Citizen Bird Part 36

"Look, Uncle Roy! Look over in that pasture! What are all those black and brown birds walking round after the cows, just as chickens do?" said Dodo.

"Those are members of the Blackbird family called Cowbirds, because they follow the cows as they feed, in order to pick up worms and bugs that are shaken out of the gra.s.s. But I am sorry to say that these birds are the vagabonds of Birdland--the tramps I told you of."

The Baltimore Oriole

Length seven and a half inches.

Male: orange flame-color, the head, neck, and upper half of back black; wings black, edged with white; tail black and orange, about half and half.

Female: not clear orange and black, but the former color much duller, and the latter mixed up with gray, olive, and brown.

A Summer Citizen of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, north to Canada, travelling to Central America for the winter.

A worthy Citizen, fine musician, and a good neighbor. Belongs to the guilds of Ground Gleaners, Tree Trappers, and Seed Sowers.

THE COWBIRD

(THE TRAMP)

"Cluck-see! cluck-see!" called a Cowbird, flying over the wall to join the others in the pasture.

"What a hoa.r.s.e ugly cry!" said Nat.

"Yes, but not more disagreeable than the bird's habits. I will tell you what happens every season to some poor Warbler, Sparrow, or Vireo, on account of this strange bird.

"A Song Sparrow builds her nest in the gra.s.s; an egg is laid, the bird looks proudly at it, and may perhaps fly off for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, peeping and spying, along comes a Cowbird. She wants to lay an egg, too, but has no home, because she is too lazy and shiftless to build one. She sees the Sparrow's nest and thinks, 'Ah, hah! that bird is smaller than I am, and cannot push my egg out; I will leave it there!' This she does very quickly, and slips away again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cowbird]

"When the Sparrow comes home she may wonder at the strange egg, and perhaps be able to push it out of the nest; but more likely she takes no notice of it, as it is so much like her own, and lets it stay. If she does this, that egg is only the beginning of trouble. It is larger than her own, so it gets more warmth and hatches more quickly. Then the young Cowbird grows so fast that it squeezes the little Sparrows dreadfully, sometimes quite out of the nest, and eats so much that they are half or wholly starved. The poor Sparrow and her mate must sometimes think what a big child it is; but they feed it kindly until it can fly--sometimes even after it leaves the nest. Then it goes back to join the flock its tramp parents belong to, without so much as saying 'thank you' to its foster parents.

"A Cowbird lays only one egg in each nest, but sometimes several visit the same nest in succession; and then the poor Sparrow has a hard time, indeed.

"The Yellow Warbler is one of the clever birds who will not always be imposed upon--you remember the two-storied nest we found; and some of the larger birds push out the strange egg. But Cowbirds are very crafty, and usually select their victims from among the small, feeble, and helpless."

"Does this hateful Cowbird over sing?" asked Dodo.

"Sometimes in spring he tries to; he squeaks a few notes, and makes faces, struggling, choking, wheezing, as if he had swallowed a beetle with hooks on its legs and was in great pain. It is a most startling noise, but it certainly is not musical, though perhaps it pleases the Cowbird ladies; for if they have such bad taste in other ways, they doubtless like such harsh and inharmonious sounds."

"I don't see what makes them act so," said Rap. "I thought birds had to build nests, or have a hole or a bit of ground or rock of their own--that it was a law."

"So it is, my boy; but the Cowbird is one of the exceptions I told you about; and I am glad to say there are very few."

The Cowbird

Length about seven and a half inches.

Male: very glossy black, excepting the head and neck, which are shiny dark brown like burnt coffee.

Female: dusky brown, the lower parts lighter than the upper.

A Citizen of the entire United States.

A Ground Gleaner and a Weed Warrior, to some extent, but a bad neighbor, a worse parent, a homeless vagabond, and an outlaw in Birdland.

ON AGAIN

The road crept down hill, pa.s.sed through a village, and then into the woods once more. The children saw a great many bird friends--Swallows, Goldfinches, a beautiful Blue Jay, which was new to them, and some Yellow Warblers. They stopped for half an hour in the wooded lane, where a Chat whistled to them, a Scarlet Tanager flew hastily overhead, and the Doctor showed them a Towhee rambling among the leaves, while a little brownish bird kept flitting into the air and back to his perch, calling "pewee--pe-a-r!" in a sad voice.

"What's that?" asked Rap; "it's a bird I often see near the mill, catching flies on the wing."

"It is called the Wood Pewee," said the Doctor; "when we come back this afternoon we will stop, and I will try to find its nest to show you. We must go on now." As soon as they drove out of the wood, the smell of the salt marsh came to them, and they saw that the road led between low meadows, with wooded knolls here and there. By and by the trees grew thinner and the gra.s.s coa.r.s.er.

"Oh, I see the water!" cried Dodo, "and the little house where we are going! Oh, look at the black birds flying over those bushes! Are those Cowbirds too? And there are more black birds, very big ones too, going over to the water, and more yet coming out of those stumpy little pines, and there are some yellow pigeons down in the gra.s.s! Do stop quick, Olive! I think there is going to be a bird clambake or a picnic down here!" And Dodo nearly fell out of the surrey in her excitement.

"Not exactly a picnic," said the Doctor, "but what I have brought you purposely to see. The birds flying over the alders are Red-winged Blackbirds; those coming from the pines are Purple Grackles; the big black ones flying overhead are Crows; and the yellow-breasted fellows walking in the gra.s.s are Meadowlarks. We must first make the horses comfortable, and then we can spend the day with the birds among these marshes and meadows."

When they reached the beach the wagon track led through a hedge of barberry bushes to a shed covered with pine boughs at the back of the fisherman's house.

The fisherman himself came out to help them with the horses. He was a Finlander, Olaf Neilsen, who kept boats in summer, fished, and tended two buoy lights at the river entrance for a living. His hut stood on a point, with the sandy beach of the bay in front of it, and the steeper bank where the river ran on the left. All the time the water was rushing out, out, out of the river and creeping down on the sand to make low tide.

The children did not know it then, but they were to spend many happy days on this beach, in company with their uncle and Olaf, during the next two years.

The Doctor whispered something mysterious to Olaf about clams, hoes, and "dead low water"; then he told the children to rest awhile under the pine shelter, and hear about the Blackbirds before they went out to see them in the meadows.

THE RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD

(THE HUSSAR)

"This handsome Blackbird comes early and stays late in places where he does not linger all the year. He loves wet places, and his note is moist and juicy, to match his nesting haunts. 'Oncher-la-ree!' he calls, either in flying or as he walks along the ground after the fashion of his brethren--for Blackbirds never hop, like most birds, with both feet together, but move one after the other, just as we do.

"The Redwings are sociable birds, nesting in small colonies, and when once settled they never seem to stray far from home. The nest is a thick pocket hung either between reeds over the water, or fixed to the upright stems of a bush, quite near the ground, if the place is very marshy.

"The Redwings place their nests where it would seem very easy to reach them; but really the bushes are either surrounded by a little creek, hidden deep in the reeds, or the ground is so marshy that neither man nor beast can come near. That is the one reason why the males fly about so boldly, showing their glossy uniforms with the red and gold epaulets.

When we try to visit that group of alders, where the colony lives, you will see for yourselves how nicely it is protected.

"We welcome this Blackbird in the spring, because his is one of the earliest bird-notes. In autumn, when he leaves the marsh and brings his flock to the grain-fields, we do not like him quite so well; but the Wise Men say that even then he is a good fairy in disguise, eating cutworms, army-worms, and other injurious kinds; even when stealing a bit of green corn, they think he clears away the worms that bore under the husks."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Red-winged Blackbird.]

The Red-winged Blackbird