Bird Neighbors Part 13

Female -- Has crown of brownish black, and is lighter beneath than male.

Range -- Northern parts of North America. Not often seen south of the most northerly States.

Migrations -- November. April. Winter resident.

The brighter coloring of this tiny, hardy bird distinguishes from the other and larger nuthatch, with whom it is usually seen, for the winter birds have a delightfully social manner, so that a colony of these Free masons is apt to contain not only both kinds of nuthatches and chickadees, but kinglets and brown creepers as well. It shares the family habit of walking about the trees, head downward, and running along the under side of limbs like a fly. By Thanksgiving Day the quank! quank! of the white-breasted species is answered by the tai-tai-tait! of the red-breasted cousin in the orchard, where the family party is celebrating with an elaborate menu of slugs, insects' eggs, and oily seeds from the evergreen trees.

For many years this nuthatch, a more northern species than the white-breasted bird, was thought to be only a spring and autumn visitor, but latterly it is credited with habits like its congener's in nearly every particular.

LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE (Lanius ludovicia.n.u.s) Shrike family

Length -- 8.5 to 9 inches. A little smaller than the robin.

Male and Female -- Upper parts gray; narrow black line across forehead, connecting small black patches on sides of head at base of bill. Wings and tail black, plentifully marked with white, the outer tail feathers often being entirely white and conspicuous in flight. Underneath white or very light gray.

Bill hooked and hawk-like.

Range -- Eastern United States to the plains.

Migrations -- May. October. Summer resident.

It is not easy, even at a slight distance, to distinguish the loggerhead from the Northern shrike. Both have the pernicious habit of killing insects and smaller birds and impaling them on thorns; both have the peculiarity of flying, with strong, vigorous flight and much wing-flapping, close along the ground, then suddenly rising to a tree, on the lookout for prey. Their harsh, unmusical call-notes are similar too, and their hawk-like method of dropping suddenly upon a victim on the ground below is identical. Indeed, the same description very nearly answers for both birds. But there is one very important difference. While the Northern shrike is a winter visitor, the loggerhead, being his Southern counterpart, does not arrive until after the frost is out of the ground, and he can be sure of a truly warm welcome. A lesser distiction between the only two representatives of the shrike family that frequent our neighborhood -- and they are two too many -- is in the smaller size of the loggerhead and its lighter-gray plumage. But as both these birds select some high commanding position, like a distended branch near the tree-top, a cupola, house-peak, lightning-rod, telegraph wire, or weather-vane, the better to detect a pa.s.sing dinner, it would be quite impossible at such a distance to know which shrike was sitting up there silently plotting villainies, without remembering the season when each may be expected.

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 sparrows they 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 butcherbird 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, gra.s.shoppers, and other large insects than it can hope to devour in a week of b.l.o.o.d.y 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 gra.s.shopper going through the gra.s.s 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 WAX WING; LAPLAND WAX WING; 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 superst.i.tious old cronies are wont to a.s.sociate 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 quant.i.ty what they lack in regularity of visits and evenness of distribution.

Surely no bird has less right to be a.s.sociated 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 are dainty, 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 pa.s.s 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: b.l.o.o.d.y-SIDED WARBLER

Length -- About 5 inches. More than an inch shorter than the English sparrow.

Male -- Top of head and streaks in wings yellow. A black line running 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's zee, zee, zee comes more lazily and without accent.