Birds of the Rockies Part 4

It was surprising to note on how slender a weed-stalk so large a bird was able to perch. There being few trees and fences in this region, he has doubtless gained expertness through practice in the art of securing a foot-hold on the tops of the weed-stems. Some of the weeds on which he stood with perfect ease and grace were extremely lithe and flexible and almost devoid of branches.

But what was the cause of this particular bird's intense solicitude? It was obvious there was a nest in the neighborhood. As I sought in the gra.s.s and weed-clumps, he uttered his piercing calls of protest and circled and hovered overhead like a red-winged blackbird. Suddenly the thought occurred to me that the flycatchers of my acquaintance do not nest on the ground, but on trees. I looked around, and, sure enough, in the shallow hollow below me stood a solitary willow tree not more than fifteen or twenty feet high, the only tree to be seen within a mile. And that lone tree on the plain was occupied by the flycatcher and his mate for a nesting place. In a crotch the gray cottage was set, containing three callow babies and one beautifully mottled egg.

In another fork of the same small tree a pair of kingbirds--the same species as our well-known eastern bee-martins--had built their nest, in the downy cup of which lay four eggs similarly decorated with brown spots. The birds now all circled overhead and joined in an earnest plea with me not to destroy their homes and little ones, and I hurriedly climbed down from the tree to relieve their agitation, stopping only a moment to examine the twine plaited into the felted nests of the kingbirds. The willow sapling contained also the nest of a turtle dove.

"If there are three nests in this small tree, there may be a large number in the cl.u.s.ter of trees beyond the swell about a mile away," I mused, and forthwith made haste to go to the place indicated. I was not disappointed. Had the effort been made, I am sure two score of nests might have been found in these trees, for they were liberally decorated with bird cots and hammocks. Most of these were kingbirds' and Arkansas flycatchers' nests, but there were others as well. On one small limb there were four of the dangling nests of Bullock's orioles, one of them fresh, the rest more or less weather beaten, proving that this bird had been rearing broods here for a number of seasons.

Whose song was this ringing from one of the larger trees a little farther down the glade? I could scarcely believe the testimony of my ears and eyes, yet there could be no mistake--it was the vivacious mimicry of the mocking-bird, which had travelled far across the plain to this solitary clump of trees to find singing perches and a site for his nests. He piped his musical miscellany with as much good-cheer as if he were dwelling in the neighborhood of some embowered cottage in Dixie-land. In suitable localities on the plains of Colorado the mockers were found to be quite plentiful, but none were seen among the mountains.

A network of twigs and vines in one of the small willows afforded a support and partial covert for the nest of a pair of white-rumped shrikes. It contained six thickly speckled eggs, and was the first nest of this species I had ever found. The same hollow,--if so shallow a dip in the plain can be called a hollow,--was selected as the home of several pairs of red-winged and Brewer's blackbirds, which built their gra.s.sy cots in the low bushes of a slightly boggy spot, where a feeble spring oozed from the ground. It was a special pleasure to find a green-tailed towhee in the copse of the draw, for I had supposed that he always hugged close to the steep mountain sides.

A walk before breakfast the next morning added several more avian species to my roll. To my surprise, a pair of mountain bluebirds had chosen the village for their summer residence, and were building a nest in the coupler of a freight car standing on a side track. The domicile was almost completed, and I could not help feeling sorry for the pretty, innocent couple, at the thought that the car would soon be rolling hundreds of miles away, and all their loving toil would go for naught.

Bluebirds had previously been seen at the timber-line among the mountains, and here was a pair forty miles out on the plain--quite a range for this species, both longitudinally and vertically.

During the forenoon the following birds were observed: A family of juvenile Arkansas flycatchers, which were being fed by their parents; a half-dozen or more western gra.s.sfinches, trilling the same pensive tunes as their eastern half-brothers; a small, long-tailed sparrow, which I could not identify at the time, but which I now feel certain was Lincoln's sparrow; these, with a large marsh-harrier and a colony of cliff-swallows, completed my bird catalogue at this place. It may not be amiss to add that several jack-rabbits went skipping over the swells; that many families of prairie dogs were visited, and that a coyotte galloped lightly across the plain, stopping and looking back occasionally to see whether he were being pursued.

It was no difficult task to study the birds on the plain. Having few hiding-places in a locality almost dest.i.tute of trees and bushes, where even the gra.s.s was too short to afford a covert, they naturally felt little fear of man, and hence were easily approached. Their cousins residing in the mountains were, as a rule, provokingly wary. The number of birds that had pre-empted homesteads on the treeless wastes was indeed a gratifying surprise, and I went back to the mountains refreshed by the pleasant change my brief excursion upon the plains had afforded me.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Coyotte_

"_Looking back to see whether he were being pursued_"]

A PRETTY HUMMER

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Where do you suppose I got my first glimpse of the mite in feathers called the broad-tailed humming-bird? It was in a green bower in the Rocky Mountains in plain sight of the towering summit of Pike's Peak, which seemed almost to be standing guard over the place. Two brawling mountain brooks met here, and, joining their forces, went with increased speed and gurgle down the glades and gorges. As they sped through this ravine, they slightly overflowed their banks, making a boggy area of about an acre as green as green could be; and here amid the gra.s.s and bushes a number of birds found a pleasant summer home, among them the dainty hummer.

From the snow-drifts, still to be seen in the sheltered gorges of Pike's Peak, the breezes would frequently blow down into the nook with a freshness that stimulated like wine with no danger of intoxicating; and it was no wonder that the white-crowned sparrows, Lincoln's sparrows, the robins and wrens, and several other species, found in this spot a pleasant place to live. One of the narrow valleys led directly up to the base of the ma.s.sive cone of the Peak, its stream fed by the snow-fields shining in the sun. Going around by the valley of Seven Lakes, I had walked down from the summit, but nowhere had I seen the tiny hummer until I reached the green nook just described. Still, he sometimes ascends to an elevation of eleven thousand feet above the level of the sea.

_ONE OF THE SEVEN LAKES_

_PIKE'S PEAK shows dimly in the background, more plainly in the reflection. Viewed from the peak, the lakes sparkle like opaline gems in the sun. The waters are so clear that an inverted world is seen in their transparent depths. The valley is an elysium for many kinds of birds, most of them described in the text. The white-crowned sparrows love the sh.o.r.es of these beautiful lakes, which mirror the blithe forms of the birds. The pine forests of the mountain sides are vocal with the refrains of the hermit thrushes._

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Our feathered dot is gorgeous with his metallic green upper parts, bordered on the tail with purplish black, his white or grayish under parts, and his gorget of purple which gleams in bright, varying tints in the sun. He closely resembles our common ruby-throated humming-bird, whose gorget is intense crimson instead of purple, and who does not venture into the Rocky Mountain region, but dwells exclusively in the eastern part of North America. It is a little strange that the eastern part of our country attracts only one species of the large hummer family, while the western portion, including the Rocky Mountain region, can boast of at least seventeen different kinds as summer residents or visitors.

My attention was first directed to the broad-tailed hummer by seeing him darting about in the air with the swiftness of an arrow, sipping honey from the flower cups, and then flying to the twigs of a dead tree that stood in the marsh. There he sat, turning his head this way and that, and watching me with his keen little eyes. It was plain he did not trust me, and therefore resented my presence. Though an unwelcome guest, I prolonged my call for several hours, during which I made many heroic but vain attempts to find his nest.

But what was the meaning of a sharp, insect-like buzzing that fell at intervals on my ear? Presently I succeeded in tracing the sound to the hummer, which utters it whenever he darts from his perch and back again, especially if there is a spectator or a rival near at hand, for whom he seems in this way to express his contempt. It is a vocal sound, or, at least, it comes from his throat, and is much louder and sharper than the _susurrus_ produced by the rapid movement of his wings. This I ascertain by hearing both the sounds at the same time.

But the oddest prank which this hummer performs is to dart up in the air, and then down, almost striking a bush or a clump of gra.s.s at each descent, repeating this feat a number of times with a swiftness that the eye can scarcely follow. Having done this, he will swing up into the air so far that you can scarcely see him with the naked eye; the next moment he will drop into view, poise in mid-air seventy-five or a hundred feet above your head, supporting himself by a swift motion of the wings, and simply hitching to right and left in short arcs, as if he were fixed on a pivot, sometimes meanwhile whirling clear around. There he hangs on his invisible axis until you grow tired watching him, and then he darts to his favorite perch on the dead tree.

No doubt John Vance Cheney had in mind another species when he composed the following metrical description, but it aptly characterized the volatile broad-tail as well:

"Voyager on golden air, Type of all that's fleet and fair, Incarnate gem, Live diadem, Bird-beam of the summer day,-- Whither on your sunny way?

Stay, forget lost Paradise, Star-bird fallen from happy skies."

After that first meeting the broad-tailed hummers were frequently seen in my rambles among the Rockies. In some places there were small colonies of them. They did not always dwell together in harmony, but often pursued one another like tiny furies, with a loud z-z-z-zip that meant defiance and war. The swiftness of their movements often excited my wonder, and it was difficult to see how they kept from impaling themselves on thorns or snags, so reckless were their lightning-like pa.s.sages through the bushes and trees. When four or five of them were found in one place, they would fairly thread the air with green and purple as they described their circles and loops and festoons with a rapidity that fairly made my head whirl. At one place several of them grew very bold, dashing at me or wheeling around my head, coming so close that I could hear the _susurrus_ of their wings as well as the sharp, challenging buzz from their throats.

Perhaps it would interest you to know where the rambler found these tiny hummers. They were never in the dark canons and gorges, nor in the ravines that were heavily wooded with pine, but in the open, sunshiny glades and valleys, where there were green gra.s.s and bright flowers. In the upper part of both North and South Cheyenne Canons they were plentiful, although they avoided the most scenic parts of these wonderful mountain gorges. Another place where they found a pleasant summer home was in a green pocket of the mountain above Red Cliff, a village on the western side of the great range. On descending the mountains to the town of Glenwood, I did not find them, and therefore am disposed to think that in the breeding season they do not choose to dwell in too low or too high an alt.i.tude, but seek suitable places at an elevation of from seven thousand to nine thousand feet.

_SUMMIT OF PIKE'S PEAK_

_Only a small portion of the peak is shown in the view. The comparatively level area referred to in the text lies back of the signal station on the crest. At a garbage heap near the building a flock of leucostictes were seen, and the writer was told that they came there regularly to feed. From this sublime height the American pipits rise on resilient wings hundreds of feet into the air until they disappear in the cerulean depths of the sky, singing all the while at "heaven's gate."_

[Ill.u.s.tration]

One day, while staying at Buena Vista, Colorado, I hired a saddle-horse and rode to Cottonwood Lake, twelve miles away, among the rugged mountains. The valley is wide enough here to admit of a good deal of sunshine, and therefore flowers studded the ground in places. It was here I saw the only female broad-tailed hummer that was met with in my rambles in the Rockies. She was flitting among the flowers, and did not make the buzzing sound that the males produce wherever found. She was not clad so elegantly as were her masculine relatives, for the throat-patch was white instead of purple, and the green on her back did not gleam so brightly. But, oddly enough, her sides and under tail-coverts were stained with a rufous tint--a color that does not appear at all in the costume of the male.

A curious habit of these hummers is worth describing. The males remain in the breeding haunts until the young are out of the nest and are beginning to be able to shift for themselves. Then the papas begin to disappear, and in about ten days all have gone, leaving the mothers and the youngsters to tarry about the summer home until the latter are strong enough to make the journey to some resort lower in the mountains or farther south. The reason the males do this is perhaps evident enough, for at a certain date the flowers upon whose sweets the birds largely subsist begin to grow scant, and so if they remained there would not be enough for all.

In the San Francisco Mountains of Arizona, Doctor Merriam found the broad-tails very abundant in the balsam timber and the upper part of the pine belt, where they breed in the latter part of July; after which they remain in that region until the middle of September, even though the weather often becomes quite frosty at night. At break of day, in spite of the cold, they will gather in large flocks at some spring to drink and bathe. Doctor Merriam says about them at such times:

"They were like swarms of bees, buzzing about one's head and darting to and fro in every direction. The air was full of them. They would drop down to the water, dip their feet and bellies, and rise and shoot away as if propelled by an unseen power. They would often dart at the face of an intruder as if bent on piercing the eye with their needle-like bills, and then poise for a moment almost within reach before turning, when they were again lost in the busy throng.

Whether this act was prompted by curiosity or resentment I was not able to ascertain."

As has already been said, there is not always unruffled peace in the hummer family. Among the Rocky Mountains, and especially on the western side of the range, there dwells another little hummer called the rufous humming-bird, because the prevailing color of his plumage is reddish, and between this family and the broad-tails there exists a bitter feud.

When, in the migrating season, a large number of both species gather together in a locality where there is a cl.u.s.ter of wild-flowers, the picture they make as they dart to and fro and bicker and fight for some choice blossom, their metallic colors flashing in the sun, is so brilliant as never to be forgotten by the spectator who is fortunate enough to witness it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Pike's Peak in cloudland_"]

OVER THE DIVIDE AND BACK

One June day a Denver & Rio Grande train bore the bird-lover from Colorado Springs to Pueblo, thence westward to the mountains, up the Grand Canon of the Arkansas River, through the Royal Gorge, past the smiling, sunshiny upper mountain valleys, over the Divide at Tennessee Pa.s.s, and then down the western slopes to the next stopping-place, which was Red Cliff, a village nestling in a deep mountain ravine at the junction of Eagle River and Turkey Creek. The following day, a little after "peep o' dawn," I was out on the street, and was impressed by a song coming from the trees on the acclivity above the village. "Surely that is a new song," I said to myself; "and yet it seems to have a familiar air." A few minutes of hard climbing brought me near enough to get my gla.s.s on the little lyrist, and then I found it was only the house-wren! "How could you be led astray by so familiar a song?" you inquire. Well, that is the humiliating part of the incident, for I have been listening to the house-wren's gurgling sonata for some twenty years--rather more than less--and should have recognized it at once; only it must be remembered that I was in a strange place, and had my ears and eyes set for avian rarities, and therefore blundered.[5]

[5] On this incident I quote a personal note from my friend, Mr.

Aiken: "The wren of the Rockies is the western house-wren, but is the same form as that found in the Mississippi Valley. It is quite possible that a difference in song may occur, but I have not noticed any."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Cliff-Swallows_

"_On the rugged face of a cliff_"]

To my surprise, I found many birds on those steep mountain sides, which were quite well timbered. Above the village a colony of cliff-swallows had a nesting place on the rugged face of a cliff, and were soaring about catching insects and attending to the wants of their greedy young.

Besides the species named, I here found warbling vireos, broad-tailed humming-birds, western nighthawks, ruby-crowned kinglets, magpies, summer warblers, mountain chickadees, western wood-pewees, Louisiana tanagers, long-crested jays, kingfishers, gray-headed juncos, red-shafted flickers, pygmy nuthatches, house-finches, mountain jays, and Clarke's nutcrackers. The only species noted here that had not previously been seen east of the Divide was the pygmy nuthatch, a little bird which scales the trunks and branches of trees like all his family, but which is restricted to the Rocky Mountains. Like the white-breasted nuthatch, he utters an alto call, "Yang! yang! yang!" only it is soft and low--a miniature edition of the call of its eastern relative.