Wisdom of the Wilderness/The Watchers in the Swamp
UNDER the first pale lilac wash of evening, just where the slow stream of the Lost Water slipped placidly from the open meadows into the osier and bulrush tangles of the swamp, a hermit thrush, perched in the topmost spray of a young elm tree, was fluting out his lonely and tranquil ecstasy to the last of the sunset. Spheral—spheral—oh—holy—holy—clear—he sang; and stopped abruptly, as if to let the brief, unfinished, but matchlessly pure and poignant cadence sink unjarred into the heart of the evening stillness. One minute—two minutes—went by; and the spaces of windless air were like a crystal tinged with faint violet. And then this most reticent of singers loosed again his few links of flawless sound—a strain which, more than any other bird song on this earth, leaves the hstener's heart aching exquisitely for its completion. Spheral—spheral—oh—holy—holy—but this time, as if seeking by further condensation to make his attar of song still more rare and precious, he cut off the final note, that haunting, ethereal—clear.
Again the tranced stillness. But now, as if too far above reality to be permitted to endure, after a few seconds it was rudely broken. From somewhere in the mysterious and misty depths of the swamp came a great booming and yet strangulated voice, so dominant that the ineffable colors of the evening seemed to fade and the twilight to deepen suddenly under its somber vibrations. Three times it sounded—Klunk-er-glungk . . . Klunk-er-glungk . . . Klunk-er-glunk . . . an uncouth, mysterious sound, sonorous, and at the same time half-muffled, as if pumped with effort through obstructing waters. It was the late cry of the bittern, proclaiming that the day was done.
The hermit thrush, on his tree top against the pale sky, sang no more, but dropped noiselessly to his mate on her nest in the thickets. Two bats flickered and zigzagged hither and thither above the glimmering stream. And the leaf-scented dusk gathered down broodingly, with the dew, over the wide solitudes of Lost Water Swamp.
It was high morning in the heart of the swamp. From a sky of purest cobalt flecked sparsely with silver-white wisps of cloud, the sun glowed down with tempered, fruitful warmth upon the tender green of the half-grown rushes and already rank water grasses—the young leafage of the alder and willow thickets—the wide pools and narrow, linking lanes of unruffled water already mantling in spots with lily pad and arrow weed. A few big red-and-black butterflies wavered aimlessly above the reed tops. Here and there, with a faint, elfin clashing of transparent wings, a dragon fly, a gleam of emerald and amethyst fire, flashed low over the water. From every thicket came a soft chatter of the nesting red-shouldered blackbirds.
And just in the watery fringe of the reeds, as brown and erect and motionless as a mooring stake, stood the bittern.
Not far short of three feet in length, from the tip of his long and powerful, dagger-pointed bill to the end of his short, rounded tail, with his fierce, unblinking eyes, round, bright, and hard, with his snaky head and long, muscular neck, he looked, as he was, the formidable master of the swamp. In coloring he was a streaked and freckled mixture of slaty greys and browns and ochres above, with a freckled, whitish throat and dull buff breast and belly—a mixture which would have made him conspicuous amid the cool, light green of the sedges but that it harmonized so perfectly with the earth and the roots. Indeed, moveless as he stood, to the indiscriminating eye he might have passed for a decaying stump by the waterside. His long legs were of a dull olive which blended with the shadowy tones of the water.
For perhaps ten minutes the great bird stood there without the movement of so much as a feather, apparently unconcerned while the small inhabitants of the swamp made merry in the streaming sunshine. But his full, round eyes took In, without stirring in their sockets, all that went on about him, in air or sedge or water. Suddenly, and so swiftly that it seemed one motion, his neck uncoiled and his snaky head darted downward into the water near his feet, to rise again with an eight-inch chub partly transfixed and partly gripped between the twin daggers of his half-opened bill. Squirming, and shining silverly, it was held aloft, while its captor stalked solemnly in through the sedges to a bit of higher and drier turf. Here he proceeded to hammer his prize into stillness upon an old, half-buried log. Then, tossing it into the air, he caught it adroitly by the head, and swallowed it, his fierce eyes blinking with the effort as he slowly forced it down his capacious gullet. It was a satisfying meal, even for such a healthy appetite as his, and he felt no immediate impulse to continue his fishing. Remaining where he was beside the old log, thigh deep in the young grasses and luxuriously soaking in the sunshine, he fell once more into a position of rigid movelessness. But his attitude was now quite different from that which he had affected when his mind was set on fish. His neck was coiled backward till the back of his head rested on his shoulders, and his bill pointed skyward, as if the only peril he had to consider seriously during his time of repose might come, if at all, from that direction. And though he rested, and every nerve and muscle seemed to sleep, his gemlike eyes were sleeplessly vigilant. Only at long intervals a thin, whitish membrane flickered down across them for a fraction of an mstant, to cleanse and lubricate them and keep their piercing brightness undimmed.
Once a brown marsh hawk, questing for water rats, winnowed past, only ten or a dozen feet above his head. But he never stirred a muscle. He knew it would be a much more formidable and daring marauder than the marsh hawk that would risk conclusions with the uplifted dagger of his bill.
In about half an hour—so swift is the digestion of these masters of the swamp—the bittern began to think about a return to his easy and pleasant hunting. But, always deliberate, except when there was need for instant action, at first he did no more than uncoil his long neck, lower his bill to a level, and stand motionlessly staring over the sedge tops. One of the big red-and-black butterflies came wavering near, perhaps under the fatal delusion that that rigid yellow bill would be a good perch for him to alight on. A lightning swift dart of the snaky head, and those gay wings, after curiously adorning for a moment the tip of the yellow bill, were deftly gathered in and swallowed—an unsubstantial morsel, but not to be ignored when one is blest with a bittern's appetite.
After a few minutes more of statuesque deliberation, having detected nothing in the landscape particularly demanding his attention, the bittern lazily lifted his broad wings and flapped in slow flight, his long legs almost brushing the sedge tops, back to the post of vantage where he had captured the chub. As soon as he alighted he stiffened himself erect, and stared about as if to see whether his flight had been noticed. Then, presently, he seemed to remember something of importance. This was the season of mating joys and cares. It was time he signalled his brown mate. First he began snapping his bill sharply, and then he went through a number of contortions with his throat and neck, as if he were trying to gulp down vast quantities of air, and finding the effort most difficult. At length, however, the painful-looking struggle was crowned with achievement. Once more, as on the preceding evening, that great call boomed forth across the swamp, sonorous yet strangulated, uncouth yet thrilling and haunting, the very voice of solitude and mystery—Klunk-er-glungk . . . Klunk-er-glungk . . . Klunk-er-glungk.
Almost immediately came an acknowledgment of this untuneful love song—a single hoarse guaw-awk, and another snaky, brown head and yellow dagger bill were raised above the tops of the sedges. The hen bittern, in response to her mate's cry, had just come off her nest.
For some tranquil moments the two eyed each other without stirring, and it almost seemed as if their very immobility was a mode of expression, a secret code for communication between them. The result, if so, appeared to be satisfactory. The hen came stalking solemnly through the grass and sedges toward the water's edge, only pausing on the way to transfix and gulp down a luckless frog. And the stately male, once more spreading his spacious vans, flapped slowly over and dropped again into the grass some ten or a dozen feet from the nest.
The nest was a rather casual structure of dry grass and weeds, in a hollow of the turf, and more or less concealed by leaning tufts of swamp grass. It contained three large eggs of a dull greenish buff, clouded with darker tones, and blending elusively with the soft colorings of the nest. These precious eggs the male bittern was to stand guard over with jealous vigilance, while his mate was away foraging. The sun was softly warm upon them through the thin shadows of the grass blades, and he knew they would not chill during her brief absence. He took his post just near enough to keep his eye upon the nest, without unduly drawing attention to its hiding place.
This patch of water meadow, perhaps a half acre in extent, on which the bitterns had their nest, was one of many such tiny islands scattered amid the interlacing channels of Lost Water Swamp. It formed a congenial refuge for all that small life of the wilderness which loves to be near water without being in it. It was particularly beloved of the meadow mice, because the surrounding watercourses and morasses were an effectual barrier to some of their worst enemies, such as foxes, skunks, and weasels; and they throve here amazingly. To be sure the bittern would take toll of them when they came his way, but he did not deliberately hunt them, rather preferring a diet of frogs and fish; and moreover his depredations upon the mice were more than counterbalanced by his eager hostility to their dreaded foes, the snakes. So, on the whole, he might have been regarded by the mouse community as a benefactor, though a rather costly one.
Even now, as he stood there apparently thinking of nothing but his guardianship of the nest, he gave a telling example of his beneficence in this regard. There was a tiny, frightened squeak, a desperate small rustling in the grass stems, and a terrified mouse scurried by, with a two-foot black snake at its tail. The bittern's head flashed down, unerringly, and rose again, more slowly, with the snake gripped by the middle, held high in air, as if on exhibition, between the knife-edge tips of that deadly, yellow bill. The victim writhed and twisted, coiling itself convulsively around its captor's head and neck. But with two or three sharp jerks it was drawn further back, toward the base of the mandibles; and then, with an inexorable pressure, bitten clean in two; the halves uncoiled and fell to the ground, still wriggling spasmodically. With grave deliberation the bittern planted one foot upon the head half, and demolished the vicious head with a tap of his bill. This done, he swallowed it with determined and strenuous gulpings. Then he eyed the other half doubtfully, and decided that he was not yet ready for it. So, placing one foot upon it with a precise air, he lifted his head again and resumed his motionless guarding of the nest.
A little later in the morning—perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes after the incident of the snake—the mice found yet another potent reason for congratulating themselves on the presence of their expensive champion. The hen bittern, apparently, had not been very successful in her foraging. She had shown as yet no sign of returning to the nest. The male was just beginning to get impatient. He even went so far as to move his head, though ever so slightly. Indeed, he was on the very point of beginning those grotesque snappings of the bill and gulpings of air which would be followed by his booming triple call when he caught sight of a dark form moving through the grass, beyond the nest. Instantly he stiffened again into rigidity. Only, very slowly, the long, slender feathers which crowned his head and lay along his neck began to rise.
The dark form gliding stealthily among the grasses was that of an animal about two feet in length, low on the legs, slender, sinuous, quickdarting. The bittern had never chanced to observe a mink before, but he needed no one to tell him that this creature was dangerous. Ferocity and efficiency were written all over the savage, triangular head and lithe, swift body. But the intruder had evidently not yet discovered the precious nest. He was half a dozen paces away from it, and not moving directly toward it. In the very next moment he pounced upon a mouse, which he tore and devoured with an eagerness which showed him to be hungry. The bittern waited, and hoped anxiously that the nest might escape discovery.
The mink was not at the moment thinking of any such luxury as eggs. He had entered the swamp in the hope of finding just such a happy hunting ground as this bit of mouse-thronged meadow. He had just arrived, and he was now full of bloodthirsty excitement over the success of his venture. His nose sniffed greedily the subtle, warm, mousy smells. His ears detected the innumerable, elusive, mousy squeaks and rustlings. His eyes, lit now with the red spark of the blood lust, were less fortunate than his ears and nose, because word of a new and dreadful foe had gone abroad among the mouse folk, and concealment was the order of the day. But already, he had made one kill—and that so easily that he knew the quarry here was not much hunted.
He was preparing to follow a very distinct mouse trail, when a chance puff of air bore him a scent which instantly caught his attention. The scent of the bittern was new to him, as it chanced. He knew it for the scent of a bird, a water bird of some kind—probably, from its abundance, a large bird, and certainly, therefore, a bird worth his hunting.
Curious and inquiring, he rose straight up on his hind quarters in order to get a good view, and peered searchingly over the grass tops. He saw nothing but the green and sun-steeped meadow with the red-and-black butterflies wavering over it, the gleam of the unruffled water, and the osier thickets beyond. He looked directly at, and past, the guardian bittern, probably mistaking that rigid, vigilant shape for an old brown stump. For the mink's eyes, like those of many other animals, were less unerring than his ears and nostrils, and much quicker to discern motion than fixed form. Had the bittern stirred by so much as a hair's breadth, the mink would have detected him at once. But the mink looked at him and saw him not; nor saw another similar form, unstirring, tensely watchful, over by the waterside.
Having failed to detect the source of that strange, intriguing smell, the mink concluded that it must come from a brooding mother, hiding on a nest in the grass. Nothing could be more satisfactory. His eyes blazed blood-red at the prospect of slaughter. Dropping down again upon all fours, he darted forward up the trail of the scent, and came full upon the nest with its three unsheltered eggs. Instantly seizing the nearest one between his agile forepaws, he crunched the shell and began greedily sucking up the contents.
But the savor of the feast had hardly thrilled his palate when it seemed as if the skies had fallen upon him. A scalding anguish stabbed his shoulders, a smother of buffeting wings enveloped him, and he was borne backward from the nest, the broken eggshell still clinging to his nose.
At the moment when he had darted forward toward the nest, all the immobility of the watching bittern had vanished. His long crest standing straight up in his fury, he had launched himself to the attack, covering the intervening distance with two tremendous thrusts of his powerful wings, and fallen like a cyclone upon the violator of his home. The dagger of his bill had struck deeply, and the impetus of his charge had carried him clear of his foe and a couple of paces past, but he turned adroitly in the air and landed facing about, ready for the inevitable counterattack.
Amazed and startled though he was, and handled with a roughness quite new to his experience, the mink was in no way daunted. Rather he was so boiling with rage that his wonted wariness forsook him completely. With a snarl he sprang straight at the long, exposed, inviting throat of his adversary. His leap was swift, true, deadly. But equally true, and more swift, was the counterstroke. He was met, and stopped in mid-air by a thrust of the bittern's bill, which, had he not twisted his head just in time, would have split his skull. As it was, it laid open one side of his snarling face, and brought him heavily to the ground. Even under this punishment, however, he would not acknowledge defeat. Springing aside, with a lightning, zigzag movement to confuse the aim of that terrific bill, he darted low and made a leap at his antagonist's long, vulnerable legs. He missed only by a hair's breadth, as the bittern leapt nimbly aside and balked him with a stiff wing stroke. He seized the baffling wing and strove to pull his tall adversary down. But two great pinion feathers came away in his jaws, and the next moment he got another terrible, driving stab from the dagger beak, well forward on the flank. It was a slanting thrust, or it would have pierced his lungs; but it nearly knocked the wind out of him, and ploughed a deep, red gash in his glossy coat.
Screeching furiously, he doubled on himself like a snake to meet this attack. But at the same moment he cringed under another excruciating stab in the haunch; and looking up, he saw himself enveloped in a cloud of blinding wings. The hen bittern had arrived to join in the defense of her nest.
Now, bloodthirsty and merciless marauder though he was, the mink's courage was a thing beyond dispute; and terribly though the fight had so far gone against him, with a single foe to confront he would probably have held on to the death. But for all his fury he was not quite mad; and this reinforcement of the enemy was too much for him. Suddenly straightening himself out long and narrow like an eel, he slipped from under the terrifying storm, of wings and stabs, and made off through the grass at the best speed he had ever attained. He made for the water, which he felt would be his safest refuge. The angry bitterns were after him on the instant, flying as low as possible and stabbing down at him. But his cunning and slippery zigzags enabled him to dodge most of their thrusts; and in their eagerness they got in each other's way—which probably saved him his bare life. At length streaming with blood, and leaving behind him a red trail he reached the water and dived in. Without daring to come to the surface he swam across the channel and cautiously raised his head behind a screen of overhanging weeds. He saw his two pursuers standing, motionless and erect, on the opposite bank, watching with fierce eyes for him to reappear. Submerging himself again, he swam on downstream till he had rounded a sharp bend of the channel. When he thought it prudent to show himself once more, he was sheltered by a dense screen of alder and willows. He hurried through the thicket, and on down the bank till he found an ancient muskrat hole. Into this he crept eagerly, and lay down in the grateful dark to nurse his wounds and his humiliation.
After the disappearance of the mink the hen bittern soon returned to her nest. But the male stayed where he was. From time to time he would spear a passing frog or chub or sucker. But always his indignant heart was hoping that the mink would return. After an hour or two, however, his wrath died down and he began to forget.
Later in the day, when the osiers were beginning to throw long shadows across the water, and the red-and-black butterflies had grown too indolent to dance, the great bittern, full-fed and at ease with life, flapped languidly up from the waterside and dropped close beside the nest. His brooding mate lifted her head, as if in greeting, and laid it back at once between her shoulders, with her yellow bill pointed skyward as was her vigilant custom.
Soon the first warm tints of sunset began to stain the edges of the clouds above the far fringes of the swamp. Motionless and erect beside his mate, the bittern watched the oncoming of the enchantment as his day drew to its quiet close. Suddenly the colored quiet of the air was disturbed by the throbbing of hurried wings. He glanced upward, without moving. A mallard drake, in frantic flight, whirred past, making for the water. Close after the fugitive, and swiftly overhauling him with long tremendous thrusts of his mighty wings, came that most dreaded cut-throat of the air, a great, blue goshawk. Had the water been two feet farther away the fate of the glossy drake would have been sealed. He would have been overtaken, his throat torn out in mid-air, his body carried off to the nearest tree top to be plucked and devoured. But this time the inscrutable Fates of the wilderness, too seldom so lenient to the weak, decided to favor him. With a heavy sounding splash he shot down into the blessed water, and disappeared into safety.
The destroying talons of the great hawk clutched convulsively at the dandy curled tips of his tail as he vanished.
With his arrowy speed, his precision of stroke, his audacity and fiery spirit, the blue goshawk was little accustomed to the experience of being balked of his prey. With a sharp yelp of wrath he swept up from the water on a long, graceful curve, and sailed back low above the bittern's island seeking other prey. And his piercing gaze fell upon the bittern, standing rigid beside the nest.
His swoop was instantaneous, straight and swift as a bolt from a crossbow. But that coiled steel spring of the bittern's neck was even swifter; and as his talons struck downward, the bittern's dagger thrust caught him in the very center of the impending claw, splitting the foot fairly and disabling it. Nevertheless, by the shock of the attack, the bittern was borne downward, and would have been caught in the breast or throat by the other talon, but at the same instant his watchful mate, who had half risen on the nest that her eggs might not be crushed in the mêlée, delivered her thrust. It went true. It caught the goshawk full in the base of the neck, pierced clean through, and severed the spine. And in a wild confusion of sprawled legs and pounding wings, the three great birds fell in a heap in the grass, just beyond the nest.
The two bitterns nimbly extricated themselves, stabbing savagely at the unresisting body of the hawk. Presently, as if by one impulse, they both stood up, erect and still as images, their yellow bills dripping with blood. The male had a bleeding gash along the side of his head. But this concerned him little. His heart swelled with triumph. He was forced to give it utterance. He snapped his bill sharply, gulped a few mouthfuls of air, and then sent forth his booming challenge across the swamp—Klunk-er-glungk . . . Klunk-er-glungk . . . Klunk-er-glungk.
His mate spread her broad wings, shook herself till her ruffled plumage fell into place, wiped her conquering bill on the grass, stepped delicately back into the nest, and softly settled herself down upon her two eggs, so miraculously preserved.
Silence fell on Lost Water Swamp. The air became gradually transfused with amethyst and pale rose. And then, far and faint, tranquil and poignant, came the entrancing cadence—Oh—spheral, spheral, Oh holy, holy—spheral—the silver vesper ecastasy of the hermit thrush, in his tree top against the pellucid sky.