Our Bird Comrades Part 7

Indeed, the range of this species is more southerly than that of their congeners, the Baltimore orioles. In their proper lat.i.tude no birds, or at least few of them, are more lavish of their melody than the orchard orioles. What a ringing voice the oriole possesses! His song has a saucy note of challenge running through it, and also a human intonation that makes it rarely attractive. All day long the male sings his cheery solos, scarcely pausing for breath or food, now sitting on the topmost twig of a dead apple tree in the orchard, now amid the screening foliage of a maple in the yard, and anon on the other side of the street in a stately cottonwood. But where is that modest little personage, his wife? She is seldom heard, and almost as seldom seen. It is really remarkable--her gift of concealment. When she builds her nest is a mystery. It is often so deftly hidden that you would not be likely to find it in a long hunt. In the spring of 1898 a pair of orchard orioles took up their residence in the trees about my house, the male singing his brisk overtures, the female seen only at flitting intervals and never heard. Watch as I would, I could not surprise her laying the timbers of her cottage, which I felt sure was being built somewhere in the trees. Indeed, I did not discover it until autumn came, long after the orioles, old and young, had taken flight to a balmier clime, and the trees were stripped of their leaves, when, lo! it appeared in plain view on one of the trees on the opposite side of the street, the very place where I had not thought of looking for it.

The Baltimore orioles as a rule are not so secretive; yet during the summer of 1898 a pair of these firebirds led me a fruitless chase.

Their secret was not divulged until the leaves had fallen the next autumn, when there the nest hung in the midst of a tall cottonwood in my back yard close to the house. Lord Baltimore and his mate usually suspend their nests on the outer branches of the trees, where they are not hard to discover, but this pair did not follow the common formula, for the nest was placed in the thickest part of the foliage, so that it was impossible to see it from the ground until the branches were bare.

Of all the malaperts of birddom none excel and few equal the white-eyed vireo for volubility and downright audacity. All his songs--and he has quite a respectable list of them--seem to be either a protest or a challenge; a protest against your intrusion into his precincts, a challenge to find him and his nest if you can. Again and again in Kansas I crept into their bushy coverts just for the purpose of receiving a sound scolding. Such a berating did they give me, telling me of all my faults and foibles, that I certainly ought to remain humble all the rest of my days. A half dozen viragoes could not have done better--that is, worse. They would flit about in the bushes above my head, their little white eyes gleaming with fire, and call me all the names they could lay their tongues to. I wonder whether the white-eyes have a dictionary of epithets. Nature has done an odd thing in making the white-eyed vireo.

Their nests are not easy to find, although they do not always make a great deal of effort at concealment. Like all the vireo tribe, they suspend their tiny baskets from the fork or crotch of a horizontal twig. The nest is somewhat bulkier than the compact little cup of the red-eyed vireo, and is apt to be more carefully concealed in the foliage, although I have found more than one nest that was hung in plain sight. I remember one in particular. It was dangling from the outer twigs of a small bush by the side of the woodland path which I was pursuing. In fact, it could be distinctly seen from the path. In spite of the mother's pleadings, protests, and objurgations, I stepped over to inspect her pendant domicile, whose holdings were four baby white-eyes, their eyelids still glued together. As the twigs stirred, they opened their mouths for food, and I decided to accommodate them.

Taking a bit of cracker from my haversack, I moistened it, and rolled it into a pellet between my finger and thumb; then, gently swaying the bushes, I induced the bantlings to open their mouths, when I dropped the morsel into one of the tiny throats. You ought to have seen the wry face baby made as it gulped down the new kind of food, which had such an odd taste. It was plain that the callow nestling was able to distinguish this morsel from the palatable diet it had been accustomed to. Possibly it suffered from a temporary fit of indigestion, but no permanent harm was done by my experiment, for when I called on them again a few days later, the birdkins four were safe and well, their eyes open, and their instincts sufficiently developed to cause them to cuddle low in their basket instead of opening their mouths.

[Ill.u.s.tration: White-eyed Vireo]

The rambler who would hear a real outdoor concert should rise early, swallow a few bits of cracker and a cup of coffee, and seek some bird-haunted hollow or woodland just as day begins to break. One morning I pursued this plan, and was more than compensated for the loss of an hour or two of sleep. Just as the east began to blush I found myself in a favorite wooded hollow.

What a _potpourri_ of bird song greeted my ear! How many choralists took part in the matutinal concert I cannot say, but there were scores of them. The volume of song would sometimes swell to a full-toned orchestra, and then for a few moments it would sink almost to a lull, all of it like the flow and ebb of the tides of a sea of melody. It was interesting to note how several voices would sometimes run into a chime when they struck the same chord.

Let me call the roll of the members of that feathered choir. First, and most gifted of all, were a couple of brown thrashers, whose tones were as strong and sweet as those of a silver cornet, making the echoes ring across the hollow. I have listened to many a thrasher song in the North, the South, and the West, but have never heard a voice of better timbre than that of one of the tawny vocalists singing that morning, as he sat on the topmost twig of an oak tree and flung out his medley upon the morning air. It is wonderful, anyway, with what an ecstasy the thrasher will sometimes sing. Nothing could be plainer than that he sings for the pure pleasure of it--an artist deeply in love with his art.

Falling a little behind the thrashers in vocal power and technical execution were the catbirds, which sent up their cavatinas from the bushes in the hollow. Their voices lacked the volume and strength of their rivals, yet some of their strains were truly the quintessence of sweetness.

Conspicuous members of the early chorus were the wood thrushes, a dozen or more of which were often singing at the same time. From every part of the woods their peals arose. Of course, there was no attempt--at least, so far as I could discover--to sing in concert, but each minstrel followed his own sweet will, and so the combined result was not what you would call a harmony, but a medley, albeit a very pleasing one. If the wood thrush's execution were less labored, he would certainly be a marvelous songster, and even as it is, he furnishes unending delight to those whose ears are trained to appreciate avian minstrelsy.

Two or three rose-breasted grossbeaks piped their liquid, childlike arias; towhees, at least a half-dozen of them, flung forth their loud, explosive trills that have a real musical quality; several cardinals whistled as if they meant to drown out all the other voices; scarlet and summer tanagers drawled their good-natured tunes, while their rich robes gleamed in the level rays of the rising sun; running like silver threads through all the other music, could be heard the fine trills of the field sparrows; the swinging chant of the creeping warblers and the loud rattle of the Tennessee warblers ran high up in the scale, furnishing a gossamer tenor; that golden optimist, the Baltimore oriole, piped his cheery recitative in the tops of the trees; chickadees supplied the minor strains and tufted t.i.tmice the alto; four or five turtle doves soothed the ear with their meditative cooing; while the calls and songs of numerous jays and a few yellow-breasted chats made a kind of trombone accompaniment. Surely it is worth one's while to hie early to the haunts of the birds to hear such a tumult of song.

One spring I made up my mind to make a closer study than ever of the dainty creeping warbler, wishing to know just how he contrives to scuttle up and down the boles and branches of the trees with so much ease and grace. He is the only warbler we have in eastern North America that makes a habit of scaling the tree trunks and descending them head downward. How does he do this? The muscles of his legs and pelvis are as elastic as India rubber, so that he can twist and twirl about in a marvelous way, pointing his head one moment to the east and the next, without losing his hold, in the opposite direction. He is able to swing himself around almost as if he were hung on a pivot.

But how does he hold himself on his s.h.a.ggy wall as he hitches head downward? Just as the nuthatch does--not by keeping both feet directly under him, as most people suppose, but by thrusting one foot slightly forward and the other outward and backward, thus preserving his balance at the same time that he holds himself firmly with his sharp little claws to his upright wall. Some of the pictures of the creeper seen in the books are not quite true to creeper methods of clinging and locomotion, for they represent him as stuck to the bark of a tree trunk with both feet invisible, presumably held directly under his striped breast. In the real position it is likely that one or both feet could be seen, the one thrust forward and the other flung back and to one side. At least one foot would be visible, whatever the angle at which the bird would be inspected, and from many points of view both of his tiny feet may be plainly seen in the position described.

Our little striped friend, usually called in the books the black-and-white warbler, is not, after all, so expert a creeper as is the nuthatch, which may be called the arboreal skater _par excellence_.

The warbler does not go scuttling straight down a vertical bole or branch as the nuthatch does, but swings his lithe body from side to side, as if he did not loosen the hold of both feet simultaneously but alternately. Besides, both in ascending and descending he must have more frequent recourse to his wings to tide him over the difficult places. While the nuthatch can glide over the smoothest and hardest bark, and even descend the wall of a brick house, his sharp claws taking a firm grip on the edges of the bricks, the warbler is not quite so much of a gymnast, for when he strikes a difficult spot in his promenade ground, he flies or flits over it to the next protuberance which his claws can hold. He has a decided advantage, however, over all his warbler kin, for he is not only gifted with the creeping talent, but is also just as dexterous as they in perching on a horizontal twig.

The little bird known as the brown creeper belongs to a different avicular family entirely, but in one respect he is like the black-and-white warbler--that is, he scales the trunks and branches of the trees. There, however, the resemblance ceases, for the creeper rarely goes head downward, evidently thinking that the proper position for a bird's head is pointing toward the sky, not toward the ground.

Besides, he seldom, if ever, sits crosswise on a perch; no, he is an inveterate creeper. My study of him proves that he does not hold his feet directly under his breast, but spreads them out well toward either side, knowing instinctively how to make a broad enough base to enable him to preserve his center of gravity.

Like the woodp.e.c.k.e.r, he uses his stiff tail as a brace; nor does he go zigzagging up his wall after the manner of the creeping warbler, but hitches along in a direct line--unless, of course, a tidbit attracts him to one side--proving that he is a true creeper, one to the manner born. However, the warbler has one advantage--he is able to perch with perfect security on a twig, an accomplishment that has not yet been attained by his little brown cousin. How cunningly the creeper peeps into the crannies of the bark as he plies his trade, thrusts his long, curved beak into the tiny holes and crevices, and draws out a worm or a grub, which the next moment goes twinkling down his throat! His economic value to the farmer and the fruit grower cannot be estimated, and he should never be destroyed.

The conduct of different birds is not alike upon their arrival from the South at their summer nesting haunts in our more northern lat.i.tudes; some heralding their advent with jubilant song as if in greeting to the familiar scenes, while others are silent and wary. The first I knew of the Baltimore and orchard orioles last spring, they were singing blithely in the trees about the house; but the brown thrashers flitted about slyly and silently for a few days, apparently to make sure that the coast was clear of danger; having done which, they burst into their dithyrambs with a will. Out in the woodland the gorgeous scarlet tanager announced his arrival one morning with a lively sonnet, which was heard long before the singer was seen; whereas his cousin, the summer tanager, uttered only his quaint alarm-call, "Chip-burn, chip-burn," and was excessively shy, dashing wildly away as I approached, unwilling to vouchsafe a wisp of song. Once he even pounced angrily upon his black-winged relative and drove him to the other side of the hollow, precisely as if he meant to say, "Your singing is out of place, sir, and dangerous, too! Don't you know that the man prowling about yonder will shoot little birds who betray their presence by singing?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Baltimore Oriole]

One of our most lavish singers all summer long is the indigo bunting; yet when he first came back from the South he was very shy, and his voice seemed to be out of tune, so that, even when he tried to sing, which was seldom, his effort sounded like the creaking of a rusty door-hinge. Afterwards, however, when he got the cobwebs out of his larynx, he made up for all his previous silence. Quite different is the habit of the towhee, which announces his presence by his loud, explosive trill--all too brief--or his complaining "chewing."

Sometimes the rambler and bird gazer meets with other than avian "specimens" in his excursions. One evening I was loitering in a distant hollow, ogling with my field gla.s.s several lark sparrows that were flitting about on the ground in an adjacent patch of some kind.

The birds were singing as only these beautiful sparrows can, and the quiet of the evening lent an idyllic charm to their rich and varied chansons. On the other side of a small stream stood a shanty, in the door of which sat an old negro woman. In looking at the birds, I sometimes turned the gla.s.s toward the shanty, although too intent on my studies to notice it. Presently the woman could no longer endure my apparent espionage, and so she said: "Go 'bout yer own business, mister, 'n' don' ye be spyin' inter my house!"

TROUBLE AMONG THE BIRDS*

*The larger part of this chapter was first published in "The Christian Endeavor World," Boston; the rest of it in "Our Animal Friends," New York. I reprint it here by permission of both these journals.

Even at the risk of causing a feeling of dejection on the reader's part, I am going to put one "trouble" chapter into this volume. There are trials in the birds' domain, and perhaps you and I will feel more sympathy with them, and will be led to protect them all the more carefully, if we know something about the "deep waters of affliction"

through which they are sometimes compelled to pa.s.s. Our native American birds, at least some of them, suffer a good deal at the hands, so to speak, of the pestiferous English sparrows, which were introduced into this country by some egregious blunder.

There can be no doubt that the English sparrows are regular bullies.

They do not fight other birds so much as they hector them, making life intolerable by their ribaldry, coa.r.s.e jests, and prying manners. Some birds, especially many of our beautiful native species, are sensitively organized, and cannot endure such boorish society as the badly bred foreigners furnish. That as much as anything has driven our genteel bluebirds away from our homes into the woods and other out-of-the-way places. How would you feel, my friend, if, as you were going along the street, a lot of hoodlums should take to gibing and hooting at you?

Were there ever such pesky, ill-mannered citizens as the English sparrows? Here comes a downy woodp.e.c.k.e.r, or a cardinal, or a rose-breasted grosbeak to town, flitting about the trees of my yard, gathering goodies among the leaves and twigs, and perhaps piping a little aria at intervals, congratulating himself on having found a pleasant, quiet place, when, lo! a gang of English sparrows crowd around him, peering at him now with one eye, now with the other, canting their heads in their impertinent way, bowing and sc.r.a.ping and blinking, and for all the world seeming to make such derisive remarks as, "Oh, what a fine fellow! Quite stuck-up, ain't he? Isn't that a stylish topknot, though? He! he! he! Look! he wears a rose on his shirt bosom! Isn't he a dandy? Ge! ge! gah! gah!" By and by the visitor can stand the racket and the mockery no longer; and so he steals away, resolved never again to go to that place to be insulted.

I have repeatedly been witness of just such occurrences.

Early in the spring a robin began to build her nest in the middle story of one of my maple trees. The whole process was narrowly watched by the noisy, hectoring sparrows. They gathered about her, prying and bobbing and jostling and chirping, staring at her like a lot of b.u.mpkins when she leaped into the half-finished cup and molded her building material with her ruddy bosom. They seemed to be saying jeeringly: "Isn't that a funny way for a bird to build a house? Hay!

hay! hay!" The robin forsook her nest; and the sparrows borrowed her timbers for their own nest, and forgot to bring them back again.

Just a moment ago a couple of young red-headed woodp.e.c.k.e.rs and their parents visited the trees of my yard, making a lively din, for the youngsters were calling for their supper. Then the sparrows crowded about them, called and jested, followed them from tree to tree, never stopping their persecutions until the red-headed family flew off in disgust.

In a Kansas town one March day, as I was returning to the house in which I was lodging, my attention was attracted to a black-capped chickadee, which was flitting about and calling in an agitated way in one of the trees. Two English sparrows, a c.o.c.k and his mate, were responsible for the little bird's perturbation. What were they doing?

Something rude, as usual. Perched on a couple of twigs, they were bending over, stretching out their necks and peering into a small hole in one of the larger branches. The male was especially offensive, standing there and staring into the cavity, and making insolent remarks.

A good-sized club, hurled by myself, sent the sparrows to other parts.

Then I hurried into the house and sat by the curtained window to watch.

With much ado, the little black-cap flew over to the limb with the cavity. He flitted about a few moments, then darted to the opening and looked in, chirping in a rea.s.suring tone, as much as to say, "The ruffians are gone now; you can come out."

And out of the doorway flew his pretty wife, while he slipped in to see that all was safe. You see, the ill-bred sparrows had been glaring at the little madam as she sat on her nest, which was a piece of impertinence that no self-respecting bird could endure with equanimity.

The English sparrows are not the only birds that disturb the harmony of the bird realm. Offenders must needs come there as well as in the human sphere. A friend who is entirely trustworthy tells me the following story. He and his wife were driving along a country road, when their attention was directed to a kingbird in hot pursuit of a red-headed woodp.e.c.k.e.r, which had evidently been poaching on the first-named bird's preserves. Being an expert flyer, the kingbird had almost overtaken the fugitive, when suddenly the red-head wheeled to one side, flung himself somehow or other over a telegraph wire, turning at the same time and catching with his claws at the wire, where he clung, his body bent in an arc, holding his enemy at bay with his long, pointed beak and spiny tail. Of course, the martin could not attack him in that position, as he could not afford to run the risk of being impaled on the red-head's spear.

Nor was that all. The martin sailed a short distance away, and the woodp.e.c.k.e.r thought it safe to take to wing again. The kingbird again started in swift pursuit, filling the air with his loud chirping, sure of his game this time; but he was balked, as before, by the red-head's sudden dash to the telegraph wire. This little comedy was repeated several times while my friends watched with surprise and amus.e.m.e.nt.

There is tragedy as well as comedy in the world of feathers. Ernest Thompson Seton's graphic animal stories would leave a pleasanter taste in the mouth if they ended less tragically, but they would not be so true to life as it is in the faunal realm. It must be true that the lives of most birds and animals end in tragedy, so numerous, alert, and persistent are their foes. As soon as a bird begins to grow old and infirm, losing its keenness of vision and its swiftness of movement, it cannot help falling a prey to its rapacious enemies. For this reason you seldom find a feeble animal or bird in the open, or one that has lain down and died a natural death.

However, strange as it may seem, I have found the corpses of several birds in the wild outdoors. At an abandoned limestone quarry one spring I discovered the nest of a pair of phoebes. I called at the pretty domicile a number of times in my rambles. It was set on a shelf of one stratum of rock, and roofed over by another. One day I noticed the little dame sitting quietly in her cup, and decided to go near; just why, I cannot tell. She did not move as I approached; she did not even turn her head to look at me. It was strange. I went right up to the nest, and yet she did not fly. Stretching out my hand, I found that she was dead, her unhatched eggs still under her cold and pulseless bosom.

I could have wept for my little friends. There was nothing to indicate the cause of the tragedy, no disturbance of the nest, no marks of violence on her body. Possibly she had eaten or drunk poison; perhaps she had received a fatal blow from an enemy, and had just had strength enough left to come home to die. Her mate was gone. He was doubtless unable to bear the ghastly sight of his dead companion on her nest.

A little field sparrow came to a tragical end in a different way. I found his body dangling among the bushes on a bank. Two small but tough grapevine twigs growing out horizontally and close together formed a very acute angle, and this was the trap in which the innocent bird was caught. In some way one of his legs had slipped between the branches, the angle of which became more acute, of course, toward the apex. Thus the more he struggled the more tightly his tarsus became wedged in the trap, the foot preventing it from slipping through. To think of pushing his leg backward, and so releasing himself, was beyond the poor bird's cerebral power; so he fluttered until exhausted, then dangled there to die of starvation. The place being very secluded, no predatory beast or fowl had found the little corpse.

If there were only some way of protecting the nests of our beautiful and useful birds of the wildwood, what a boon it would be to men and fowls! So many nests come to grief that one wonders sometimes that any brood is ever reared. During a recent spring, with exhausting toil and patience, I found the nests of several shy woodland birds--the Kentucky, the hooded, and the creeping warblers--all of them real discoveries for me. I promised myself a rare treat in watching the development of the nurslings from babyhood to youth. Alas! all the nests were robbed, those of the Kentucky and hooded warblers of their young, and that of the creeping warbler of its eggs. I trust I am not naturally vindictive; but had I the brigands in my power who despoiled those nests, I certainly should wring their necks.

Our small birds must ever be on the _qui vive_. Danger is always lurking near, as a few concrete cases will show. Brush was thrown into a certain hollow well known to the writer, and one of the steep hillsides was covered with timber of a medium-sized growth. One day I was listening to a concert given by a company of towhees and cardinals, which were sitting in the trees at the lower border of the woodland. A flock of cedar waxwings were also "tseeming" in the top of a tree, darting out at intervals into the air for insects. Suddenly every song ceased, and the whole company dashed down, pellmell, hurry-skurry, into the thick brush heaps of the hollow. At the same moment, or perhaps a moment later--it all occurred so quickly I could not be exact--a covey of juncos hurled themselves with reckless swiftness into the brush pile, followed by a sparrow hawk, which uttered a queer, uncanny call that meant death to any little bird that should be overtaken.

He flung himself through a network of branches and twigs and lightly struck the ground below, his wings partly opening as he lit, to break the force of the concussion. He had dashed directly over my head.

Before I could collect my wits he gathered himself together, wormed his way out through the branches in some way, and darted off up the opposite slope. He had failed to secure his prize, but it was wonderful how so large a bird could slip through the network of branches and extricate himself without striking a quill against a twig.

The extreme watchfulness of the small birds cannot fail to excite wonder in the mind of the observer. In the case just referred to not one of the birds was taken unaware, although some of them were singing gaily, and others were busy feeding. Never for a moment do the birds become so absorbed in their eating or work or play as to forget that a foe may be lurking near. One cannot help wondering how they can be happy. Suppose we were compelled to be incessantly on the lookout for danger, should we ever have a moment of peace or joy?

A red-breasted woodp.e.c.k.e.r was chiseling out a nursery in a tall sycamore at the border of a woodland. At some distance, far enough away not to alarm her, I watched the dame at her work. This was her method of procedure, hour by hour: She would plunge head first into the hole, only her barred tail being visible, give three or four vigorous dabs with her bill, then emerge and look around in every direction for danger; seeing none, into the cavity her crimson-crowned head would again disappear, only to emerge again a second later. Not for a moment did she dare to relax her vigilance. Had she done so, in that fatal moment a hawk might have swooped upon her and crushed her in his merciless talons.

Yet some birds will take not a little risk, depending on their quickness of eye and nimbleness of wing to escape their predatory foes.