Part IV—Birds edit
I. Bird Songs and Colors edit
The doctor was never quite sure which of his little friends in feathers arrived first in the spring—the bluebird, the song sparrow or the phoebe. Some morning in March, often before the snow was off the ground, he was awakened by a "pewit-pewee!" below his dormer window. There was seven-inch-long, cream-breasted, black-billed phoebe, fluttering about the leafless vines of the porch, singing her friendly greeting of just four notes. But from under the lilac and syringa shrubs he was sure to hear, about the same time, a "tweet, tweet, twittering," for all the world as if some one's pet canary had escaped from its cage. That was Mr. Song Sparrow, gray-brown of back and wings, speckle-breasted, busy and cheerful, stopping every now and then to twitter and trill from some low perch. But the doctor was apt to see the bluebird first, because of its bright color.
Did you ever see a sapphire (saf-fire) in a ring? It is a lovely, deep, sparkling blue stone, like a blue diamond. The blue bird is the sapphire of the air. His wings and tail are tipped with black. His breast is as red as the robin's. He really is a cousin of the robin's. Both belong to the big, musical family of thrushes.
Pretty Mr. Bluebird comes all alone. His sweet solo is something like this: "Here I am; all alone'. Oh-oh-I-oh, pur-i-ty, cher-ish me!" It is the loveliest melody, a little bit sad, until his mate joins him a week or so later. Mrs. Bluebird has the same colors, but they are not so bright. That is the rule in the bird world. Papa wears the gayest coat and sings the finest song. But every bird thinks he has the dearest, prettiest little mate in the world. He greets her with a song of joy. In the doctor's garden, Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird always sat close together on a low limb of an apple tree, when they arrived in the spring, and talked things over, oh so tenderly! Then they flitted about the place looking at housekeeping rooms. By and by you must see their little house and babies. They never thought of being afraid, for the doctor's plumy-tailed collie dog—Rob Roy—always lay on the porch to keep an eye out for stray cats, hawks and squirrels.
ROBIN
When Mr. Robin comes, a little later than the bluebirds, he wears a smart new spring suit of brown, with a gay red vest. He welcomes his little mate with a happy, mellow song. "Chirp, chirp," she answers faintly from the grass. "I'm rather tired from the journey, dear." "Oh, cheer-up, cheer-up!" he answers. Down he drops to her side, and perks his knowing little head to this side and that, as if to say: "I think I hear a worm!" Suddenly he stabs the ground with his bill, braces his stout legs, gives a jerk and up comes a fat grub for Mrs. Robin's wedding breakfast Up to a low branch he flies and sings her another song o pride and joy.
All the male birds have a love song for their mates. Both birds have call notes, and harsh alarm notes to warn of danger, and to frighten away enemies. And they have talking tones. Mates will often flit about near each other, and exchange remarks. Very likely they are just talking about the weather, or the food supply, or their neighbors. You can spend a whole summe watching and listening to one family of birds, and learn something new and interesting every day.
If ever you do that take a thrush for first choice. The robin, the bluebird, the brown thrasher and the mocking bird are thrushes. Nearly all the thrushes have beautiful manners and sweet singing voices. The mocking bird is one of the greatest singers of the feathered world. He is all our own, too, for he is not found in any country of the old world. He nests in our warm southern states. But once in a great while he comes north. So, it was the pride of the doctor's heart to have a pair of mockers nesting in a spruce tree in his garden, for two or three summers.
When the mocking bird begins to sing he springs or bounds upward, as if too happy to stay on the earth. The mocking bird is as long as the robin, but more slender. In color he is rather sober—gray above, with dark brown wings and tail that are tipped and lined with white. When the moon is full he often sings all night long. The only other bird that does this is the old-world nightingale. Ourgreat poet, Longfellow, describes the mocking bird's song in Evangeline:
"Then, from a neighboring thicket, the mocking bird, wildest of singers, Shook from his little throat such a flood of delirious music, That the whole air, and the woods, and the waters, seemed silent to listen."
MOCKINGBIRD
Beside his own song he mocks all the other birds. He warbles and chirps and whistles; he twitters and trills, so you might think all the birds were holding concert when he sings.
The mocker's nearest rival in the garden was a red-brown-backed cousin, with a brown-spotted vest of cream color. Sometimes he is called the brown thrasher, from the way he thrashes his tail about. . And he is called the brown mocker, too. One thing he does is to mock himself. He perches on a lofty branch of a tree to sing. Long black bill open and pointing skyward, he sings a song "like a babble of water in a brook."
When the song is finished he seems to say: "I wonder if I could do that again." And he does it, exactly as he did it before. The English poet Browning has noticed it:
"That's the wise thrush, who sings each song twice over,
As if you might think he never could re-capture
The first, wild, careless rapture."
Besides his own song, "twice over," the brown thrush sings choice bits from a dozen other bird songs, one after the other. " Hear me! Hear me!" he trills: "I can sing this, and this and this. Oh, the joy of it,—under the blue—in the sweet wind—swinging. Don't you wish—you could do it? Try, try, try, yes you can, truly, truly!" Such a little cataract of melody, to fall from the high branch of an elm.
The cat bird is a mocker, too. He is a thrush who can sing a pretty song when he wants to. But he is a saucy fellow. He caws like a crow and meows like a cat, to scare his timid neighbors into spasms, and to waken Rob Roy from his nap. Then he laughs at the joke. Do you know Mr. Cat Bird? He is quite a dandy, in a coat of London smoke and a pearl vest. He has a rusty red tailthat he jerks about when he sings. He skulks under bushes, and pounces on his creeping prey like a little feathered wild-cat.
If the bluebird is the sapphire of the air, there is no jewel at all to compare with the glowing orange of the Baltimore oriole. He is a cousin of the blackbirds, as you might know from his velvet black wings and tail, and his flute-like whistle. His olive-backed, lemon-breasted mate sings, too, a lovely alto to his clear soprano. They sing the dearest duet you ever could hear. The orchard oriole has a black coat and hat, too, but his vest is a reddish brown, and his wings and tail are barred with white. He and his dull, olive and yellow mate sing duets, too, in richer, less whistling voices than the Baltimore. If you are not sure of the orchard orioles look for their pretty, sky-blue shoes and stockings.
No blackbird is shy, you may be sure. The orioles always fly about in plain sight, and talk freely of themselves and their affairs. A hot-headed, blustering little fellow is the oriole, noisy, restless, talkative; always whistling gaily like a happy school boy, in sun, wind and rain. He has scolding notes for meddlesome neighbors, too. The orchard oriole is a good policeman. When he sounds his harsh, alarm note: "Chack!" every bird in the neighborhood knows it is time to skurry to cover.
If the doctor hadn't had a cow, and a pasture lot for her with a pond in it, and low elder and hazel and briar bushes around it, he wouldn't have had some of the blackbirds nesting near him. A hedge of thorny, ruddy-flowered japonica was between the garden and the pasture. Often a gay flash of black and white, with a yellow patch on the back of the neck, tumbled up out of the meadow onto that hedge. It was the bobolink. He sang and swung and flirted his wings and tail. He chattered and gossiped and whistled. He just bubbled over with high spirits and innocent fun. Up and down the scale he sang, like a musical acrobat on a trapeze. But most of the time he just bubbled out his own saucy name.
"Bob-o-link! Bob-o-link! Spink, spank, spink!" Dear little rascal. He had no trouble at all in winning a wife!
In the cat-tails and rushes about the pond was always a colony of red-winged blackbirds. Glossy fellows the males were, in jetty coats with red, gold-bordered shoulder knots. They strutted and danced and jumped and whistled "Bob-o-lee!" or, as some bird lovers understand: "Con-quer-ee!" It can hardly be called singing, this explosive gurgle.
MEADOWLARK
But oh, the meadow larks that nested in that pasture! This little brown-backed, and spotted-yellow-breasted singer, with the necklace of jet and white-tipped tail, is the Jenny Lind of our grasslands. You cannot walk along the edge of a clover field but he may spring up at your feet, perch on a fence or bush, and pour out a melody like flutes and violins, and human voices in vesper hymns. Yet, so few notice the meadow lark that Audubon, our greatest bird student, called him neglecta.
He is not a lark at all, as is the English sky-lark. He is a cousin of the blackbirds, the orioles and bobolinks. He walks like the blackbirds. He comes to us in April and sings all summer long, on the ground, on perches and on the wing. He is one of the very greatest of bird singers, rivalled only by the nightingale, the mocking bird, and the brown and hermit thrushes.
WOOD-THRUSH
There was rivalry among the children as to who should first spy the tanager in the doctor's garden. A flash of scarlet flame across an open space, and the tanager is gone! This glowing coal of a bird with black velvet wings and tail, really belongs to a tropical family. He seems as strange among our wild birds as an orchid in a meadow. He flits about in silent places, singing a lovely little chant, as sad as the dove's but of varied melody. To his mate he sings a low sweet warble. He calls like a robin, and he "throws" his voice like a ven-tril-o-quist, so you will often think him somewhere else.
The cinnamon-brown, spotted-breasted hermit-thrush of our northern pine woods can "throw" his voice, too. He is as shy as the tanager. Perhaps both of them do that to deceive hawks and squirrels and other enemies as to their whereabouts. The tanager's mate is a dull olive and yellow. Very soon he, too, takes off his scarlet and blackcloak, that attract far too much attention, and wears her shabby working dress. So, if you see the tanager in his dress of flame and soot at all, it must be in the spring or early summer.
GOLDFINCH
"Tweet, tweet, twitter, twitter, tweet!" Haven't you heard that often from roadside weeds, where dandelions and thistles have gone to seed? No, it isn't the speckled song-sparrow of the low bushes. It is a little black and yellow cousin of his—the gold-finch, or wild canary. Canary yellow with black wings and tail, he flies as a little canoe rides the water. Such a playful, sweet-tempered, "tweet, twittering" little fellow he is. He seems to waste half the summer idling, but he is really waiting for those downy weed seeds to line his pretty nest and to feed his babies.
The finest singers of America are thrushes, blackbirds and finches. The finches all have the canary twittering songs; the blackbirds the whistling, bubbling notes. The songs of the thrushes are pure rich melody, and many of them mock the songs of the warblers, the finches and the blackbirds. Another twittering finch is the snow-white and dead-black, short-billed grosbeak, with the patches of lovely rose color on the breast and under the wings. The cardinal grosbeak, or Virginia nightingale, is a finch, too, His voice is so fine that this ruby-coated and crested singer is often caged, as is his cousin the canary.
The eaves of the doctor's barn was a great place for swallows. A big colony of them skimmed and wheeled about, the sun glistening on their blue-black forked wings and tails. They chattered, scolded intruders, and sang sweet gossipy songs to each other. The wrens came right up to the house and sang from the roof, the low bushes and the ground. Bill up, perky tail jerking about, this merry singer is a nervous little scold at times. "Five inches of brown fury in feathers," the doctor called Mrs. Jennie Wren. She scolded the housecat, she scolded big policeman-dog, Rob Roy, who was really guarding her family. She scolded every human body about the place. She even scolded that bird-bully, Mr. Blue Jay. He didn't get to come near her eggs! Plucky little Mama Wren! She is the gritty little terrier of the bird world.
BLUE JAY
Only the blue jay can rival the wren as a scold. A handsome fellow he is, in six shades of blue, black, white and dove color. He has a crested head, stout bill, excited wings, a terrible squalling voice and stamping feet. He is always ready for a scrap. He is a good deal of a blusterer, and one pair of blue jays is quite enough for the peace of a small garden. He'll tell you who he is as soon as he comes, by squalling his name: "Jay, Jay, Jay!"
The king-bird is as trim as you please in a coat of iron gray, a pearl bib and an orange-red patch on his head. He cries: "Ky-rie, Ky-ky, ki-yi," much like a very small yelping dog. He is a cousin of the phoebe and wood-pewee, belonging to the fly-catcher family. Old red-head, the dark-blue, black and white wood pecker, with the red hood, just chuckles and drums. His cousin, the flicker, or golden-wing or yellow-hammer, laughs and chatters and drums, and plays tag around tree trunks. You can always know the woodpeckers by their drumming, the big black crows by their cawing, the scary-eyed owls by their who-who-ing, the doves by their mourning, the cuckoos and the jays by their calling their own names.
KINGBIRD
You will have to have very sharp eyes and ears to see the butterfly hovering of the humming bird—ruby-throat —and to hear its tiny mouse-like squeak. And among the noisy orchard orioles in the apple trees, the quaker-brown-and-fawn colored cedar birds are apt to pass unnoticed. You may know them by the brown crest on the head, the black spectacles around the eyes, and the row of red, wax-like spots across the wing tips. They are also called cherry-birds and wax-wings. They have no song, only a call note, and soft, polite, talking tones. Their manners are as beautiful as those of the blue-birds. They dress each other's coats with the sweetest little bows and lisping apologies,as much as to say: "Pardon me, but there's a feather out of place."
There are ever so many more birds in our gardens, woods and fields. Mr. John Burroughs says forty or fifty song birds visit us every summer. Most of them belong to the families of the thrushes, the finches, the blackbirds, the wrens, swallows, woodpeckers, flycatchers and little warblers. It is the small birds that sing. And you can tell what family a bird belongs to by its song and its food habits, more than by its colors or its nest. How many of our wild birds do you know? Their names and a good many of their pictures are in this book. (See Birds, Thrush, Bluebird, Mocking Bird, Robin, Catbird, Cowbird, Blackbird, Meadowlark, Oriole, Bobolink, Tanager, Finch, Goldfinch, Song-Wren, Jaybird, Kingbird, Phoebe, Pewee, Titmouse (chickadee), Towhee, Cedarbird, Hummingbird, Woodpecker, Flicker, Sapsucker, Owl, Dove, Warbler.)