Bird-Lore Part 11

The woods rang with the music of the birds, for nothing is so sweet as natural music.--SARAH W. WEAVER (Age 11 years), Baltimore County, Md.

["For nothing is so sweet as natural music."

This naive observation brings to mind the gurgle of brooks, waving treetops, and hum of busy insects, as well as the music of feathered songsters. It has the essence of spring in it, when awakening life so quickly voices itself in melody.--A. H. W.]

=INTERESTING PERFORMANCE OF A TUFTED t.i.tMOUSE=

While taking refuge from a slight April shower on the porch of an unoccupied summer cottage at Lithia Springs, Ga., twenty miles from Atlanta, I once witnessed an interesting performance by a Tufted t.i.tmouse. Having chosen a damp brown oak leaf from the ground, it flew with it into a bare tree, and, holding the leaf with its claw firmly against a branch, it drew itself to its full height, raised its head like a Woodp.e.c.k.e.r, and with all the might of its tiny frame gave, a forcible blow to the leaf with its bill. This process was kept up nearly half an hour. The bird seemed utterly indifferent to the near presence of my two friends and myself. Once it dropped the leaf, but immediately picked it up and carried it back to the tree. A boy pa.s.sed on the sidewalk below. The bird flew to a higher branch. At last its purpose seemed to be accomplished. It rested, and lifted the leaf by the petiole. We then saw that the hammering had made it into a firm brown ball nearly as large as an oak gall. The bird flew with it behind the kitchen-ell of the cottage. We hurried around, and were met by the t.i.tmouse, empty-billed, who looked at us with an innocent, nonchalant air. Had it dropped the ball into its nest-hole?--LUCY H. UPTON.

[Who can add any information which will throw light on this unusual observation?--A. H. W.]

=TWILIGHT HOUR AT ASHAWAY=

The western sky, soft tinted with the hues of setting sun, Lends beauty to the twilight shadows lengthening one by one, Twined mystic'lly together by the stirring April breeze That sends a message of awakening through the leafless trees.

The fresh, cool air, bearing the scent of new-ploughed earth Gives promise of the future harvest soon to have its birth, When garden, field and orchard, now wearing brown and gray, Shall change these duller colors for the vernal green of May;

The farmer reads the happy signs and whistles in true glee Jangling in haste his cans and milk-pails merrily; While lazy cattle straggle up the rocky barnyard way, And the impatient horses paw and whinny for their hay.

A scuffle and a cackle in the hen-coop near at hand Give token where the mother hen broods o'er her fledgling band, And Spotty seeks the hay-mow, purring loudly in her pride, For there, in safety waiting her, three kittens do abide.

The Robins and the Bluebirds call and answer all around, And the cheerful little peeptoads seem to crowd the air with sound,-- And yet it is not noisy. Joyous peace is everywhere, And a consciousness of Heaven makes the twilight hour more fair.

--RUTH R. HAYDEN.

[This poem was written by a student in The Rhode Island State Normal School. It is of unusual interest since the author, although blind, undertook the course in nature-study and succeeded so well that her instructor writes: "I am tempted to say that only those are blind who _won't see_. I am convinced that the subject is most valuable for cla.s.ses in schools of the blind." See BIRD-LORE, Vol.

XIII, No. 6, p. 316.--A. H. W.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FEMALE RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD, NEST AND YOUNG

Photographed by E. Jack]

=THE CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER=

By T. GILBERT PEARSON

The National a.s.sociation of Audubon Societies

EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET NO. 85

Among the most charming birds in the world are the members of that group cla.s.sified as the family of Wood Warblers. There are about one hundred and fifty-five known species, and they are found in no other country but America. Seventy-four kinds occur in North America, and fifty-five of these have been recorded in the United States.

They are small birds, the majority measuring rather less than five and one-half inches from bill-tip to tail-tip. They are birds mainly of woods and thickets, a few only venturing into open country. The Warbler's bill is longer than that of most small birds, and is well adapted for seizing the soft-bodied insects upon which it so largely preys.

One of the most common members of the family in the Eastern States is the Chestnut-sided Warbler. The general appearance of the male is that of a particularly trim little bird with olive-green back and bright yellow crown; the under parts are lighter, and the sides are marked by deep chestnut--that is, this is the way the male looks in spring. At this season the female is quite similar, although its colors are duller.

In the fall and winter the plumage presents a very different appearance.

The upper parts then are yellowish olive-green, sometimes with faint streaks on the back. The deep-chestnut of the sides has given way to a few spots or patches of this color.

In seeking the Chestnut-sided Warbler, one should go to woodlands that have been cut over and grown up in bushes. There are found the conditions which this bird dearly loves, and in such a situation one may pa.s.s a whole forenoon and seldom be out of sight or hearing of one or more of them.

The nest is made of strips of bark, soft dead leaf-stems, and similar material; it is lined with tendrils and rootlets. Usually the nest is from two and a half to three and a half feet from the ground. Rarely have I found one so situated that it could not readily be reached by the spring of an agile house-cat, and there is much evidence to show that many are pulled down every year by these feline hunters.

It is commonly reported that as many as five eggs are deposited in the nest before the bird begins sitting, but fully three-fourths of those nests that I have found contained only four eggs. They are white, with numerous brown markings of various shades--some distinct, others more or less obscure, as if the inside of the sh.e.l.l had been painted and the color was showing through. The spots and blotches are gathered chiefly in a wreath about the larger end.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER

Order--Pa.s.sERES

Family--_Mniotiltidae_

Genus--Dendroica

Species--pennsylvanica

National a.s.sociation of Audubon Societies]

They are pretty, dainty little objects, as is the case with all Warblers' eggs. In size, they are about two-thirds of an inch long, and half an inch in diameter at the largest place.

In the lat.i.tude of Boston, fresh eggs may usually be found late in May or in the first week of June.

The Chestnut-sided Warbler feeds almost exclusively on insects. John James Audubon wrote that once in Pennsylvania, during a snowstorm in early spring, he examined the dead bodies of several, and found that their stomachs contained only gra.s.s-seeds and a few spiders. The birds were very poor, and evidently were in a half-starved condition, which would probably account for the fact that they had been engaged in such an un-warbler-like act as eating seeds. Ordinarily this bird is highly insectivorous, and feeds very largely on leaf-eating caterpillars. It also collects plant-lice, ants, leaf-hoppers, small bark-beetles, and, in fact, is a perfect scourge to the small insect-life inhabiting the foliage of the bushes and trees where it makes its home. Sometimes the birds take short flights in the air after winged insects. It will thus be seen that the Chestnut-sided Warbler is of decided value as a guardian of trees, which is reason enough why the legislators of the various states where the bird is found were induced to enact the Audubon Law for its protection.

All birds that depend so much on insects for their livelihood as does the Chestnut-sided Warbler are necessarily highly migratory. By the middle of September nearly all have departed from their summer home, which, we may say roughly, covers the territory of the southern Canadian Provinces from Saskatchewan eastward, and extends southward as far as Ohio and New Jersey. They are also found in summer along the Alleghany Mountains in Tennessee and South Carolina. Most of the migrants go to Central America by way of the Gulf of Mexico, and only a comparatively small number travel to Florida and the Bahama Islands.

The song of the Chestnut-sided Warbler is confused in the minds of some listeners with that of the Yellow Warbler. Mathews says the song resembles the words, "I wish, I wish, I wish to see Miss Beecher."

Mr. Clinton G. Abbott, writing in BIRD-LORE in 1909, told most entertainingly of the fortunes of a pair of these Warblers and their nest, which he watched one summer. After telling of finding a nest from which all the eggs had been thrown but one, and in their place had been deposited two eggs of the Cowbird, he says:

"The nest was found at Rhinebeck, New York, on July 6, 1900, incubation having apparently just started. Four days later I discovered that one of the Cowbird's eggs was infertile; so I removed it from the nest, disappointed that I should not, after all, enjoy the somewhat unique experience of observing two young Cowbirds growing up in the same nest.

It was some time during the night of July 13-14 that the first of the remaining two eggs hatched--the Cowbird's of course. The Warbler's hatched between twelve and twelve-thirty o'clock on the 14th. The nicety with which matters had been so arranged that the young Cowbird would have just a convenient start in life over its unfortunate rival commanded at least my admiration if not my sympathy. Cowbirds must indeed be sharp nest-finders to be able to discover at short notice not only the nests of certain suitable kinds of birds, but even nests containing eggs at a certain stage of incubation!

[Ill.u.s.tration: A NEST OF THE CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER]

"After the hatching of the eggs, I spent considerable time at the nest-side, and observed with interest the many pretty little incidents of a bird's domestic life--the constant and tender brooding of the newly hatched young by both Warblers in turn; the never-ceasing search among the neighboring trees and bushes for small caterpillars; the delivery of the food by the male to the brooding female, who, in turn, would raise herself and pa.s.s it to the young; the careful cleansing of the nest; and many other intimate details of the birds' loving and happy lives. When I drew aside the leaves that sheltered the nest and allowed the sun to shine upon it for purposes of photography, the mother, realizing with that wonderful instinct common to all birds which nest in the shade, the fatal effect on her babies of the sun's direct rays, would take her stand on the edge of the nest and with outstretched wings would form of her own body a living shield for the comfort and protection of her young. Although herself in evident distress from the heat, and with parted mandibles continually gasping for air, she would remain in this position as long as the sun shone upon her, only stepping aside occasionally when a well-known signal announced that her husband had arrived with a meal for the little ones. It was a beautiful picture of parental devotion.