Birds Every Child Should Know Part 4

You may possibly mistake this little warbler for a downy woodp.e.c.k.e.r when first you see him creeping rapidly over the bark of trees, or hanging from the under side of the branches. But when he flits restlessly from twig to twig and from tree to tree without taking time to examine spots thoroughly; especially when he calls a few thin wiry notes--_zee-zee-zee-zee_--you may know he is no woodp.e.c.k.e.r, but a warbler. Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs have thick set, high shouldered bodies which they flatten against the tree trunks; the males wear red in their caps, and all have larger, stouter bills than the warbler's. Moreover, no woodp.e.c.k.e.r is so small as this streaked and speckled little creature who is usually too intent {58} on feeding to utter a single _zee_. You could not possibly confuse him with the diligent, placid brown creeper or with the slate-blue nuthatch which also creeps along the branches on the under or upper side. Some children I know call this black and white warbler the little zebra bird. Would that all warblers were so easily identified!

OVEN-BIRD

_Called also: The Teacher; Golden-crowned Thrush; The Accentor._

"Teacher--_Teacher_--TEACHER--TEACHER--_TEACHER!_" resounds a penetrating, accented voice from the woods. Who calls? Not an impatient scholar, as you might suppose, but a shy little thrush-like warbler who has no use whatever for any human being, especially at the nesting season in May and June, when he calls most loudly and frequently. Beginning quite softly, he gradually increases the intensity of each pair of notes in a crescendo that seems to come from a point much nearer than it really does. Once heard it is never forgotten, and you can always be sure of naming at least one bird by his voice alone. However, his really exquisite love song--a clear, ringing, vivacious melody, uttered while the singer is fluttering, hovering, high among the tree-tops--is rarely heard, or if heard is not recognised as the teacher's aerial serenade. He is a warbler, let it be recorded, who really can sing, and beautifully, however rarely.

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The ovenbird who calls "Teacher, _Teacher_, TEACHER, TEACHER, _TEACHER!_"

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Ovenbird in her cleverly hidden nest. Some of the leaves and sticks have been pulled away from the front to secure her picture.

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Young ovenbirds on day of leaving nest.

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Why is he called the oven-bird? A little girl I know was offered five dollars by her father if she could find the bird's nest in the high dry woods near her home. "Teacher!" was the commonest sound that came from them. It rang in her ears all day, so of course she thought it would be "too easy" to earn the money. Every afternoon, when school was out, she tramped through the woods hour after hour, poking about among the dead leaves, the snapping twigs, the velvety moss, the fallen logs, the young spring growth of the little plants and creepers, always keeping her eyes on the ground where she knew the nest would be found. Day after day she continued the search. Every time she saw a little hump of dead leaves or twigs and gra.s.ses her heart bounded with hope, but on closer examination she found no nest at all. Finally, one day when she was becoming discouraged, she spied in the path a little brownish olive bird, about the size of an English sparrow, but with a speckled, thrush-like breast and a dull orange V-shaped patch, bordered by black lines, on the top of his head. He was walking about on the ground, nodding his head as if {60} marking time, not hopping, sparrow-fashion; and he took very dainty, pretty steps that suggested a French dancing master. Occasionally he would scratch the path for insects, like a tiny chicken. Although she had never seen the teacher, and had expected that the loud voice came from a much larger bird, she felt sure that this must be he, so she sat down on a log and watched and waited. Presently she saw him tug at a fine black hair-like root that lay across the path, and, snapping it off, quickly fly away, away--oh, where did he go with it? She ran stumbling after him through the undergrowth to a little clearing.

There another bird, just like him, whom she instantly guessed was his mate, flew straight toward her, dropped to the ground, ran about distractedly, dragging one wing as if it were broken, and uttering sharp, piteous notes of alarm. The little girl didn't like to distress the birds, of course, but how could she resist the temptation to find their nest? So on she tramped around and around in an ever widening circle, the excited birds still hovering near and sharply scolding her. You may be sure she was quite as excited as they.

At last, a little dome-shaped mound of gra.s.ses, half hidden among the dry brown oak leaves and wild geranium, gladdened her eyes. Running around to the opposite side she knelt down on the gra.s.s, peeped under the arched roof {61} and into the nest, which was shaped like an old-fashioned Dutch oven. Was ever a sight so welcome? She almost screamed with joy. Through the opening on one side, that was about three inches high, she could see the lining of fine black rootlets, just like the one she had watched the bird snap off and carry away.

Then she flew home, as if she too had wings, and, calling breathlessly "Oh Father! Father! I've found it!" burst into the house. A week before even one white speckled egg had been laid in the oven-bird's nest, there was a golden half eagle in a happy little girl's palm. A fortnight later a man with a camera took a picture of the patient mother-bird, whose pretty striped head you see peeping out from under the dome.

MARYLAND YELLOW-THROAT

_Called also: Black-masked Ground Warbler_

This gay little warbler looks as if he were dressed for a masquerade ball with a gray-edged black mask over his face and the sides of his throat, a brownish green coat and a bright yellow vest. He is smaller than a sparrow. How sharply the inquisitive fellow peers at you through his mask whenever you pa.s.s the damp thicket, bordering the marshy land, where he {62} likes best to live! And how quickly he hops from twig to twig and flies from one clump of bushes to another clump, in restless, warbler fashion, as he leads you a dance in pursuit! Not for a second does he stop watching you.

If you come too close, a sharp _pit-pit_ or _chock_ is snapped out by the excited bird, whose familiar, oft-repeated, sprightly, waltzing triplet has been too freely translated, he thinks, into, _Fol-low-me, fol-low-me, fol-low-me_. Pursuit is the last thing he really desires, and of course he issues no such invitation. What he actually says almost always sounds to me like _Witchee-tee, witch-ee-tee, witch-ee-tee_. You will surely hear him if you listen in his marshy retreats. He sings almost all summer. Except when nesting he comes into the garden, picks minute insects out of the blossoming shrubbery, hops about on the ground, visits the raspberry tangle, and hides among the bushes along the roadside. Only the yellow warbler, of all his numerous tribe, is disposed to be more neighbourly. In spite of his local name, he is to be found in winter from Georgia to Labrador and Manitoba westward to the Plains. You see he is something of a traveller.

The little bird who bewitches him, and to whom he sings the witch's song, wears no black mask, so it is not easy to name her if her mate is not about. Her plumage is duller than his and {63} the sides of her plump little body, which are yellowish brown, shade into grayish white underneath. Sometimes you may catch her carrying weeds, strips of bark, broad gra.s.ses, tendrils, reeds, and leaves for the outside of her deep cradle, and finer gra.s.ses for its lining, to a spot on the ground where plants and low bushes help conceal it. She does not build so beautiful a nest as the yellow warbler, but like her she, too, poor thing, sometimes suffers from the sneaking visits of the cowbird.

Unhappily, she is not so clever as her cousin, for she meekly consents to hatch out the cowbird's egg and let the big, greedy interloper crowd and worry and starve her own brood. Why does the cowardly cowbird always choose a victim smaller than herself?

THE YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT

"Now he barks like a puppy, then quacks like a duck, then rattles like a kingfisher, then squalls like a fox, then caws like a crow, then mews like a cat--_C-r-r-r-r-r-whrr_--that's it--_Chee-quack, cluck, yit-yit-yit-now_--hit it--_tr-r-r-r-wheu-caw-caw-cut, cut-tea-boy-who, who-mew, mew_," writes John Burroughs of this rollicking polyglot, the chat; but not even that close student of nature could set down on {64} paper all the mult.i.tude of queer sounds with which the bird amuses himself. He might be mistaken for a dozen different birds and animals in as many minutes.

Such a secretive roysterer is he that you may rarely see him, however often you may hear his voice when he is hidden beyond sight in partial clearings or the bushy, briery, thickety openings in the woods. As he seems to delight in keeping pursuers off by a natural fence of barbed wire, the cat brier, wild blackberry, raspberry, and rose bushes are among his favourite plants. But if you will sit down quietly near his home, your patience will probably be rewarded by the sight of this largest of the warblers, with olive green upper parts, a conspicuous white line running from his bill around his eye and another along his throat, and a bright yellow breast shading to grayish white underneath. He is over an inch longer than the English sparrow. His wife looks just like him.

The zany at the circus can go through no more clownish tricks than the chat. See him, a mere bunch of feathers, dance and balance in the air, now fluttering, now falling as if he had been shot, or turning aerial somersaults, now rising and trailing his legs behind him like a stork, now dropping out of sight in the thickest part of the thicket. The instant he spies you, _Chut-Chut_, he scolds from the briars. Shy, {65} eccentric, absurd, but inspired with a "fine frenzy," which is a pa.s.sionate love for his mate and their nest, all his queer notes and equally queer stunts centre about his home. On moonlight nights, Punchinello entertains himself and Columbine with a series of inimitable performances which have earned him the t.i.tle of yellow mockingbird. He can throw his voice so that it seems to come from quite a different direction, as you may sometime have heard a human ventriloquist do.

THE REDSTART

When this exquisite little warbler flashes his brilliant salmon flame and black feathers among the trees, darting hither and thither, fluttering, spinning about in the air after insects caught chiefly on the wing, you will surely agree that he is the most beautiful as well as the most lively bird in the woods. The colour scheme of his clothes suggests the Baltimore oriole's, only the flaming feathers on the sides of his body, wings, and tail are a pinker shade of flame, and the black ones which cover his back, throat, and upper breast, are more glossy, with bluish reflections. Underneath he is white, tinged with salmon. But you could not possibly mistake this lovely little sprite for the oriole, he is so much smaller--about an inch {66} shorter than the sparrow. His cousin, the Blackburnian warbler, a much rarer bird, with a colour scheme of black, white, and beautiful rich orange, not salmon flame, can be named instantly by the large amount of white in his tail feathers. There are so few brilliantly coloured birds that find their way to us from the tropics, that it should not take any boy or girl longer to learn them than it does to learn the first multiplication table. In Cuba the redstart is known as "El Candelita"--the little candle flame that flashes in the deep, dark, tropical forest.

Who would believe that this small firebrand, half glowing, half charred, whirling about through the trees, as if blown by the wind, is a cousin of the sombre oven-bird that walks so daintily and leisurely over the ground? The redstart keeps perpetually in motion that he may seize gnats and other gauzy winged mouthfuls in mid-air--not as the flycatchers do, by waiting on a fence rail or limb of a tree for a dinner to fly past, then dashing out and seizing it, but by flitting about constantly in search of insect prey. The bristles at the base of his bill prevent many an insect from getting past it. He rests on the trees only long enough to s.n.a.t.c.h a morsel, then away he goes again. No wonder the Spaniards call all the gaily coloured, tropical wood warblers "Mariposas"--b.u.t.terflies.

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CHAPTER V

THE VIREOS:

ANOTHER STRICTLY AMERICAN FAMILY

Red-Eyed Vireo White-Eyed Vireo Yellow-Throated Vireo Warbling Vireo

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THE VIREOS

You know that if the birds should suddenly perish, there wouldn't be a leaf, a blade of gra.s.s, or any green thing left upon the earth within a few years--it would be uninhabitable.

When Dame Nature, the most thorough of housekeepers, gave to the birds the task of restraining insects within bounds so that man and beast could live, she gave the care of foliage to the vireos. It is true that most of the warblers, and a few other birds too, hunt for their food among the leaves, but with nothing like the vireo's painstaking care and thoroughness. The nervous, restless warblers flit from twig to twig without half exploring the foliage; whereas the deliberate, methodical vireos search leisurely above and below it, c.o.c.king their little heads so as to look up at the under side of the leaf above them and to peck off the destroyers hidden there--bugs of many kinds and countless little worms, caterpillars, weevils, inchworms, May beetles, and leaf-eating beetles. Singing as they go, no birds more successfully combine work and play.

Because they spend their lives among the foliage, the vireos are protectively coloured; with {70} soft grayish or olive green on their backs, wings, and tail, whitish or yellow below. Some people call them greenlets. They are all a little smaller than sparrows. More inconspicuous birds it would be hard to find or more abundant, although so commonly overlooked except by people on the look-out for them. Where the new growth of foliage at the ends of the branches is young and tender, many insects prefer to lay their eggs that their babies may have the most dainty fare as soon as they are hatched. They do not reckon upon the vireos' visits.

Toward the end of April or the first of May, these tireless gleaners return to us from Central and South America where they have spent the winter, which of course you know, is no winter on the other side of the equator, but a continuation of summer for them. Compet.i.tion for food being more fierce in the tropics than it is here, millions of birds besides the warblers and vireos travel from beyond the Isthmus of Panama to the United States and back again every year in order that they may live in perpetual summer with an abundance of food. If any child thinks that birds are mere creatures of pleasure, who sing to pa.s.s the time away, he doesn't begin to understand how hard they must work for a living. They cannot limit their labours to an eight-hour day. However, they keep cheerful through at least sixteen busy hours.

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THE RED-EYED VIREO

Almost everywhere in the Eastern United States and Canada, the red-eyed vireo is the most common member of his family. The only individual touch to his costume that helps to distinguish him is a gray cap edged with a black line which runs parallel to his conspicuous white eyebrow. He wears a dull olive coat and a white vest. But listen to the Preacher! You have no need to meet him face to face in order to know him: _"You see it--you know it--do you hear me?--do you believe it?"_ he propounds incessantly through the long summer days, even after most other birds are silent. You cannot mistake his voice. With a rising inflection at the end of each short, jerky sentence, he asks a question very distinctly and sweetly, then pauses an instant as if waiting for a reply--an unusually courteous orator. His monotonous monologue, repeated over and over again, comes to us from the elms and maples in the village street, the orchard and woodland, where he keeps steadily and deliberately at work. Some boys say they can whittle better if they whistle. Vireos seem to hunt more thoroughly if they sing.

Like the rest of his kin, the red-eyed vireo is quite tame. A little girl I know actually stroked the pretty head of a mother bird as she sat brooding in her exquisite nest, and a week later {72} carried one of the young birds all around the garden on a rake handle.

Vireos are remarkably fine builders--among the very best. Although their nests are not so deep as the Baltimore orioles', the shape and weave are similar. The red-eye usually prefers to swing her cradle from a small crotch in an oak or apple tree or sapling, and securely lace it through the rim on to the forked twigs. Nests vary in appearance, but you will notice that these weavers show a preference for dried gra.s.s as a foundation into which are wrought bits of bark, lichen, wasps' nest "paper," spider web, plant down, and curly vine tendrils.

THE WHITE-EYED VIREO

It is not often that you can get close enough to any bird to see the white of his eyes, but the brighter olive green of this vivacious little white-eyed vireo's upper parts, his white breast, faintly washed with yellow on the sides, and the two yellowish white bars on his wings help you to recognise him at a distance. Imagine my surprise to meet him in Bermuda, over six hundred miles out at sea from the Carolina coast, where he, too, was taking a winter vacation! In those beautiful islands, where our familiar catbirds and cardinals also abound, {73} the white-eyed vireo is the most common bird to be seen.