Bird Neighbors Part 23

Male -- Forehead black; crown, which in winter has black stripes, is always bright bay; line over the eye, sides of the neck gray. Back brown, striped with various shades. Wing. edges and tail reddish brown. Mottled gray underneath inclining to white on the chin.

Female -- Without black forehead and stripes on head.

Range -- North America, from Texas to Labrador.

Migrations -- April. October. A few winter at the north.

In just such impenetrable retreats as the marsh wrens choose, another wee brown bird may sometimes be seen springing up from among the sedges, singing a few sweet notes as it flies and floats above them, and then suddenly disappearing into the gra.s.sy tangle. It is too small, and its breast is not streaked enough to be a song sparrow, neither are their songs alike; it has not the wren's peculiarities of bill and tail, Its bright-bay crown and sparrowy markings finally identify it. A suggestion of the bird's watery home shows itself in the liquid quality of its simple, sweet note, stronger and sweeter than the chippy's, and repeated many times almost like a trill that seems to trickle from the marsh in a little rivulet of song. The sweetness is apt to become monotonous to all but the bird itself, that takes evident delight in its performance. In the spring, when flocks of swamp sparrows come north, how they enliven the marshes and waste places. And yet the song, simple as it is, is evidently not uttered altogether without effort, if the tail-spreading and teetering of the body after the manner of the ovenbird, are any indications of exertion.

Nuttall says of these birds: "They thread their devious way with the same alacrity as the rail, with whom, indeed, they are often a.s.sociated in neighborhood. In consequence of this perpetual brushing through sedge and bushes, their feathers are frequently so worn that their tails appear almost like those of rats."

But the swamp sparrows frequently belie their name, and, especially in the South, live in dry fields, worn-out pasture lands with scrubby, weedy patches in them. They live upon seeds of gra.s.ses and berries, but Dr. Abbott has detected their special fondness for fish -- not fresh fish particularly, but rather such as have lain in the sun for a few days and become dry as a chip.

Their nest is placed on the ground, sometimes in a tussock of gra.s.s or roots of an upturned tree quite surrounded by water. Four or five soiled white eggs with reddish-brown spots are laid usually twice in 2 season.

TREE SPARROW (Spizella monticola) Finch family

Called also: CANADA SPARROW; WINTER CHIPPY; TREE BUNTING; WINTER CHIP-BIRD; ARCTIC CHIPPER

Length -- 6 to 6.35 inches. About the same size as the English sparrow.

Male -- Crown of head bright chestnut. Line over the eye, cheeks, throat, and breast gray, the breast with an indistinct black spot on centre. Brown back, the feathers edged with black and buff. Lower back pale grayish brown. Two whitish bars across dusky wings; tail feathers bordered with grayish white.

Underneath whitish.

Female -- Smaller and less distinctly marked.

Range -- North America, from Hudson Bay to the Carolinas, and westward to the plains.

Migrations -- October. April. Winter resident.

A revised and enlarged edition of the friendly little chipping sparrow, that hops to our very doors for crumbs throughout the mild weather, comes out of British America at the beginning of winter to dissipate much of the winter's dreariness by his cheerful twitterings. Why he should have been called a tree sparrow is a mystery, unless because he does not frequent trees -- a reason with sufficient plausibility to commend the name to several of the early ornithologists, who not infrequently called a bird precisely what it was not. The tree sparrow actually does not show half the preference for trees that its familiar little counterpart does, but rather keeps to low bushes when not on the ground, where we usually find it. It does not crouch upon the ground like the chippy, but with a lordly carriage holds itself erect as it nimbly runs over the frozen crust. Sheltered from the high, wintry winds in the furrows and dry ditches of ploughed fields, a loose flock of these active birds keep up a merry hunt for fallen seeds and berries, with a belated beetle to give the grain a relish. As you approach the feeding ground, one bird gives a shrill alarm-cry, and instantly five times as many birds as you suspected were in the field take wing and settle down in the scrubby undergrowth at the edge of the woods or by the wayside. No still cold seems too keen for them to go a-foraging; but when cutting winds blow through the leafless thickets the scattered remnants of a flock seek the shelter of stone walls, hedges, barns, and cozy nooks about the house and garden. It is in mid-winter that these birds grow most neighborly, although even then they are distinctly less sociable than their small chippy cousins.

By the first of March, when the fox sparrow and the bluebird attract the lion's share of attention by their superior voices, we not infrequently are deaf to the modest, sweet little strain that answers for the tree sparrow's love-song. Soon after the bird is in full voice, away it goes with its flock to their nesting ground in Labrador or the Hudson Bay region. It builds, either on the ground or not far from it, a nest of gra.s.ses, rootlets, and hair, without which no true chippy counts its home complete.

VESPER SPARROW (Poocaetes gramineus) Finch family

Called also: BAY-WINGED BUNTING; GRa.s.sFINCH; GRa.s.sBIRD

Length -- 5.75 to 6.25 inches. A little smaller than the English sparrow.

Male and Female -- Brown above, streaked and varied with gray.

Lesser wing coverts bright rufous. Throat and breast whitish, striped with dark brown. Underneath plain soiled white. Outer tail-quills, which are its special mark of identification, are partly white, but apparently wholly white a.s the bird flies.

Range -- North America, especially common in eastern parts from Hudson Bay to Gulf of Mexico. Winters south of Virginia.

Migrations -- April. October. Common summer resident.

Among the least conspicuous birds, sparrows are the easiest to cla.s.sify for that very reason, and certain prominent features of the half dozen commonest of the tribe make their identification simple even to the merest novice. The distinguishing marks of this sparrow that haunts open, breezy pasture lands and country waysides are its bright, reddish-brown wing coverts, prominent among its dingy, pale brownish-gray feathers, and its white tail-quills, shown as the bird flies along the road ahead of you to light upon the fence-rail. It rarely flies higher, even to sing its serene, pastoral strain, restful as the twilight, of which, indeed, it seems to be the vocal expression. How different from the ecstatic outburst of the song sparrow! Pensive, but not sad, its long-drawn silvery notes continue in quavers that float off unended like a trail of mist. The song is suggestive of the thoughts that must come at evening to some New England saint of humble station after a well-spent, soul-uplifting day.

But while the vesper sparrow sings oftenest and most sweetly in the late afternoon and continues singing until only he and the rose-breasted grosbeak break the silence of the early night, his is one of the first voices to join the morning chorus. No "early worm," however, tempts him from his gra.s.sy nest, for the seeds in the pasture lands and certain tiny insects that live among the gra.s.s furnish meals at all hours. He simply delights in the cool, still morning and evening hours and in giving voice to his enjoyment of them.

The vesper sparrow is preeminently a gra.s.s-bird. It first opens its eyes on the world in a nest neatly woven of gra.s.ses, laid on the ground among the gra.s.s that shelters it and furnishes it with food and its protective coloring.

Only the grazing cattle know how many nests and birds are hidden in their pastures. Like the meadowlarks, their presence is not even suspected until a flock is flushed from its feeding ground, only to return to the spot when you have pa.s.sed on your way. Like the meadowlark again, the vesper sparrow occasionally sings as it soars upward from its gra.s.sy home.

WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW (Zonotrichia leucophrys) Finch family

Length -- 7 inches. A little larger than the English sparrow.

Male -- White head, with four longitudinal black lines marking off a crown, the black-and-white stripes being of about equal width. Cheeks, nape, and throat gray. Light gray underneath, with some buff tints. Back dark grayish brown. some feathers margined with gray. Two interrupted white bars across wings.

Plain, dusky tail; total effect, a clear ashen gray.

Female -- With rusty head inclining to gray on crown. Paler throughout than the male.

Range -- From high mountain ranges of western United States (more rarely on Pacific slope) to Atlantic Ocean, and from Labrador to Mexico. Chiefly south of Pennsylvania.

Migrations -- October. April. Irregular migrant in Northern States. A winter resident elsewhere.

The large size and handsome markings of this aristocratic-looking Northern sparrow would serve to distinguish him at once, did he not often consort with his equally fine-looking white-throated cousins while migrating, and so too often get overlooked. Sparrows are such gregarious birds that it is well to scrutinize every flock with especial care in the spring and autumn, when the rarer migrants are pa.s.sing. This bird is more common in the high alt.i.tudes of the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains than elsewhere in the United States.

There in the lonely forest it nests in low bushes or on the ground, and sings its full love song, as it does in the northern British provinces, along the Atlantic coast; but during the migrations it favors us only with selections from its repertoire. Mr. Ernest Thompson says, "Its usual song is like the latter half of the white-throat's familiar refrain, repeated a number of times with a peculiar, sad cadence and in a clear, soft whistle that is characteristic of the group." "The song is the loudest and most plaintive of all the sparrow songs," says John Burroughs. "It begins with the words fe-u, fe-u, fe-u, and runs off into trills and quavers like the song sparrow's, only much more touching." Colorado miners tell that this sparrow, like its white-throated relative, sings on the darkest nights. Often a score or more birds are heard singing at once after the habit of the European nightingales, which, however, choose to sing only in the moonlight.

WHITE-THROATED SPARROW (Zonotrichia albicollis) Finch family

Called also: PEABODY BIRD; CANADA SPARROW

Length -- 6.75 to 7 inches. Larger than the English sparrow.

Male and Female -- A black crown divided by narrow white line.

Yellow spot before the eye, and a white line, apparently running through it, pa.s.ses backward to the nape. Conspicuous white throat. Chestnut back, varied with black and whitish.

Breast gray, growing lighter underneath. Wings edged with rufous and with two white cross-bars.

Range -- Eastern North America. Nests from Michigan and Ma.s.sachusetts northward to Labrador. Winters from southern New England to Florida.

Migrations -- April. October. Abundant during migrations, and in many States a winter resident.

"I-I, Pea-body, Pea-body, Pea-body," are the syllables of the white-throat's song heard by the good New Englanders, who have a tradition that you must either be a Peabody or a n.o.body there; while just over the British border the bird is distinctly understood to say, "Swee-e-e-t Can-a-da, Can-a-da, Can-a da." "All day, whit-tle-ing, whit-tle-ing, whit-tle-ing," the Maine people declare he sings; and Hamilton Gibson told of a perplexed farmer, Peverly by name, who, as he stood in the field undecided as to what crop to plant, clearly heard the bird advise, "Sow wheat, Pev-er-ly, Pev-er-ly, Pev-er-ly."

Such divergence of opinion, which is really slight compared with the verbal record of many birds' songs, only goes to show how little the sweetness of birds' music, like the perfume of a rose, depends upon a name.

In a family not distinguished for good looks, the white-throated sparrow is conspicuously handsome, especially after the spring moult. In midwinter the feathers grow dingy and the markings indistinct; but as the season advances, his colors are sure to brighten perceptibly, and before he takes the northward journey in April, any little lady sparrow might feel proud of the attentions of so fine-looking and sweet-voiced a lover. The black, white, and yellow markings on his head are now clear and beautiful. His figure is plump and aristocratic.

These sparrows are particularly sociable travellers, and cordially welcome many stragglers to their flocks -- not during the migrations only, but even when winter's snow affords only the barest gleanings above it. Then they boldly peck about the dog's plate by the kitchen door and enter the barn-yard, calling their feathered friends with a sharp tseep to follow them. Seeds and insects are their chosen food, and were they not well wrapped in an adipose coat under their feathers, there must be many a winter night when they would go shivering, supperless, to their perch.

In the dark of midnight one may sometimes hear the white-throat softly singing in its dreams.

GREEN, GREENISH GRAY, OLIVE, AND YELLOWISH OLIVE BIRDS

Tree Swallow Ruby-throated Humming-bird Golden-crowned Kinglet Ruby-crowned Kinglet Solitary Vireo Red-eyed Vireo White-eyed Vireo Warbling Vireo Ovenbird Worm-eating Warbler Acadian Flycatcher Yellow-bellied Flycatcher Black-throated Green Warbler

Look also among the Olive-brown Birds, especially for the Cuckoos, Alice's and the Olive-backed Thrushes; and look in the yellow group, many of whose birds are olive also. See also females of the Red Crossbill, Orchard Oriole, Scarlet Tanager, Summer Tanager.

GREEN, GREENISH GRAY, OLIVE, AND YELLOWISH OLIVE BIRDS

TREE SWALLOW (Tachycineta bicolor) Swallow family

Called also: WHITE-BELLIED SWALLOW

Length -- 5 to 6 inches. A little shorter than the English sparrow, but apparently much larger because of its wide wing spread.

Male -- l.u.s.trous dark steel-green above; darker and shading into black on wings and tail, which is forked. Under parts soft white.

Female -- Duller than male.

Range -- North America, from Hudson Bay to Panama.

Migrations -- End of March. September or later. Summer resident.