Bird Neighbors Part 9

It is sad to record that this exquisitely marked woodp.e.c.k.e.r, the most jovial and boisterous of its family, is one of the very few bird visitors whose intimacy should be discouraged. For its useful appet.i.te for slugs and insects which it can take on the wing with wonderful dexterity, it need not be wholly condemned. But as we look upon a favorite maple or fruit tree devitalized or perhaps wholly dead from its ravages, we cannot forget that this bird, while a most abstemious fruit-eater, has a pernicious and most intemperate thirst for sap. Indeed, it spends much of its time in the orchard, drilling holes into the freshest, most vigorous trees; then, when their sap begins to flow, it siphons it into an insatiable throat, stopping in its orgie only long enough to snap at the insects that have been attracted to the wounded tree by the streams of its heart-blood now trickling down its sides. Another favorite pastime is to strip the bark off a tree, then peck at the soft wood underneath -- almost as fatal a habit. It drills holes in maples in early spring for sap only. If it drills holes in fruit trees it is for the cambium layer, a soft, pulpy, nutritious under-bark.

These woodp.e.c.k.e.rs have a variety of call-notes, but their rapid drumming against the limbs and trunks of trees is the sound we always a.s.sociate with them and the sound that Mr. Bicknell says is the love-note of the family.

Unhappily, these birds, that many would be glad to have decrease in numbers, take extra precautions for the safety of their young by making very deep excavations for their nests, often as deep as eighteen or twenty inches.

THE CHEWINK (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) Finch family

Called also: GROUND ROBIN; TOWHEE; TOWHEE BUNTING; TOWHEE GROUND FINCH; GRASEL; [EASTERN TOWHEE, AOU 1998]

Length -- 8 to 8.5 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin.

Male -- Upper parts black, sometimes margined with rufous. Breast white; chestnut color on sides and rump. Wings marked with white. Three outer feathers of tail striped with white, conspicuous in flight. Bill black and stout. Red eyes; feet brown.

Female -- Brownish where the male is black. Abdomen shading from chestnut to white in the centre.

Range -- From Labrador, on the north, to the Southern States; West to the Rocky Mountains.

Migrations -- April. September and October. Summer resident. Very rarely a winter resident at the north.

The un.o.btrusive little chewink is not infrequently mistaken for a robin, because of the reddish chestnut on its under parts. Careful observation, however, shows important distinctions. It is rather smaller and darker in color; its carriage and form are not those of the robin, but of the finch. The female is smaller still, and has an olive tint in her brown back. Her eggs are inconspicuous in color, dirty white speckled with brown, and laid in a sunken nest on the ground. Dead leaves and twigs abound, and form, as the anxious mother fondly hopes, a safe hiding place for her brood. So careful concealment, however, brings peril to the fledglings, for the most cautious bird-lover may, and often does, inadvertently set his foot on the hidden nest.

The chewink derives its name from the fancied resemblance of its note to these syllables, while those naming it "towhee" hear the sound to-whick, to-whick, to-whee. Its song is rich, full, and pleasing, and given only when the bird has risen to the branches above its low foraging ground.

It frequents the border of swampy places and bushy fields. It is generally seen in the underbrush, picking about among the dead leaves for its steady diet of earthworms and larvae of insects, occasionally regaling itself with a few dropping berries and fruit.

When startled, the bird rises not more than ten or twelve feet from the earth, and utters its characteristic calls. On account of this habit of flying low and grubbing among the leaves, it is sometimes called the ground robin. In the South our modest and useful little food-gatherer is often called grasel, especially in Louisiana, where it is white-eyed, and is much esteemed, alas!

by epicures.

SNOWFLAKE (Plectrophenax nivalis) Finch family

Called also: SNOW BUNTING [AOU 1998]; WHITEBIRD; s...o...b..RD; SNOW LARK

Length -- 7 to 7.5 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the robin.

Male and Female -- Head, neck, and beneath soiled white, with a few reddish-brown feathers on top of head, and suggesting an imperfect collar. Above, grayish brown obsoletely streaked with black, the markings being most conspicuous in a band between shoulders. Lower tail feathers black; others, white and all edged with white. Wings brown, white, and gray. Plumage unusually variable. In summer dress (in arctic regions) the bird is almost white.

Range -- Circ.u.mpolar regions to Kentucky (in winter only).

Migrations -- Midwinter visitor; rarely, if ever, resident south of arctic regions.

These snowflakes (mentioned collectively, for it is impossible to think of the bird except in great flocks) are the "true spirits of the snowstorm," says Th.o.r.eau. They are animated beings that ride upon it, and have their life in it. By comparison with the climate of the arctic regions, no doubt our hardiest winter weather seems luxuriously mild to them. We a.s.sociate them only with those wonderful midwinter days when sky, fields, and woods alike are white, and a "hard, dull bitterness of cold" drives every other bird and beast to shelter. It is said they often pa.s.s the night buried beneath the snow. They have been seen to dive beneath it to escape a hawk.

Whirling about in the drifting snow to catch the seeds on the tallest stalks that the wind in the open meadows uncovers, the snowflakes suggest a lot of dead leaves being blown through the all-pervading whiteness. Beautiful soft brown, gray, and predominating black-and-white coloring distinguish these capricious visitors from the slaty junco, the "s...o...b..rd" more commonly known.

They are, indeed, the only birds we have that are nearly white; and rarely, if ever, do they rise far above the ground their plumage so admirably imitates.

At the far north, travellers have mentioned their inspiriting song, but in the United States we hear only their cheerful twitter. Nansen tells of seeing an occasional snow bunting in that desolation of arctic ice where the Fram drifted so long.

ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK (Habia ludoviciana) Finch family

Length -- 7.75 to 8.5 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin.

Male -- Head and upper parts black. Breast has rose-carmine s.h.i.+eld-shaped patch, often extending downward to the centre of the abdomen. Underneath, tail quills, and two spots on wings white. Conspicuous yellow, blunt beak.

Female -- Brownish, with dark streakings, like a sparrow. No rose-color. Light sulphur yellow under wings. Dark brown, heavy beak.

Range -- Eastern North America, from southern Canada to Panama.

Migrations -- Early May. September. Summer resident.

A certain ornithologist tells with complacent pride of having shot over fifty-eight rose-breasted grosbeaks in less than three weeks (during the breeding season) to learn what kind of food they had in their crops. This kind of devotion to science may have quite as much to do with the growing scarcity of this bird in some localities as the demands of the milliners, who, however, receive all of the blame for the slaughter of our beautiful songsters. The farmers in Pennsylvania, who, with more truth than poetry, call this the potato-bug bird, are taking active measures, however, to protect the neighbor that is more useful to their crop than all the insecticides known. It also eats flies, wasps, and grubs.

Seen upon the ground, the dark bird is scarcely attractive with his clumsy beak overbalancing a head that protrudes with stupid-looking awkwardness; but as he rises into the trees his lovely rose-colored breast and under-wing feathers are seen, and before he has had time to repeat his delicious, rich-voiced warble you are already in love with him. Vibrating his wings after the manner of the mocking-bird, he pours forth a marvellously sweet, clear, mellow song (with something of the quality of the oriole's, robin's, and thrush's notes), making the day on which you first hear it memorable. This is one of the few birds that sing at night. A soft, sweet, rolling warble, heard when the moon is at its full on a midsummer night, is more than likely to come from the rose-breasted grosbeak.

It is not that his quiet little sparrow-like wife has advanced notions of feminine independence that he takes his turn at sitting upon the nest, but that he is one of the most unselfish and devoted of mates. With their combined efforts they construct only a coa.r.s.e, unlovely cradle in a thorn-bush or low tree near an old, overgrown pasture lot. The father may be the poorest of architects, but as he patiently sits brooding over the green, speckled eggs, his beautiful rosy breast just showing above the gra.s.sy rim, he is a succulent adornment for any bird's home.

BOBOLINK (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) Blackbird family

Called also:REEDBIRD; MAYBIRD; MEADOW-BIRD; AMERICAN ORTOLAN; b.u.t.tER-BIRD; SKUNK BLACKBIRD

Length -- 7 inches. A trifle larger than the English sparrow.

Male -- In spring plumage: black, with light-yellow patch on upper neck, also on edges of wings and tail feathers. Rump and upper wings splashed with white. Middle of back streaked with pale buff. Tail feathers have pointed tips. In autumn plumage, resembles female.

Female -- Dull yellow-brown, with light and dark dashes on back.

wings, and tail. Two decided dark stripes on top of head.

Range -- North America, from eastern coast to western prairies.

Migrates in early autumn to Southern States, and in winter to South America and West Indies.

Migrations -- Early May. From August to October. Common summer resident.

Perhaps none of our birds have so fitted into song and story as the bobolink.

Unlike a good child, who should "be seen and not heard," he is heard more frequently than seen. Very shy, of peering eyes, he keeps well out of sight in the meadow gra.s.s before entrancing our listening ears. The bobolink never soars like the lark, as the poets would have us believe, but generally sings on the wing, flying with a peculiar self-conscious flight horizontally thirty or forty feet above the meadow gra.s.s. He also sings perched upon the fence or tuft of gra.s.s. He is one of the greatest poseurs among the birds.

In spring and early summer the bobolinks respond to every poet's effort to imitate their notes. "Dignified 'Robert of Lincoln' is telling his name," says one; "Spink, spank, spink," another hears him say. But best of all are Wilson Flagg's lines:

"...Now they rise and now they fly; They cross and turn, and in and out; and down the middle and wheel about, With a 'Phew, shew, Wadolincon; listen to me Bobolincon!"

After midsummer the cares of the family have so worn upon the jollity of our das.h.i.+ng, rollicking friend that his song is seldom heard. The colors of his coat fade into a dull yellowish brown like that of his faithful mate, who has borne the greater burden of the season, for he has two complete moults each year.

The bobolinks build their nest on the ground in high gra.s.s. The eggs are of a bluish white. Their food is largely insectivorous: gra.s.shoppers, crickets, beetles, spiders, with seeds of gra.s.s especially for variety.

In August they begin their journey southward, flying mainly by night. Arriving in the Southern States, they become the sad-colored, low-voiced rice or reed bird, feeding on the rice fields, where they descend to the ignominious fate of being dressed for the plate of the epicure.

Could there be a more tragic ending to the glorious note of the gay songster of the north?

BLACKPOLL WARBLER (Dendroica striata) Wood Warbler family

Length -- 5.5 to 6 inches. About an inch smaller than the English sparrow.

Male -- Black cap; cheeks and beneath grayish white, forming a sort of collar, more or less distinct. Upper parts striped gray, black, and olive. Breast and under parts white, with black streaks. Tail olive-brown, with yellow-white spots.

Female -- Without cap. Greenish-olive above, faintly streaked with black. Paler than male. Bands on wings, yellowish.

Range -- North America, to Greenland and Alaska. In winter, to northern part of South America.

Migrations -- Last of May. Late October.

A faint "screep, screep," like "the noise made by striking two pebbles together," Audubon says, is often the only indication of the blackpoll's presence; but surely that tireless bird-student had heard its more characteristic notes, which, rapidly uttered, increasing in the middle of the strain and diminis.h.i.+ng toward the end, suggest the shrill, wiry burn of some midsummer insect. After the opera-gla.s.s has searched him out we find him by no means an inconspicuous bird. A dainty little fellow, with a glossy black cap pulled over his eyes, he is almost hidden by the dense foliage on the trees by the time he returns to us at the very end of spring. Giraud says that he is the very last of his tribe to come north, though the bay-breasted warbler has usually been thought the bird to wind up the spring procession.

The blackpoll has a certain characteristic motion that distinguishes him from the black-and-white creeper, for which a hasty glance might mistake him, and from the jolly little chickadee with his black cap. Apparently he runs about the tree-trunk, but in reality he so flits his wings that his feet do not touch the bark at all; yet so rapidly does he go that the flipping wing-motion is not observed. He is most often seen in May in the apple trees, peeping into the opening blossoms for insects, uttering now and then his slender, lisping, brief song.