums, but gleaned afield.

In a word, these short narrative descriptions treat of the bird's characteristics of size, color, and flight; its peculiarities of instinct and temperament; its nest and home life; its choice of food; its songs; and of the season in which we may expect it to play its part in the great panorama Nature unfolds with faithful precision year after year. They are an attempt to make the bird so live before the reader that, when seen out of doors, its recognition shall be instant and cordial, like that given to a friend.

The coloring described in this book is sometimes more vivid than that found in the works of some learned authorities whose conflicting testimony is often sadly bewildering to the novice. In different parts of the country, and at different seasons of the year, the plumage of some birds undergoes many changes. The reader must remember, therefore, that the specimens examined and described were not, as before stated, the faded ones in our museums, but live birds in their fresh, spring plumage, studied afield.

The birds have been cla.s.sed into color groups, in the belief that this method, more than any other will make identification most easy. The color of the bird is the first, and often the only, characteristic noticed. But they have also been cla.s.sified according to the localities for which they show decided preferences and in which they are most likely to be found. Again, they have been grouped according to the season when they may be expected. In the brief paragraphs that deal with groups of birds separated into the various families represented in the book, the characteristics and traits of each clan are clearly emphasized. By these several aids it is believed the merest novice will be able to quickly identify any bird neighbor that is neither local nor rare.

To the uninitiated or uninterested observer, all small, dull-colored birds are "common sparrows." The closer scrutiny of the trained eye quickly differentiates, and picks out not only the Song, the Canada, and the Fox Sparrows, but finds a dozen other familiar friends where one who "has eyes and sees not" does not even suspect their presence. Ruskin says: "The more I think of it, I find this conclusion more impressed upon me, that the greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to SEE something. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see.

To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion -- all in one."

While the author is indebted to all the time-honored standard authorities, and to many ornithologists of the present day -- too many for individual mention -- it is to Mr. John Burroughs her deepest debt is due. To this clear-visioned prophet, who has opened the blind eyes of thousands to the delights that Nature holds within our easy reach, she would gratefully acknowledge many obligations; first of all, for the plan on which "Bird Neighbors" is arranged; next, for his patient kindness in reading and annotating the ma.n.u.script of the book; and, not least, for the inspiration of his perennially charming writings that are so largely responsible for the ready-made audience now awaiting writers on out-of-door topics.

The author takes this opportunity to express her appreciation of the work the National a.s.sociation of Audubon Societies has done and is doing to prevent the slaughter of birds in all parts of the United States, to develop bird sanctuaries and inaugurate protective legislation. Indeed to it, more than to all other agencies combined, is due the credit of eliminating so much of the Prussianlike cruelty toward birds that once characterized American treatment of them, from the rising generation. -- NELTJE BLANCHAN

I. BIRD FAMILIES

THEIR CHARACTERISTICS AND THE REPRESENTATIVES OF EACH FAMILY INCLUDED IN "BIRD NEIGHBORS'

Order Coccyges: CUCKOOS AND KINGFISHERS

Family Cuculidae: CUCKOOS

Long, pigeon-shaped birds, whose backs are grayish brown with a bronze l.u.s.tre and whose under parts are whitish. Bill long and curved. Tail long; raised and drooped slowly while the bird is perching. Two toes point forward and two backward. Call-note loud and like a tree-toad's rattle. Song lacking. Birds of low trees and undergrowth, where they also nest; partial to neighborhood of streams, or wherever the tent caterpillar is abundant. Habits rather solitary, silent, and eccentric. Migratory.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo.

Black-billed Cuckoo.

Family Alcedinidae: KINGFISHERS

Large, top-heavy birds of streams and ponds. Usually seen perching over the water looking for fish. Head crested; upper parts slate-blue; underneath white, and belted with blue or rusty. Bill large and heavy. Middle and outer toes joined for half their length. Call-note loud and prolonged, like a policeman's rattle. Solitary birds; little inclined to rove from a chosen locality. Migratory.

Belted Kingfisher.

Order Pici: WOODp.e.c.k.e.rS

Family Picidae: WOODp.e.c.k.e.rS

Medium-sized and small birds, usually with plumage black and white, and always with some red feathers about the head. (The flicker is brownish and yellow instead of black and white.) Stocky, high-shouldered build; bill strong and long for drilling holes in bark of trees. Tail feathers pointed and stiffened to serve as a prop. Two toes before and two behind for clinging. Usually seen clinging erect on tree-trunks; rarely, if ever, head downward, like the nuthatches, t.i.tmice, etc. Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs feed as they creep around the trunks and branches. Habits rather phlegmatic. The flicker has better developed vocal powers than other birds of this cla.s.s, whose rolling tattoo, beaten with their bills against the tree-trunks, must answer for their love-song. Nest in hollowed-out trees.

Red-headed Woodp.e.c.k.e.r.

Hairy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r.

Downy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r.

Yellow-bellied Woodp.e.c.k.e.r.

Flicker.

Order Macrochires: GOATSUCKERS, SWIFTS, AND HUMMING-BIRDS

Family Caprimulgidae: NIGHTHAWKS, WHIPPOORWILLS, ETC.

Medium-sized, mottled brownish, gray, black, and white birds of heavy build.

Short, thick head; gaping, large mouth; very small bill, with bristles at base. Take insect food on the wing. Feet small and weak; wings long and powerful. These birds rest lengthwise on their perch while sleeping through the brightest daylight hours, or on the ground, where they nest.

Nighthawk.

Whippoorwill.

Family Micropolidae: SWIFTS

Sooty, dusky birds seen on the wing, never resting except in chimneys of houses, or hollow trees, where they nest. Tips of tail feathers with sharp spines, used as props. They show their kinship with the goatsuckers in their nocturnal as well as diurnal habits, their small bills and large mouths for catching insects on the wing, and their weak feet. Gregarious, especially at the nesting season.

Chimney Swift.

Family Trochilidae: HUMMING-BIRDS

Very small birds with green plumage (iridescent red or orange breast in males); long, needle-shaped bill for extracting insects and nectar from deep-cupped flowers, and exceedingly rapid, darting flight. Small feet.

Ruby-throated Humming-bird.

Order Pa.s.seres: PERCHING BIRDS

Family Tyrannidae: FLYCATCHERS

Small and medium-sized dull, dark-olive, or gray birds, with big heads that are sometimes crested. Bills hooked at end, and with bristles at base. Harsh or plaintive voices. Wings longer than tail; both wings and tails usually drooped and vibrating when the birds are perching. Habits moody and silent when perching on a conspicuous limb, telegraph wire, dead tree, or fence rail and waiting for insects to fly within range. Sudden, nervous, spasmodic sallies in midair to seize insects on the wing. Usually they return to their identical perch or lookout. Pugnacious and fearless. Excellent nest builders and devoted mates.

Kingbird.

Phoebe.

Wood Pewee.

Acadian Flycatcher.