Part 7
On the same day, not far distant, another bush-sparrow’s nest was found in some bushes, placed about three feet from the ground. In a few weeks there were babies five in the goldfinch’s nest, and four in that of the bush-sparrow. Pray keep both nests in mind, remembering that the youngsters of both families were hatched on the same day. One evening at twilight I again stepped out to the clover-field. The mother goldfinch was sitting close on her nest, and did not stir as I came near. Then I touched her lightly with my cane. Still she remained on her nest as if glued fast, only glaring at me with her wild, beady eyes. At length I softly laid my finger on her back, when she uttered a queer, half-scolding cry, and leaped up to the nest’s rim, but did not fly. There she stood, turning her head and eying me keenly until I stole away, unwilling to forfeit her confidence and good-will. But when, on my way home, I paused a moment to look at the bush-sparrow’s nest, the mother flitted away with a frightened chirp before I came within reach. She was not as confiding as her little neighbor, the goldfinch.
Now mark! On the fifteenth of August the young bush-sparrows had become so large and well developed that when, meaning no harm, I touched them gently with my finger, they flipped out of the nest like flashes of lightning. The infant goldfinches were not yet more than half fledged, and merely snuggled close to the bottom of the nest when I caressed them. The idea of flying was still remote from their little pates. These observations prove that young bush-sparrows develop much more rapidly than young goldfinches; yet, strange as it may seem, the goldfinch, when grown, flies much higher, if not more swiftly, than his little neighbor, and continues longer on the wing.
On the same day I sat down in the clover, a few rods from the goldfinch’s nest, and kept close watch on both the old birds and their offspring for an hour and a half. The sun attacked me savagely with his red-hot arrows, and the sweat broke from every pore, but I felt amply repaid for my vigil. During the first half-hour the parent birds ventured slyly to feed their bantlings twice. Then I crept closer, and waited an hour; but the parent birds were too shy to bring their hungry nestlings a single mouthful of food, choosing, it would seem, to let them suffer hunger rather than take risk themselves. The little things were almost famished, and behaved very quaintly. Every rustle of the leaves in the wind caused them to start up, crane out their necks, pry open their mouths as wide as they could, waddle awkwardly from side to side, and chirp for something to eat. How famished they were! They even seized one another’s heads and tried to gulp one another down. The spectacle was just a little uncanny.
But, dear me! they were not as ignorant of the ways of the world as you might suppose. When I lightly tapped the stems of the bushes with my cane, instead of leaping up and opening their mouths as they were expected to do, they shrank down into the bottom of the nest, discerning at once the difference between those strokes on the bush and their parents’ quiet approach or loving call. Something must have put them on their guard, and instilled feelings of fear into their palpitating bosoms. Perhaps it was that shy personage, the mother herself; for she would call admonishingly at intervals from the woods, _Ba-bie! ba-bie!_ putting a pathetic accent on the second syllable. It was droll to see the youngsters try to preen their feathers, they went about the performance so awkwardly.
On the seventeenth of the month one of the nestlings was missing, and no amount of looking for it in the thicket revealed any clew to its whereabouts. None of the remaining birds were ready to fly. Two days later they were still in the nest, although they had grown considerably since my last visit, so that one of them was almost crowded out of the circular trundle-bed. I could not resist the temptation to lift it in my hand, just to see how pretty it was and how it would act. It uttered a sharp cry of alarm, and sprang from my hand; but its wings were still so weak that it merely fluttered in an oblique direction to the ground. The third time I caught it, it sat contentedly on my palm, and allowed me to stroke its back, looking up at its captor with mingled wonder and trustfulness.
On the heads of all the nestlings a fine down protruded up through and above the feathers. The birds looked very knowingly out of their small coal-black eyes, but the cunning little things obstinately refused to open their mouths for me, entice them as I would; however, when I moved away some distance, and their mamma came with a tempting morsel, they sprang up instantly and gulped it down. Not so very unsophisticated, after all, for mere bantlings! On the morning of the twenty-sixth all the young finches had left the nest, and were perched in the bushes near by. I contrived to catch one of them and hold him in my hand a few moments, to admire his dainty toilet and pretty dark eyes. Thus my brief study in comparative ornithology proved that the young goldfinches left the nest seven days after the young bush-sparrows, hatched at the same time, had taken wing.
IX. MIDSUMMER MELODIES.
Several times has the statement been made in print that it is scarcely worth one’s while to attempt to study the birds during the midsummer months, the reason alleged being that at that time they are silent and inactive, and their behavior devoid of special interest. Now, nothing ministers so gratefully to the pride of the original investigator as to prove untrue the theories that have been advanced in books and that are current among scientific men. During the summer of 1891 I resolved to discover for myself what the birds were doing, and so, spite of drought, heat, and mosquitoes, I visited the haunts of my winged companions at least every other day. The result was a surprise to myself, proving that the unwisest thing a naturalist can do is to lay down absolute canons of conduct for feathered folk.
It is just possible that physical stupor, induced by the extreme heat of summer, has caused some ornithologists to observe carelessly and listlessly, and for that reason they have supposed that the birds were as languid as themselves; but the wide-awake student, who can brave heat and cold alike, will never find the feathered creation failing to repay the closest attention. Some birds are almost as active when the mercury is wrestling with the nineties as on the fairest day of May, and those are the ones to be studied in midsummer.
My special investigations began about the middle of July. It is true that at that time what are usually regarded as the songsters of the first class—the brown thrashers, wood-thrushes, cat-birds, and bobolinks—had gone into a conspiracy of silence, not a musical note coming from their throats, although some of them always remain in this latitude until far into September. But when the first-class minstrels are mute, one appreciates the minor vocalists all the more. Yet I must not omit to say that on the thirtieth of July I caught a fragment of a wood-thrush’s song, the last I heard for the season.
Let me recall one day in particular. It was the tenth of August, and the weather was broiling,—hot enough to drive the thermometer into hysterics, just the day to see how the heat would affect the feathered tenants of the groves; and so, overcoming my physical inertia as best I could, I stalked to the woods in the afternoon in quest of bird lore. With the perspiration running from every pore, I trudged about for some time without seeing or hearing a single bird. Were the books correct, after all? Was I to be deprived of the pleasure of proving them in error? It began to appear as if such might be the case. Presently, however, as I pushed out into a gap at one side of the woods, an uneasy chirping in the clumps of bushes and brambles near by sent a thrill of gladness through my veins. I felt intuitively that there were birds in abundance in the neighborhood, and my presentiment proved correct; for before my brief search was completed, I was permitted to record the songs of the indigo-bird, the cardinal grossbeak, the towhee bunting, the wood-pewee, the Baltimore oriole, and the black-capped chickadee; while, no sooner had I stepped out of the woods into the adjoining swamp, than the song-sparrow chimed merrily, “Oh, certainly, certainly, you mustn’t forget me-me-me! No-sirree, no-sirree!”
One of the most blithesome trillers of midsummer was the grass-finch, which sang his canticles until about the twelfth of August, when he suddenly took leave for parts unknown. It seemed to me he sang more vigorously in July than in May, for several times he prolonged his trill with such splendid musical effect as to make me rush out to the adjoining field to find a lark-sparrow. The black-throated bunting remained here almost as long, rasping his harsh notes until he also took his flight. I was somewhat disappointed in the meadow-larks, having heard but one note from their tuneful throats during August; but when September came, they resumed their shrill choruses, which lasted until November, increasing in vigor as the autumn advanced.
The robins were chary of their music, only two songs having been heard during August, one of them on the fourteenth. But the little bush-sparrow made ample compensation, chanting his pensive voluntaries almost every day at the border of the woods until about the twentieth of August. Still more lavish of his melody was the indigo-bird, which on several occasions was the only songster, besides the wood-pewee, heard during a long stroll through the woods. An irrepressible minstrel, he is the most cheery member of the midsummer chorus. My notes say that the Maryland yellow-throat was singing in splendid voice on the first of August, but I am positive I heard him later in the month, as he is one of our most rollicksome midsummer choralists. The goldfinch sang cheerily on the first, eighteenth, and nineteenth of August, and I cannot say how often in July and August I heard the loud refrain of the Carolina wren.
On the tenth, twelfth, fourteenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth of August, the Baltimore oriole piped cheerily, though he had partly doffed his splendid vernal robes, and was beginning to don his modest autumnal garb. The cardinal bird fluted frequently during July and August, and, besides, regaled me with a vocal performance on the third of September. The last record I have of the towhee bunting’s trill is the tenth of August; but before that date he was quite lavish of his music. On many of my tramps to the woods the sad minor whistle of the black-capped chickadee pierced the solitudes, making one dream of one’s boyhood days,—
“When birds and flowers and I were happy peers,”
as Lowell would phrase it.
One of my surprises was a warbler’s trill on the twelfth of August. The little tantalizer kept itself so far up in the trees as to baffle all attempts at identification, but I am disposed to think it was a cerulean warbler. On the nineteenth of August two warbler trills, one of them, I feel almost sure, from the throat of the chestnut-sided warbler, were heard, which is all the more novel because these birds are not residents, but only migrants in this latitude. I should have felt amply repaid for all my efforts, had I proved nothing more than that warblers will sometimes regale one with an aftermath of song in the dog days.
The most persistent minstrel of the midsummer orchestra was the wood-pewee,—the only bird whose song I heard on every excursion to the woods during July and August; and even when September came, there seemed to be little abatement in his musical industry. All the year round, the song-sparrow is the most prolific lyrist of my acquaintance, but in midsummer he is distanced by his sylvan neighbor, the wood-pewee. During my walks on the twenty-ninth and thirty-first of August the pewee’s was the only song heard.
Then, he does not confine himself wholly to his ordinary song, _Phe-e-w-e-e_ or _Phe-e-e-o-r-e-e-e_, for one day in July he twittered a quaint medley in a low, caressing tone, as if singing a lullaby to his nestlings. At first I could not tell what bird was the author of the new style of melody, but presently the song glided sweetly into the well-known _Pe-e-w-e-e_. On another occasion I was charmed by the vocal rehearsals of a young pewee. His youth was evident from the fact that he twinkled his wings and coaxed for food from the mother bird, who rewarded his vocal efforts by feeding him. The song was extremely beautiful, spite of the crudeness of its execution; a clear continuous strain, repeated quite loudly, with here and there a partially successful attempt to emit the ordinary pewee notes. Occasionally the parent bird would respond, as if setting the ambitious novice a musical copy, and then he would make a heroic effort to pipe the notes he had just heard, and several times he succeeded admirably. He had a voice of excellent quality, but did not have it under perfect control; still, the immature song was so innocent, so _naïve_ and striking, that it was a temptation to wish he would never learn to sing otherwise.
Permit me to add, in conclusion, that, while the birds are not equally musical or plentiful all the year round, yet there is never a time when their behavior is not worth careful attention. Moreover, midsummer is the most favorable time for the study of the quaint behavior and varied plumage of young birds,—a theme connected with our avian fauna that merits more consideration than it has yet received.
X. WHERE BIRDS ROOST.
One winter evening found me tramping through a swamp not far from my home, listening to the dulcet trills of the song-sparrows, which had recently returned from a brief visit to a more southern latitude. There was no snow on the ground, and the day had been pleasant; but, as evening approached, the west wind blew raw across the fields. For some reason which I cannot now recall, an impulse seized me to clamber over the fence into the adjacent meadow, where I stalked about somewhat aimlessly for a minute or two, little thinking that I was on the eve of a discovery,—one that was destined to lead me into a delightful field of investigation.
The ground was rather soggy, but a pair of tall rubber boots make one indifferent to mire and mud. The dusk was now gathering rapidly, and it was time for most birds to go to bed. I soon found, too, that they were going to bed, and, moreover, were taking lodgings in the most unexpected quarters. Imagine my surprise when, as I trudged about, the little tree-sparrows, which are winter residents in my neighborhood, flew up here and there out of the deep grass. They seemed to be hidden somewhere until I came near, and then they would suddenly dart up as if they had emerged from a hole in the ground.
This unexpected behavior led me to investigate; and I soon found that in many places there were cosey apartments hollowed out under the long, thick tufts of marsh grass, with neat entrances at one side like the door of an Eskimo hut. These hollows gave ample evidence of having been occupied by the birds, so that there could be no doubt about their being bird bedrooms. Very frequently they were burrowed in the sides of the mounds of sod raised by the winter frosts, and were thus lifted above the intervening hollows, which contained ice-cold water. In every case the overhanging grass made a thatched roof to carry off the rain.
I do not mean to say that these little dugouts were made by the birds themselves. Perhaps they were, but it is more probable that they had been scooped out the previous summer by field-mice, and had only been appropriated for sleeping-apartments by the sparrows. However that may be, they were exceedingly cunning and cosey; and soft must have been the slumbers of the feathered occupants while the wintry blasts howled unharming above them.
Prior to that discovery I had supposed, with most people, that all birds roost in trees and bushes. Later researches have proved how wide of the truth one’s unverified hypotheses may be. A week or so afterward, while strolling one evening at dusk through a favorite timber-belt, I noticed the snowbirds, or juncos, darting up from the leaves and bushes and small brush-heaps, beneath which they had found dainty little coverts from the storm. In many places crooked twigs and branches, covered with leaves, lay on the ground, leaving underneath small spaces overarched and sheltered, and into these cosey nooks the juncos had crept for the night. No enemies, at least in winter, would find them there, and their hiding-places were snug and warm. Long after dark I lingered in the woods, and everywhere startled the snow-birds from their leafy couches. At one place a whole colony of them had taken lodgings. When my passing frightened them away, they flew through the darkness into the neighboring trees. After waiting at some distance for several minutes, I returned to the spot, and found that some of the birds had gone back to their bedrooms on the ground.
In my nocturnal prowlings through the fields and lowlands, I have frequently frightened the meadowlarks from the grass, and that long before nest-building or incubation had begun. Of course, they were recognized by their nervous alarm-calls, as well as by the peculiar sound of their fluttering wings. What surprises me beyond measure is that they so often select low, boggy places for their roosts, instead of the dry pleasant upland slopes. But there is no accounting for tastes in the bird world. The grass-finches and lark-sparrows, like their relatives just mentioned, seek little hollows in the ground for bed-chambers, usually sheltered by grass tufts.
Long before day, one April morning, I made my way to the marsh so frequently mentioned in this volume. The moon was shining brightly in the southern sky. Early as it was—for as yet there was no sign of daybreak—the silvery trills of the song-sparrows rose from the bushes like a votive offering to the Queen of Night. From one part of the swamp a sweet song would ring out on the moonlit air, and would at once be taken up by another songster not far away. Then another would chime in, and another, until the whole enclosure was filled with the antiphonal melody. A silence would then fall upon the marsh like a dream-spirit, to be broken soon by another outburst of minstrelsy; and thus the nocturne continued until day broke, and it merged into the glad matin service.
But my object is to tell about bird roosts rather than about bird music. When I reached the farther end of the marsh, several sparrow songs came up from the ground. I walked with a tentative purpose toward a spot whence a song came, when the little triller sprang up affrighted. The same experiment with a number of other songsters brought a like result in each case, proving beyond doubt, I think, that at least some of the song-sparrows roost on the ground, and begin their matins before they rise from their couches, so anxious are they to put in a full day of song.
On the same morning—it was still before daybreak—a bevy of red-winged blackbirds, which had been roosting in the long grass, flew up with vociferous cries and protests at the rude awakening I had given them, just when they were enjoying their morning nap. Blame them who will for making loud ado, for there are many people who would do the same under similar provocation. Thus it will be seen that many birds sleep on the ground. My investigations lead me to this conclusion: As a rule, those birds which nest on or near the ground, and spend a considerable portion of their time in the grass, like the meadow-larks and song-sparrows, roost on the ground, while others find bushes and trees more to their taste. Still, there are exceptions to this rule; for on several occasions, while bent on my nocturnal prowlings, I have driven the turtle-dove from the ground, although this bird usually roosts in the thorn-trees and willows.[4]
The robins choose thick trees and even wild rose-bushes for roosts. In the apple-trees and pines of a neighbor’s yard across the fields these birds find sleeping-apartments early in the spring, before nest-building is begun, for a perfect deluge of robin music often pours from that locality, both morning and evening.
The white-throats, wood-sparrows, and brown thrashers make use of the thick thorn-trees of the marsh for lodgings. They flutter about in sore dismay as I approach, until I start back, lest they should impale themselves on the sharp thorns. Sometimes the thrasher ensconces himself for the night in the brush-heaps which the wood-choppers have made on the slopes, making his presence known by his peculiar way of scolding at my officious intrusion.
One cannot help admiring the wise forethought displayed by many birds in creeping into the thick thorn-bushes at night, where they may sleep without fear of attack from their nocturnal foe, the owl. Full well they seem to know he cannot force his bulky form through the thick network of branch and thorn. How he must gnash his teeth with rage—if owls ever do that—when he espies his coveted prey sleeping peacefully just beyond the reach of his talons! Still, it sometimes happens that even a small bird ventures into too close quarters in these terrible prickly bushes; for I once found a dead sparrow completely wedged in among the fierce thorns, where it had evidently been caught in such a way as to prevent its escape.
Something over a year after the preceding facts were published, I was seized with a whim to resume my investigations on bird roosts. One of my nocturnal rambles seems to be deserving of somewhat minute description. It was a delightful evening of early spring, with a warm westerly breeze stirring the bursting leaves. The sun had set, and the dusk was falling over fields and woods. The bright moon, a little more than half full, lengthened out the gloaming and added many precious minutes to the singing hours of the birds. Such a woodland chorus as I was permitted to listen to that evening! It was a rare privilege. How the wood-thrushes vied with the towhee buntings! Which would sing the latest? That seemed to be the question. At length there were several moments of silence, and I supposed all the birds had gone to sleep, when a white-throated sparrow and a wood-pewee struck in with their sweet strains; and so the chorus continued until it was really night. The wood-thrushes, I think, got in the last note of the twilight serenade.
Before it had become quite dark, I espied a wood-thrush sitting in the fork of a dogwood-tree, looking at me in a startled way; but she did not fly. I walked off some distance, remained awhile, and then returned, to find her still in her place. Then I strolled about until night had fully come; the moon shone brightly, so that it was not dark. When I went back to the dogwood-tree, the speckled breast of the thrush was still visible in the fork which she had chosen for her bed-chamber, and I wished her pleasant dreams.
While stalking about, I startled another wood-thrush, which had selected a loose brush-heap on the ground instead of a sapling or tree for a roost. The indigo-birds and bush-sparrows flew up from the blackberry bushes as I pushed my way through them. Several times the towhee buntings leaped scolding out of bed, having selected brush-heaps, or dead branches lying on the ground, for roosting-places.