Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual Part 8

And up the east another day Shall chase the bitter dark away, What though our eyes with tears be wet?

The sunrise never failed us yet.

The blush of dawn may yet restore Our light and hope and joys once more.

Sad soul, take comfort, nor forget That sunrise never failed us yet.

--_Celia Thaxter._

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEW WASHINGTON, CRAWFORD COUNTY, HIGH SCHOOL.]

WHO-OO-

I wonder if you have ever heard Of the queer, little, dismal Whiney-bird, As black as a crow, as glum as an owl-- A most peculiar kind of a fowl?

He is oftenest seen on rainy days, When children are barred from outdoor plays; When the weather is bright and the warm sun shines, Then he flies far away to the gloomy pines, Dreary-looking, indeed, is his old black cloak, And his whiney cry makes the whole house blue-- "There's nothing to do-oo! there's nothing to do-oo!"

Did you ever meet this doleful bird?

He's found where the children are, I've heard, Now, who can he be? It can't be you.

But who is the Whiney-bird? Who-oo? Who-oo?

--_Jean Halifax in St. Nicholas._

THE BLUEBIRD.

BY MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT.

The National a.s.sociation of Audubon Societies Educational Leaflet No.

24.

Who dares write of the Bluebird, thinking to add a fresher tint to his plumage, a new tone to his melodious voice, or a word of praise to his gentle life, that is as much a part of our human heritage and blended with our memories as any other attribute of home?

Not I, surely, for I know him too well and each year feel myself more spellbound and mute by the memories he awakens. Yet I would repeat his brief biography, lest there be any who, being absorbed by living inward, have not yet looked outward and upward to this poet of the sky and earth and the fullness and goodness thereof.

[Sidenote: The Bluebird's Country.]

For the Bluebird was the first of all poets,--even before man had blazed a trail in the wilderness or set up the sign of his habitation and tamed his thoughts to wear harness and travel to measure. And so he came to inherit the earth before man, and this, our country, is all The Bluebird's County, for at some time of the year he roves about it from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Mexico to Nova Scotia, though westward, after he pa.s.ses the range of the Rocky Mountains, he wears a different dress and bears other longer names.

[Sidenote: The Bluebird's Travels.]

In spite of the fact that our eastern Bluebird is a home-body, loving his nesting haunt and returning to it year after year, he is an adventurous traveler. Ranging all over the eastern United States at some time in the season, this bird has its nesting haunts at the very edge of the Gulf States and upward, as far north as Manitoba and Nova Scotia.

When the breeding season is over, the birds travel sometimes in family groups and sometimes in large flocks, moving southward little by little, according to season and food-supply, some journeying as far as Mexico, others lingering through the middle and southern states. The Bluebirds that live in our orchards in summer are very unlikely to be those that we see in the same place in winter days. Next to the breeding impulse, the migrating instinct seems to be the strongest factor of bird life. When the life of the home is over, Nature whispers, "To wing, up and on!" So a few of the Bluebirds who have nested in Ma.s.sachusetts may be those who linger in New Jersey, while those whose breeding haunts were in Nova Scotia, drift downward to fill their places in Ma.s.sachusetts. But the great ma.s.s of even those birds we call winter residents go to the more southern parts of their range every winter, those who do not being but a handful in comparison.

"What does this great downward journey of autumn mean?" you ask. What is the necessity for migration among a cla.s.s of birds that are able to find food in fully half of the annual range? Why do birds seek extremes for nesting sites? This is a question about which the wise men have many theories, but they are still groping. One theory is that once the whole country had a more even climate and that many species of birds lived all the year in places that are now unsuitable for a permanent residence. Therefore, the home instinct being so strong, though they were driven from their nesting sites by scarcity of food and stress of weather, their instinct led them back as soon as the return of spring made it possible.

Thus the hereditary love of the place where they were given life may underlie the great subject of migration in general and that of the Bluebird's home in particular.

[Sidenote: The Bluebird at Home.]

Before more than the first notes of spring song have sounded in the distance, Bluebirds are to be seen by twos and threes about the edge of old orchards along open roads, where the skirting trees have crumbled or decaying knot-holes have left tempting nooks for the tree-trunk birds, with whom the Bluebird may be cla.s.sed. For, though he takes kindly to a bird-box, or a convenient hole in a fencepost, telegraph pole or outbuilding, a tree hole must have been his first home and consequently he has a strong feeling in its favor.

As with many other species of migrant birds, the male is the first to arrive; and he does not seem to be particularly interested in house-hunting until the arrival of the female, when the courtship begins without delay, and the delicate purling song with the refrain, "Dear, dear, think of it, think of it," and the low, two-syllabled answer of the female is heard in every orchard. The building of the nest is not an important function,--merely gathering of a few wisps and straws, with some chance feathers for lining. It seems to be shared by both parents, as are the duties of hatching and feeding the young. The eggs vary in number, six being the maximum, and they are not especially attractive, being of so pale a blue that it is better to call them a bluish white. Two broods are usually raised each year, though three are said to be not uncommon; for Bluebirds are active during a long season, and, while the first nest is made before the middle of April, last year a brood left the box over my rose arbor September 12, though I do not know whether this was a belated or a prolonged family arrangement.

As parents the Bluebirds are tireless, both in supplying the nest with insect food and attending to its sanitation; the wastage being taken away and dropped at a distance from the nest at almost unbelievable short intervals, proving the wonderful rapidity of digestion and the immense amount of labor required to supply the mill inside the little speckled throats with grist.

The young Bluebirds are spotted thickly on throat and back, after the manner of the throat of their cousin, the Robin, or, rather, the back feathers are spotted, the breast feathers having dusky edges, giving a speckled effect.

The study of the graduations of plumage of almost any brightly colored male bird from its first clothing until the perfectly matured feather of its breeding season, is in itself, a science and a subject about which there are many theories and differences of opinion by equally distinguished men.

[Sidenote: The Food of the Bluebird.]

The food of the nestling Bluebird is insectivorous, or, rather to be more exact, I should say animal; but the adult birds vary their diet at all seasons by eating berries and small fruits. In autumn and early winter, cedar and honeysuckle berries, the grape-like cl.u.s.ter of fruit of the poison ivy, bittersweet and catbrier berries are all consumed according to their needs.

Professor Beal, of the Department of Agriculture, writes, after a prolonged study, that 76 per cent. of the Bluebird's food "consists of insects and their allies, while the other 24 per cent. is made up of various vegetable substances, found mostly in stomachs taken in winter.

Beetles const.i.tute 28 per cent. of the whole food, gra.s.shoppers 22, caterpillars 11, and various insects, including quite a number of spiders, comprise the remainder of the insect diet. All these are more or less harmful, except a few predaceous beetles, which amount to 8 per cent., but in view of the large consumption of gra.s.shoppers and caterpillars, we can at least condone this offense, if such it may be called. The destruction of gra.s.shoppers is very noticeable in the months of August and September, when these insects form more than 60 per cent. of the diet."

It is not easy to tempt Bluebirds to an artificial feeding-place, such as I keep supplied with food for Juncos, Chickadees, Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, Nuthatches, Jays, etc.; though in winter they will eat dried currants and make their own selection from mill sweepings if scattered about the trees of their haunts. For, above all things, the Bluebird, though friendly and seeking the borderland between the wild and the tame, never becomes familiar, and never does he lose the half-remote individuality that is one of his great charms. Though he lives with us and gives no sign of pride of birth or race, he is not of us, as the Song Sparrow, Chippy or even the easily alarmed Robin. The poet's mantle envelopes him even as the apple blossoms throw a rosy mist about his doorway, and it is best so.

THE BLUEBIRDS.

1. EASTERN BLUEBIRD (SIALIA SIALIS).

_Adult male._--Length 7 inches. Upper parts, wings and tail bright blue; breast and sides rusty, reddish brown, belly white. Adult female.--Similar to the male, but upper parts except the upper tail coverts, duller, gray or brownish blue, the breast and sides paler.

Nestling.--Wings and tail essentially like those of adult, upper parts dark sooty brown, the back spotted with whitish; below, whitish, but the feathers of the breast and sides widely margined with brown, producing a spotted appearance. This plumage is soon followed by the fall or winter plumage, in which the blue feathers of the back are fringed with rusty, and young and old birds are then alike in color.

_Range._--Eastern United States west to the Rocky Mountains; nests from the Gulf States to Manitoba and Nova Scotia; winters from southern New England southward.

1a. AZURE BLUEBIRD (SIALIA SIALIS AZUREA).

Similar to the Eastern Bluebird, but breast paler, upper parts lighter, more cerulean blue.

_Range._--Mountains of eastern Mexico north to southern Arizona.

2. WESTERN BLUEBIRD (SIALIA MEXICANA OCCIDENTALIS).

_Adult male._--Above deep blue, the foreback in part chestnut; throat blue, breast and sides chestnut, the belly bluish grayish.