Part 11

“Notwithstanding this, something besides sight guides these travellers in the upper air. (Here is a route for you to trace on the map.) In Alaska, a few years ago, members of the Biological Survey on the Harriman expedition went by steamer from the island of Unalaska to Bogoslof Island, a distance of about sixty miles. A dense fog had shut out every object beyond a hundred yards. When the steamer was halfway across, flocks of Murres, returning to Bogoslof after long quests for food, began to break through the fog wall astern, fly side by side with the vessels, and disappear in the mists ahead. By chart and compass, the ship was heading straight for the island; but its course was no more exact than that taken by the birds. The power which carried them unerringly home over the ocean wastes, whatever its nature, may be called ‘a sense of direction.’ We recognize in ourselves the possession of some such sense, though imperfect and easily at fault. Doubtless a similar, but vastly more acute, sense enabled the Murres, flying from home and circling wide over the water, to keep in mind the direction of their nests and return to them without the aid of sight. It is probable that this faculty is exercised during migration.

“Reports from lighthouses in southern Florida show that birds leave Cuba on cloudy nights when they cannot possibly see the Florida shores, and safely reach their destination, provided no change occurs in the weather. But if meantime the wind changes or a storm arises to throw them out of their reckoning, they become bewildered, lose their way, and fly toward the lighthouse beacon. Unless killed by striking the lantern, they hover near or alight on the balcony, to continue their flight when morning breaks, or, the storm ceasing, a clear sky allows them once more to determine the proper course.

“Birds flying over the Gulf of Mexico to Louisiana, even if they ascended to the height of five miles, would still be unable to see a third of the way across. Nevertheless this trip is successfully made twice each year by countless thousands of the warblers of the Mississippi Valley.

“Probably there are many short zigzags from one favoured feeding-spot to another, but the general course between the summer and winter homes is as straight as the birds can find without missing the usual stopping-places.

_Accidents during Migration_

“Migration is a season full of peril for myriads of winged travellers, especially for those that cross large bodies of water. Some of the shore-birds, such as Plover and Curlew, which take long ocean voyages, can rest on the waves if overtaken by storms, but woe to the luckless warbler whose feathers once became water-soaked,—a grave in the ocean or a burial in the sand of the beach is the inevitable result. Nor are such accidents infrequent. A few years ago on Lake Michigan a storm during spring migration piled many birds along the shore.

“If such a disaster could occur on a lake less than a hundred miles wide, how much greater might it not be during a flight across the Gulf of Mexico. Such a catastrophe was once witnessed from the deck of a vessel, thirty miles off the mouth of the Mississippi River. Large numbers of migrating birds, mostly warblers, had accomplished nine-tenths of their long flight, and were nearing land, when they were caught by a ‘norther’ with which most of them were unable to contend, and, falling into the Gulf, were drowned by hundreds.

“Then, as I have told you before, birds are peculiarly liable to destruction by striking high objects. A new tower in a city kills many before the survivors learn to avoid it. The Washington Monument has caused the death of many little migrants; and though the number of its victims has decreased of late years, yet on a single morning in the spring of 1902 nearly 150 lifeless bodies were strewn around its base.

“Bright lights attract birds from great distances. While the torch in the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor was kept lighted, the sacrifice of life it caused was enormous, even reaching a maximum of 700 birds in a month. A flashing light frightens birds away, and a red light is avoided by them as if it were a danger signal, but a steady white light looming out of mist or darkness seems to act like a magnet and draws the wanderers to destruction. Coming from any direction, they veer around to the leeward side, and then, flying against the wind, dash themselves against the pitiless glass.

_Distance of Migration_

“The length of the migration journey varies enormously. Some birds do not migrate at all. Many a Cardinal, Carolina Wren, and Bob-white rounds out its whole contented life within ten miles of its birthplace. Other birds, for instance, the Pine Warbler and the Black-headed Grosbeak, do not venture in winter south of the breeding range, so that with them fall migration is only a withdrawal from the northern and a concentration in the southern part of the summer home—the Warbler in about a fourth and the Grosbeak in less than an eighth of the summer area.

“The next variation is illustrated by the Robin, which occurs as a species in the middle districts of the United States throughout the year, in Canada only in summer, and along the Gulf of Mexico only in winter. Probably no individual Robin is a continuous resident in any section; but the Robin that nests, let us say, in southern Missouri will spend the winter near the Gulf, while his hardy Canada-bred cousin will be the winter tenant of the abandoned summer home of the southern bird.

“Most migrants entirely change their abode twice a year, and some of them travel immense distances. Of the land-birds, the common eastern Night Hawk seems to deserve the first place among those whose winter homes are widely distant from their breeding-grounds. Alaska and Patagonia, separated by 115 degrees of latitude, are the extremes of the summer and winter homes of the bird, and each spring many a Night Hawk travels the 5000 miles that lie between. But some of the shore-birds are still more inveterate voyagers. These cover from 6000 to 8000 miles each way, and appear to make travelling their chief occupation.

_Routes of Migration_

“Birds often seem eccentric in choice of route, and many land-birds do not take the shortest line. The fifty species from New England that winter in South America, instead of making the direct trip over the Atlantic, involving a flight of 2000 miles, take a slightly longer route which follows the coast of Florida, and passes thence, by island or mainland, to South America. What would seem, at first sight, to be a natural and convenient migratory highway extends from Florida through the Bahamas or Cuba to Haiti, Porto Rico, and the Lesser Antilles, and thence to South America.

_The Bobolink Route_

“Chief among these dauntless voyagers is the Bobolink, fresh from despoiling the Carolina rice-fields, waxed fat from his gormandizing, and so surcharged with energy that the 500-mile flight to South America on the way to the waving pampas of southern Brazil seems a small hardship. Indeed, many Bobolinks appear to scorn the Jamaican resting-point and to compass in a single flight the 700 miles from Cuba to South America. With the Bobolink is an incongruous company of travelling companions—a Vireo, a King Bird, and a Night Hawk that summer in Florida; the queer Chuck-will’s-widow of the Gulf States; the two New England Cuckoos; the trim Alice’s Thrush from Quebec; the cosmopolitan Bank Swallow from frozen Labrador, and the Black-poll Warbler from far-off Alaska. But the Bobolinks so far outnumber all the rest of the motley crew that the passage across the Caribbean Sea from Cuba to South America may with propriety be called the ‘Bobolink route.’ Occasionally a mellow-voiced Wood Thrush joins the assemblage, or a green-gold Tanager, which will prepare in its winter home its next summer livery of flaming scarlet. But the ‘Bobolink route,’ as a whole, is not popular with other birds, and the many that traverse it are but a fraction of the thousands of North American birds that spend the winter holiday in South America.

* * * * *

“Have you patience to follow the history of the flight of one bird? The longest migration route is taken by some of the wading-birds, especially the American Golden Plover, the Eskimo Curlew, and the Turnstone. The journey of the Plover, in itself like a fable, is wonderful enough to be told in detail.

“In the first week of June, they arrive at their breeding-grounds in the bleak, wind-swept ‘barren grounds’ above the Arctic Circle, far beyond the tree line. Some even venture 1000 miles farther north (Greely found them at latitude 81 degrees). While the lakes are still ice-bound, they hurriedly fashion shabby little nests in the moss only a few inches above the frozen ground. By August, they have hastened to Labrador, where, in company with Curlews and Turnstones, they enjoy a feast. Growing over the rocks and treeless slopes of this inhospitable coast is a kind of heather, the crowberry, bearing in profusion a juicy black fruit. The extravagant fondness shown for the berry by the birds, among which the Curlew, owing to its greater numbers, is most conspicuous, causes it to be known to the natives as the ‘curlewberry.’ The whole body of the Curlew becomes so saturated with the dark-purple juice that birds whose flesh was still stained with the colour have been shot 1000 miles south of Labrador.

“After a few weeks of such feasting, the Plovers become excessively fat, and ready for their great flight. They have reared their young under the midnight sun, and now they seek the southern hemisphere. After gaining the coast of Nova Scotia, they strike straight out to sea, and take a direct course for the easternmost islands of the West Indies. Eighteen hundred miles of ocean waste lie between the last land of Nova Scotia and the first of the Antilles, and yet 600 more to the eastern mainland of South America, their objective point. The only land along the route is the Bermuda Islands, 800 miles from Nova Scotia. In fair weather, the birds fly past the Bermudas without stopping; indeed, they are often seen by vessels 400 miles or more east of these islands.

“When they sight the first land of the Antilles, the flocks often do not pause, but keep on to the larger islands and sometimes even to the mainland of South America. Sometimes a storm drives them off the main track, when they seek the nearest land, appearing not infrequently at Cape Cod and Long Island.

“A few short stops may be made in the main flight, for the Plover swims lightly, and easily, and has been seen resting on the surface of the ocean; and shore-birds have been found busily feeding 500 miles south of Bermuda and 1000 miles east of Florida, in the Atlantic, in that area known as the Sargasso Sea, where thousands of square miles of seaweed teem with marine life.

“Though feathered balls of fat when they leave Labrador and still plump when they pass the Bermudas, the Plovers alight lean and hungry in the Antilles. Only the first, though the hardest, half of the journey is over. How many days it has occupied may never be known. Most migrants either fly at night and rest in the day or vice versa, but the Plover flies both night and day.

“After a short stop of three or four weeks in the Antilles and on the north-eastern coast of South America, the flocks disappear, and later their arrival is noted at the same time in southern Brazil and the whole prairie region of Argentina and Patagonia. Here they remain from September to March (the summer of the southern hemisphere), free from the responsibilities of the northern summer they have left. The native birds of Argentina are at the time engrossed in family cares; but, _remember this well, no wayfarer from the north nests in the south; he has a second summer free from care!_

“After a six months’ vacation the Plovers resume the serious affairs of life and start back toward the Arctic zone, but not by the same course. Their full northward route is a problem still unsolved. They disappear from Argentina and shun the whole Atlantic coast from Brazil to Labrador. In March they appear in Guatemala and Texas; April finds their long lines trailing across the prairies of the Mississippi valleys; the first of May sees them crossing our northern boundary; and by the first week in June they reappear at their breeding-grounds in the frozen North. What a journey! Eight thousand miles of latitude separates the extremes of their course, and 3000 miles of longitude constitutes the shorter diameter, and all for the sake of spending ten weeks on an Arctic coast! Do you realize this endurance when you see birds passing that window?

* * * * *

“As to the fatigue of the bird from travel, this is now thought to be very slight, as bird flocks that have crossed great bodies of water do not stop to rest, but usually continue many miles inland. It is, undoubtedly, accident or illness that sometimes causes birds to stop for rest on the rigging of vessels or offshore islands.

_The Unknown_

“Interest in bird migration goes back to a far distant period. Marvellous tales of the spring and fall movements of birds were spun by early observers, yet hardly less incredible are the ascertained facts. Much remains to be learned, and it may be of interest to note a few of the mysteries which still occupy attention. Even the daily flight of a bird is a wonderful thing apart from the endurance required in the long migrations. Though the wings of birds are built on very much the same plan, few species use them in precisely the same manner; while on a windy day the wings assume a dozen different positions in as many seconds, and to watch the flight of a sea-bird, as it rises and trims itself to the wind and then shapes its course, is to be awe-struck by this mysterious power of flight.

“Snap shot pictures of birds on the wing will show you this better than many words. Some birds, like the Hawks and Eagles, can sustain themselves in the air for hours, sailing against the wind without any visible motion of the wings. Others fly both by swift beating and sailing, like the Terns in one of these pictures.

“In short, the differences are so great that the Wise Men can often identify a bird by the sharp outline of its shadow in flight.

“This power of flight has been a subject of wonder for many thousand years; we think and we speculate, but no one has yet learned the secret in its fulness.

“‘The way of an eagle in the air! This is too wonderful for me!’ is an expression of this feeling of mystery, recorded in the book of Proverbs. One thing seems quite certain, however—if man ever succeeds in conquering the air and sailing through it, it will not be by the power of any invention of his own, but because he has at least in some degree mastered the knowledge of the flight of the bird and adapted it to his own use.

“The Chimney Swift, that you all know as the Chimney Swallow, is one of the most abundant and best-known birds of the eastern part of the United States. With troops of fledglings, catching their winged prey as they go, and lodging by night in some tall chimney, the flocks drift slowly south, joining with other bands until, on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, they become an innumerable host. Then they disappear. Did they drop into the water and hibernate in the mud, as was believed of old, their obliteration could not be more complete. In the last week in March a joyful twittering far overhead announces their return to the Gulf coast, but the intervening five months is still the Swifts’ secret.

“The mouse-coloured Bank Swallows, that we saw here in flocks a few weeks ago, are almost cosmopolitan, and enliven even the shores of the Arctic Ocean with their graceful aerial evolutions. Those that nest in Labrador allow a scant two months for building a nest and raising a brood, and by the first of August are headed southward. Six weeks later they are swarming in the vicinity of Chesapeake Bay, and then they, too, pass out of the range of our knowledge. In April they appear in northern South America, moving north, but not a hint do they give of how they came there. The rest of the species, those that nest to the south or west, may be traced farther south, but they, too, fail to give any clew as to where they spend the five winter months.

“Which one of the Wise Men can tell us? No one. Look out the window now; there are two Night Hawks, first flying high and then dropping suddenly through the air. Is it not hard to realize that, while you are going to and fro every day between your homes and school, and by and by having to dig paths through the snow in order to get there, those two slender birds will have flown 5000 miles to find a new summer, and will be having a vacation absolutely free from family cares?”

[1] Condensed and adapted from _Some New Facts about the Migration of Birds_, by Wells W. Cooke, United States Biological Survey.

XII SOME SUSPICIOUS CHARACTERS

_Owls and Hawks_

Frost had come. Real frost, with black, nipping fingers. White frost, at its first appearance, is a decorator who casts a silver spell upon the meadows, turning them into shimmering lakes and touching the ripe leaves until each one becomes a banner of scarlet, gold, or russet.

Chrysanthemums and tufts of self-sown pansies, huddling in warm nooks, were the only flowers left about the farm-houses or in Gray Lady’s garden, and both of these would hold their own until Thanksgiving Day gave praise for the year’s growth and bade growing things sleep the long sleep of winter.

Birdland showed the change less than either the hickory or the river woods, for the old orchard held its leaves as apple trees usually do, and the belt of spruces and pines, that ran from the north side of it quite up to the house, made a cheerful green barrier and wind-break as well; but the Swallows and Night Hawks were no longer skimming the air, and high above, a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks were sailing majestically, occasionally giving their cry Kee-o—Kee-o!

Jacob had finished the Martin house the week previous, and a stout smooth pole like a flagstaff had been planted, not in Birdland itself but on a slight rise in the ground that overlooked both the barns and the orchard. The setting up of the house itself had been reserved for this special Saturday, so that the children might take part in the ceremony.

The top of the pole, on which there were fastened crosspieces to make a foundation for the house, was thirty feet above the ground. In this pole stout spikes were driven at intervals. This not only would prevent cats from climbing up to the house, but made a sort of ladder by which a man or boy could go up and pull out the nesting material of English sparrows if they tried to take possession. For, if we are to keep the useful insect-eating birds about our houses, we must try our best to keep this Sparrow from living amongst us.

Hard as it seems, he must be classed with animals that the kindest heart knows must be destroyed. But no one wishes to hurt nestlings, so the best way to do is to prevent the old birds from building in the haunts of the useful song-birds, and then in winter, when the old Sparrows gather in flocks about the barnyard, have some grown man, with good judgment and aim, shoot them. Children should never be let do this for amusement, for it is not well to allow a painful necessity to become a sport.

Tommy Todd was quite late on this Saturday morning, so that it was thought that he was not coming, and when he did arrive he found the others gathered about the pole,—Dave, who had a steady head for climbing, having been allowed to go up with Jacob, after the house had been raised with a block and falls, to hold hammer and nails while it was securely fastened to the braces.

They were all so busy that it was not until Jacob and Dave had come down, that Gray Lady noticed the box that Tommy had brought and which stood beside him, the slats on top telling that it contained some live thing.

As she turned to ask Tommy what he had brought, Goldilocks came down the path in her chair, for though she could walk quite well by this time, she was obliged to be very careful, and Ann would not allow her to be on her feet for more than an hour or two each day.

“The little Owls are back again and all sitting in a row on a branch of the old russet beyond the lunch-counter. There is a hollow in the trunk of the tree that I never noticed before, and do you know, mother, I shouldn’t be surprised if the nest had been in there, so, perhaps, if we have something that they like on the lunch-counter, they’ll come back next year.”

“Come back? Aren’t you going to shoot them before they get away?” asked Dave. “Because they might not come back.”

“We don’t want them to come back to be shot, but to make more nests and live here,” said Goldilocks.

“Live! why, folks _always_ shoot Owls and Hawks! They are very bad things, though I guess Hawks are the worst; anyhow, there’s more of ’em. Just look at those big Hen-hawks flying up yonder now; maybe you’d like them to come and live in the orchard. If they did, they’d eat the lunch off’n your counter, other birds and all.”

Gray Lady, seeing by the expression of Dave’s face that he could not quite understand any other view of the matter, said: “Yes, Dave, you are right; people usually shoot Hawks and Owls on sight—and have been doing so for years. In fact, my own husband used to shoot them as a matter of course, and he was one who never killed a song-bird and who greatly preferred to hear the Grouse drumming in the forest, the Woodcock singing and dancing in the spring woods (yes, they both dance and sing and I will tell you of them some day), and Bob-white telling his name from the fence-rail, than to have them come on the table ever so deliciously cooked.

“But within the last ten or fifteen years the Wise Men have found out a great deal more about these Owls and Hawks—or Birds of Prey, as they are called, and they know exactly what the work of these birds is in the great plan of nature. Many of the facts they tell us of we can see for ourselves if we have the patience to watch. Before the country was settled by white men, and became what we call ‘civilized,’ all of these birds of prey had their place, but even now many of them are not only not hurtful to us, but of distinct benefit. The difficulty is that we do not stop to sift the facts and separate the good from the bad. To the farmer, and particularly the poultry-raiser, the cry of Hawk brings him out, quick as a flash, shot-gun in hand.

“But if he will only realize that for every chicken or pigeon one of these Hawks destroys, it in all probability takes fifty rats, field-mice, short-tailed meadow-mice, weasels, and red squirrels, he will see that he owes the Hawk a debt of gratitude; for it is easier by far to protect a poultry-yard from conspicuous things that fly above—like Hawks and Owls—than to keep out the things that crawl and creep.

“Now, before we go down to the orchard to see Goldilocks’ little Screech Owls, let us see what Tommy Todd has in this box.”

“It’s only a Screech Owl that I found up in the pigeon-coop this morning, but it’s such a different colour from the gray ones we have here, that I brought it up for you to see if it was a rare kind. I daren’t take it out because it claws and bites so.” And Tommy took away the cloth that partly covered the box, and there sat the bird with open, yellow-rimmed eyes, with which he seemed to see with difficulty.