Our Bird Comrades Part 6

It was not very long before a tree sparrow perpetrated another surprise, proving that this species is not without character, as indeed no species is. He leaped to the bole of a sapling, clinging there a few moments like a chickadee or a wren, while he pecked an appetizing morsel from the bark; then he dropped down to the snow for a brief breathing spell, after which he sprang up again to the sapling for a few more bits, repeating the little performance a number of times.

In the same part of the woods a company of chickadees was flitting about in the trees, plunging into the little s...o...b..nks on the twigs, sometimes standing in them up to their white bosoms, and often brus.h.i.+ng a segment to the ground, thus making numerous breaches in the white drifts. The racket they made with their scolding and piping might have been called a musical din. Deciding to watch them a while, I flung myself down upon the snow. This act was the signal for a precious to-do among the nervous little potherers. Did any one ever hear or read of such a performance in all the annals of birdland? What in the world did it mean--a man lying flat on the ground out there in the woods? I was highly amused at the hurly-burly, and decided to add still more variety to it. Suddenly I sprang to my feet with a shout.

Several of the birds dropped, as if shot, into a thorn bush below them, where they set up a hubbub that would have made on old-time Puritan laugh, even at the risk of being censured for levity. By and by they quieted down, and one of them began to whistle his pretty minor tune with as much serenity as if he had never been excited in his life. My winter outing proved that the Frost King and the hardy birds often go cheek by jowl, as if they were on terms of the most cordial fraternity.

ODDS AND ENDS

The ornithologist is always interested in noting how the conduct of birds of the same species differs and agrees in different localities.

In a previous chapter some of the differences between the avifauna of Ohio and Kansas have been described, but a good deal still remains to be said, teaching more than one lesson in comparative ornithology.

At the beginning of my studies in the Sunflower state the song sparrows proposed an enigma for my solution, whether wittingly or unwittingly, I know not. In Ohio they were the most lavish singers in the outdoor chorus, chanting their sweet lays every month in the year, summer or winter; indeed, their most vigorous recitals were often given in February and March, when there was dearth of other bird music.

But what about the song sparrows of Kansas? The first winter and spring pa.s.sed, and yet my numerous rambles in their haunts did not bring to my waiting ear one first-cla.s.s song sparrow concert. A few feeble, half-hearted wisps of melody on days that were especially mild were the only vocal performances they vouchsafed. To put it bluntly and truthfully, I never, during my residence of five and a half years in Kansas, heard a first-rate song sparrow trill. Nor is that all. In the Buckeye state these birds were disposed to be sociable, often selecting their dwellings near our suburban homes, visiting our dooryards, singing their blithe roundels on the ridge of the barn roof or a post of the garden fence. Not only so, but their songs were often heard in some of the princ.i.p.al streets of towns where trees were abundant.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Song Sparrow]

Quite otherwise was the conduct of their western cousins, which seldom came to town or even near a human residence in the country, but kept themselves ensconced in the matted copses in the banks of the Missouri River or in the deep hollows running back from the broad valley. In these sequestered haunts they were quite wary, usually scuttling out of sight at my approach. True, in Ohio many individuals also chose out-of-the-way places for habitats, but even then they were not timid, for often they would mount to the top of a bush or a sapling in plain sight and trill sweetly by the hour, with never a quaver of fear. At rare intervals a Kansas sparrow would visit the thicket on the vacant lot near my house, but, my! how shy he was! And as for singing, he would only squeak a little score.

Wondering at the reticence of the Kansas sparrows, I wrote to a friend living in Springfield, Ohio, my former home, and inquired what the song sparrows were doing in that locality. His reply was that, as usual, they had been singing with splendid effect on almost every day after the middle of February. What is the reason of this difference between the eastern and western birds? They are, according to the systematists, the same type, and yet they behave so differently. The solution of the problem is, after all, quite simple. In Kansas the song sparrows are winter residents exclusively, pa.s.sing farther north when the breeding season approaches; only at rare intervals does a pair decide to remain in the state throughout the summer; whereas in the Buckeye state these birds are permanent residents, remaining throughout the year, and therefore they feel sufficiently at home to tune their lyres at all seasons. On the other hand, being only winter visitors in Kansas, they do not seem to be able to overcome their shyness; either that, or their wind harps are out of tune. As a matter of fact, migrating birds seldom sing a great deal in their winter homes, their best lyrical efforts being husbanded for their breeding haunts. I once spent part of the month of June in Minnesota, almost directly north of my Kansas field of research, and there found these charming minstrels as tuneful and affable as the most exacting bird lover could wish.

Perhaps some of the very sparrows that spend the winter in silence in northeastern Kansas trill their finest arias in their summer homes on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Minnetonka or in the boggy hollows in the neighborhood of Duluth.

When I first began to plan for moving back to Ohio, I was foolish enough to fear that the song sparrows of that state might have changed their habits during the years of my absence, and that I should be disappointed in them: but no need of borrowing trouble on their account, for they were the same blithe and familiar birds, trilling their sweetest chansons in the trees in the residence portion of the town in which I lived. And sing! Were there ever birds with more dulcet tones, with finer voice register, or with a greater variety of tunes in their repertoire?

Going back to Kansas in winter, we note that the song sparrows, instead of remaining at one place, s.h.i.+fted about a good deal more than I had ever known them to do in the East. In December a pair found a dwelling in the weed clumps and brush heaps of a hollow a short distance from the Missouri River; but they soon deserted this spot, well sheltered as it was, none being seen there until the twenty-third of February. It surprised me to find another pair, and sometimes two pairs, in a thicket right on the bank of the wide river, where they were exposed to many of the winter blasts, especially those that swept down from the frozen north. Up in the deep, winding ravine they might have had excellent shelter and, so far as I could see, just as good feeding.

However, I have long ago learned that there is no accounting for tastes in the bird realm any more than in the human realm.

The hardiest of the _Mniotiltidae_ tribe are the myrtle warblers, which dapple the whitened edges of winter, both autumn and spring, with their golden rumps and amber brooches. Evidently these birds are shyer of the rigorous Ohio winters than of the more mild-mannered Kansas weather. In the former state I never saw a myrtle warbler after the first or second week in November, while in Kansas I came upon a flock of them in a wooded hollow by the river on the eighth of December, 1897, and then after a severe snowstorm had swept over the region from the western prairies. It seemed odd to find these dainty featherland blossoms when the whole country was covered with an ermine of snow.

Then they disappeared, and I did not expect to see them again until the next spring; but on the fourteenth of February, which was a warm, vernal day thrust into the midst of winter, a flock of perhaps a dozen were flitting and chirping among the trees in the suburbs of the city, their hoa.r.s.e little _chep_, always giving one the impression that the birds have taken a cold which has affected their vocal cords, sounding as familiar as of old. However, that very evening at dusk a black cloud, charged with electricity and bellowing with anger, came up out of the west like a young Lochinvar, and hurled a fierce storm across the hills and valleys, and the next day not a myrtle warbler was to be seen in all the countryside, though I tramped weary miles in search of them. The tempest had doubtless frightened them away to the suaver southland, from which they did not return until the following spring.

One of my most pleasing observations was made on December 19, 1902.

There had been a number of days of severe weather, accompanied by hard storms. Six inches of snow lay on the ground. Now the storm had spent its force, the sun was s.h.i.+ning genially, and the snow was melting.

Warm as it was, I was greatly surprised to find a flock of myrtle warblers in the woods so late in the season. They had braved the storms of the preceding week, and were as chipper and active as myrtle warblers could be. But their employment was a still greater surprise.

They were darting about in the air among the treetops, as well as amid the bushes in the deep ravine, catching insects on the wing. That insects should be flying after the wintry weather of the previous week was still more surprising than that the warblers should be here to dine upon them. Soon after that day, however, the little yellow-rumps must have taken the wing route to a more genial climate, for they were seen no more that winter.

Of a more permanent character was the residence of the jolly juncos, which dwelt all winter in northeastern Kansas, let the weather be never so lowering. Always active and alert, flitting from bush to weed, and from the snow-carpeted ground to the gnarled oak saplings, now pilfering a dinner of wild berries and now a luncheon of weed seeds, they seemed to generate enough warmth in their trig little bodies to defy old Boreas to do his best. Water flowing from melting snow must be ice-cold, yet the juncos plunged into the crystal pools and rinsed their plumes with as much apparent relish as if their lavatory were tepid instead of icy, and as if balmy instead of nipping winds were blowing.

One day I watched a member of this family taking his dinner of wild grapes. Finding a dark red cl.u.s.ter, he would pick off the juiciest berry he could reach, press it daintily between his white mandibles for a few moments, swallow a part of the pulp, and drop the rest to the ground. What part of the grape did he eat? That is the precise problem I could not solve with certainty, for on examining the rejected portions that had been flung to the ground I found that one seed still remained, together with part of the pulp and all of the broken rind. I half suspect, though, that Master Junco likes to tipple a little--never enough, however, be it remembered, to make him reel or lose his senses.

No! no! a toper Master Junco is not; he is too sane a bird for that!

Would that all the citizens of our republic would display as much sound judgment and self-control.

Where all the birds sleep on biting winter nights it would be difficult to say, but the acute little juncos lease the farmer's corn shocks hard by the woods. At dusk you may startle a dozen of them from a single shock. They dart pellmell from their hiding places, chippering their protest, and when you examine the shock you find cozy nooks and ingles among the leaves and stalks, where they find couches and at the same time coverts from the sharp winds. As you stand at the border of the woods in the gloaming you can hear the rustling of the fodder as the juncos move about in their tepees, trying to find the choicest and snuggest berths. Usually they select the tops of the standing shocks, perhaps for safety; yet some may be found also in the shocks that have partly fallen to the ground.

In the latter part of February the juncos began to rehea.r.s.e their spring songs, which were a welcome sound in the almost unbroken silence of the winter. The nearer the spring approached, the higher they mounted in the trees, and the more prolonged was their flight, as if they were practicing their wing exercises to inure their muscles to the strain that would be put upon them when they undertook their long journey to their northern summer homes; for, of course, the juncos do not breed in our central lat.i.tudes, but hie to the northern part of the United States and the Dominion of Canada.

In Ohio the brown creepers and the golden-crowned kinglets were constant winter companions in the woods; but, although Kansas is considerably farther south, they do not seem to be winter residents there--at least, not in the northeastern part of the state--the only exception being that in January, 1903, several creepers were observed in my yard. One may well wonder why these birds are winter residents in Ohio and only migrants in a lat.i.tude that is two degrees farther south.

There was some scant compensation in the presence of the winter wren one winter in the Sunflower state. The fourteenth of December brought one of these brown Lilliputians to a deep hollow in town, where he chattered petulantly and scampered along an old paling fence. No more winter wrens were seen until January seventh, when one darted out of some bushes on the bank of a stream about two miles south of town. My next jaunt to this hollow took place on the twenty-seventh, when, to my surprise, a hermit thrush was seen in a clump of bushes and saplings--a bird that I supposed had been sunning himself for at least a month in the genial South. While tramping about trying to get another view of the unconventional thrush, I frightened a winter wren from a cl.u.s.ter of weeds and bushes. My! how alarmed he was! Uttering a loud chirp, he darted down to the center of the stream and slipped into a little cave formed by ice and snow frozen over a clump of low bushes. There he hid himself like an Eskimo in his snow hut. My trudging near by frightened the bird out of the farther doorway, and he dashed away pellmell, hurling a saucy gird of protestation at me, and was seen by me no more.

I examined the little snow house. It was very cunning indeed, and might well have made a cozy shelter for the little wren in stormy weather. My next meeting with a winter wren occurred on the fifteenth of February, in the same hollow, but about an eighth of a mile nearer the river. A query arises here: Did I see four different winter wrens during the winter, or only one in four different localities? Who can tell?

That is not all about the winter wrens. My first winter in Kansas was the severest I experienced in that state; yet it was the only winter of the five I spent in Kansas that brought me the winter wren. If it would do any good, one might ask again the question why. Although the winter wren is a migrant in Ohio, as he is for the most part in northeastern Kansas, yet I never heard his song in the former state, while in the latter I was fortunate enough to listen to his tinkling melody three times the first spring I spent there. After that I never heard him, and indeed saw him only a few times. But the sweet, silvery roulade--could there be anything more charming in the world of outdoor music?

My winter rambles--and winter is almost as good a time for bird study as summer--enabled me to note some variety of temperament in the avian realm. One thing we soon learn in our winter outings: Few birds are recluses. No, they are sociable creatures, living in what might be called nomadic communities. In the spring-time, during the mating season, they pair off and become more or less exclusive and secretive, keeping close to the precincts they have selected; but in winter they grow more neighborly, and move about in the woods or over the fields in flocks of various sizes.

The woodland flocks usually consist of a number of species all of which seem to be on the most cordial terms, having, no doubt, a community of interest. As we quietly pursue our way in this wooded vale, we see no birds for some distance. Presently a fine, protesting "chick-a-dee-dee! chick-a-dee-dee!" breaks the silence. It is the warning call of the tomt.i.t or chickadee, which we soon espy tilting about on his trapeze of twigs in the trees or bushes. But you may depend upon it he is not alone; he is only a part of the rim of a feathered colony dwelling near at hand, and consisting, very likely, of tufted t.i.tmice, white-breasted nuthatches, juncos, tree sparrows, blue jays, one or two downy woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, a pair of cardinals, a flicker or two, and a cackling red-breasted woodp.e.c.k.e.r. There may be even a song sparrow in the company and a couple of brown creepers, and possibly a flock of purple finches, chirping cheerily in the tops of the trees.

While, in the spring and summer, birds are to be found in nearly every part of the woods, never many at one place, the opposite condition prevails in the winter. Sometimes you may walk almost a half mile without seeing or hearing a single bird; then you suddenly come upon a good-sized company of them, somewhat scattered, it is true, but within easy hailing distance. Nor do they always remain in the same localities, but move about, now here, now there, like nomads looking for the best foraging places. For instance, on the first of January, after leaving the city, I saw not a bird until I reached a pleasant sylvan hollow at least a half mile away. Here a merry crowd greeted the pedestrian. It was composed of all the birds I have just named, with flocks of bluebirds and goldfinches thrown in for good measure.

On the fourteenth of January a company--either the same or another--was found in a small copsy hollow only a quarter of a mile from the city, while the spot previously occupied was deserted. It is pleasant to think of these feathered troopers roaming about the country in search of Nature's choicest storehouses. The code that obtains in these movable birdvilles is this, as near as I am able to a.n.a.lyze it: Each one for himself, and yet all for one another.

The familiar adage, "Birds of a feather flock together," is not always true, for in winter birds of many a feather often flock together. It may be asked, Why? No doubt largely for social ends. Nothing is more evident to the observer than that most birds love company, and a good deal of it. Their genial conversation among themselves as they pursue their work and play fully proves that. Another object is undoubtedly protection. Birds have enemies, many of them, and when the woods are bare there is little chance for hiding, and so they must be especially on the alert. Let a hawk come gliding silently and slyly down the vale, and before he gets too near some keen little eye espies him, the alarm is sounded, and the whole company scurries into the thickets or trees for safety. The chickadees and t.i.tmice seem to be a sort of sentry for the company.

A large part of the time in birdland is spent in solving the "bread-and-b.u.t.ter" problem. And how do our feathered citizens solve this important problem in the cold weather? Nature has spread many a banquet for her avian children, although they must usually rustle for their food just as we must in the human world. The nuthatches, t.i.tmice, woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, and brown creepers find larvae, grubs, borers, and insects' eggs in the crannies of the bark and other nooks and niches; the goldfinches find something to their taste in the buds of the trees and also make many a meal of thistle and sunflower seeds; the juncos and tree sparrows, forming a joint stock company in winter, rifle all kinds of weeds of their seedy treasures; the blue jays lunch on acorns and berries when they cannot find enough juicy grubs to satisfy their appet.i.tes, and so on through the whole list.

By playing the spy on the birds we may learn much about their dietary habits. It is the first of January, and we are in a wooded hollow.

There is a tufted t.i.tmouse; now he flits to the ground, picks up a tidbit, darts up to a twig, places his morsel under his claws, and proceeds to peck it to pieces. Our binocular shows that it is something yellow, but we cannot make out what it is. As we draw near, the bird seizes the fragment with his bill--perhaps he fears we will filch it from him--and flits about among the bushes on the steep bank, looking for a place to stow his "goody." Presently he pushes it into a crevice of the bark, hammers it tightly into place, and darts away with a merry chirp. We go to the spot and find that his hidden treasure is a grain of corn which he has purloined from the farmer's field on the slope. A few minutes later another t.i.t--or the same one--slyly thrusts a morsel in among some leaves and twigs on the bank, even pulling the leaves down over it for a screen. It turns out to be a small acorn.

That is one of Master t.i.t's ways--storing away provisions for a time of need. With his stout, conical beak he is able to break the sh.e.l.l of an acorn, peck a corn grain into swallowable bits, and tear open the toughest casing of a coc.o.o.n. He will even break the hard pits of the dogwood berry to secure the kernel within, the ground below often being strewn with the sh.e.l.l fragments. No danger of _Parus bicolor_ coming to want or going to the poorhouse.

Another day the juncos are feeding on the seeds of the foxtail or pigeon gra.s.s, in an old orchard hard by the border of the woods.

Sometimes they will make a dinner of berries--the kinds too that are regarded as poisonous to man--eating the juicy pulp in their dainty way, and dropping the seeds and rind to the ground. In the ravine furrowed out by a stream--this is down in one of the hollows--there is a perfect network of bird tracks in the snow beneath a clump of weed stalks. How dainty they are, like tiny chains, twisted and coiled about on the white surface! They were made by the juncos and tree sparrows, and on examining the seed pods and cl.u.s.ters above the bank we note that they are torn and ragged. The feathered banqueters have been here, and while they were industriously culling the pods, some of the seeds fell to the white carpet below, and these have been carefully picked up by the birds, as we see, so that nothing should be wasted.

It is not often you catch a bird in the singing mood in the winter; yet on December 19, a purple finch was piping quite a vivacious tune in the woods. Of course, he was not in his best voice, but his performance was good enough to ent.i.tle it to the name of bird music. The finches, by the way, are strong flyers. At your approach, instead of flitting off a little way, perhaps to the next tree or bush, after the manner of the t.i.ts and nuthatches and many other birds, the finches tarry in the tree-tops as long as they deem it safe, then take to wing and fly to a distant part of the woods, and you may not see them again that day.

However, they may come back to you after a while, as if they relished your company. The goldfinches are also long-distance flyers, not flitters. Usually they give some signal of their presence, either by their vivacious "pe-chick-o-pe" or their childlike and semi-musical calls; but there are times when a good-sized flock of them will suddenly appear in the tree-tops above you, and you cannot tell when they arrived, for you did not see them there at all a few minutes before.

WAYSIDE OBSERVATIONS

The previous chapter closed with some notes on the behavior of birds in the winter time. My home rambling grounds in northeastern Kansas were extremely undulating, cut up into ridges and ravines, most of which were covered with a thick growth of weeds, bushes, and timber. In some places the thickets were so dense as to be almost impenetrable. This diversity in the topography of the country afforded considerable variety in the faunal life of the region.

For example, in bitter winter weather most of the birds would hug the sheltered hollows, where they found coverts in the copses, and would avoid the hilltops, which were exposed to the nipping winds blowing from the western prairies. As the spring approached, bringing blander weather, they gradually moved up the hillsides, many of them finding billsome seeds and berries on the summits.

However, note a difference in the temperament of individuals of the same species. On the bitterest days of winter I would sometimes leave the sheltered hollows and lowlands and clamber to the summits of the wind-swept hills, and, oddly enough, on the exposed heights I occasionally flushed a solitary bird, which would spring up from the weeds or copses and dart away with a frightened cry. More than likely it would be an individual of the same species as some of the more socially disposed tenants of the lower grounds, but for some reason, what, I know not, it preferred the life of an anchorite; it did not care for society, even of its own kith. Invariably, too, these feathered recluses were extremely shy, scuttling away like frightened deer as I approached their cloistered haunts.

These notes stir several queries in one's mind. Is there such a thing as social ostracism in the bird world? Might these hilltop eremites have committed some crime or some breach of decorum that effected their banishment from respectable avicular society? Or were they simply of a sullen or retiring disposition, choosing seclusion rather than the company of their kind? These questions must be left unanswered. Most frequently the lone bird would be a song sparrow. Once a brilliant cardinal was trying to conceal himself in a clump of bushes and weeds far up the hillside, acting very much like a social outcast. For some reason that he did not see fit to explain he wanted to be alone.

If the song sparrows of eastern Kansas belie their name and seldom fall into the lyrical mood, as has been said, the like cannot be said of the robins, which, in the proper season, were very lavish of their minstrelsy. Their favorite singing time in the West, as in the East, was at the "peep of dawn." How often their ringing carols broke into my early morning dreams!

Have you ever noticed the tentative efforts of the robins in the early spring, at the beginning of the song season, before they get their harps in full tune? It is interesting and amusing to listen to their rehearsals, of which they need quite a number before they acquire full control of their voices. This is the method: Starting off on a tune, they will keep it up until their voices break; then they will stop a while to recover breath, and presently make another attempt with perhaps slightly better success. At first they are able to pipe only a syllable or two before their voices break. After a while they succeed in carrying the tune for a respectable little run, but sooner or later their voices will go all to pieces or slide up into a falsetto, making another pause necessary. By and by, however, after much practice, they gain perfect vocal control, and are able to sustain their songs for a long time without a mishap. When the voice of the rehearsing bird breaks, it apparently runs too high in the scale for the bird's register, just as the voice of a sixteen-year-old boy is apt to do, to his own confusion and the amus.e.m.e.nt of his friends.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cardinal]

Another fact about robin music may be of interest to those who have not observed it. In the early spring these birds are extremely lyrical, that being their season of courts.h.i.+p; then will follow a few weeks of comparative silence--the time when there are little ones in need of parental care. At this period the husbands, it would seem, are either too busy or too wary to sing a great deal. But now note: When the youngsters have flown from the nest and are able to take care of themselves, the silence in robindom is again broken, and there is a flood-tide of melody from early morning till eventide. The second lyrical period lasts until another nest has been built and another clutch of eggs has been hatched, when the choralists again relapse into comparative silence.

Since coming back to Ohio, I imagine that the eastern robins are better singers than their western relatives. Their voices, to my ear, are clearer and more ringing, less apt to break into a squeak at the top of their register, and there is more variety of expression as well as greater facility in managing the technique. I think this is not all fancy, yet I would not speak with the a.s.surance of the dogmatist.

In the good Jayhawker state the orchard orioles are more abundant than they are in the eastern and northeastern part of the state of Ohio.