Read Ebook: Bird Neighbors An Introductory Acquaintance with One Hundred and Fifty Birds Commonly Found in the Gardens Meadows and Woods About Our Homes by Blanchan Neltje Burroughs John Author Of Introduction Etc

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Ebook has 582 lines and 59636 words, and 12 pages

Indigo Bunting

Finch family

With no attempt at concealment, which he doubtless understands would be quite impossible, he chooses some high, conspicuous perch to which he mounts by easy stages, singing as he goes; and there begins a loud and rapid strain that promises much, but growing weaker and weaker, ends as if the bird were either out of breath or too weak to finish. Then suddenly he begins the same song over again, and keeps up this continuous performance for nearly half an hour. The noonday heat of an August day that silences nearly every other voice, seems to give to the indigo bird's only fresh animation and timbre.

The Belted Kingfisher

Kingfisher family

If the kingfisher is not so neighborly as we could wish, or as he used to be, it is not because he has grown less friendly, but because the streams near our homes are fished out. Fish he must and will have, and to get them nowadays it is too often necessary to follow the stream back through secluded woods to the quiet waters of its source: a clear, cool pond or lake whose scaly inmates have not yet learned wisdom at the point of the sportsman's fly.

In such quiet haunts the kingfisher is easily the most conspicuous object in sight, where he perches on some dead or projecting branch over the water, intently watching for a dinner that is all unsuspectingly swimming below. Suddenly the bird drops--dives; there is a splash, a struggle, and then the "lone fisherman" returns triumphant to his perch, holding a shining fish in his beak. If the fish is small it is swallowed at once, but if it is large and bony it must first be killed against the branch. A few sharp knocks, and the struggles of the fish are over, but the kingfisher's have only begun. How he gags and writhes, swallows his dinner, and then, regretting his haste, brings it up again to try another wider avenue down his throat! The many abortive efforts he makes to land his dinner safely below in his stomach, his grim contortions as the fishbones scratch his throat-lining on their way down and up again, force a smile in spite of the bird's evident distress. It is small wonder he supplements his fish diet with various kinds of the larger insects, shrimps, and fresh-water mollusks.

Flying well over the tree-tops or along the waterways, the kingfisher makes the woodland echo with his noisy rattle, that breaks the stillness like a watchman's at midnight. It is, perhaps, the most familiar sound heard along the banks of the inland rivers. No love or cradle song does he know. Instead of softening and growing sweet, as the voices of most birds do in the nesting season, the endearments uttered by a pair of mated kingfishers are the most strident, rattly shrieks ever heard by lovers It sounds as if they were perpetually quarrelling, and yet they are really particularly devoted.

The nest of these birds, like the bank swallow's, is excavated in the face of a high bank, preferably one that rises from a stream; and at about six feet from the entrance of the tunnel six or eight clear, shining white eggs are placed on a curious nest. All the fishbones and scales that, being indigestible, are disgorged in pellets by the parents, are carefully carried to the end of the tunnel to form a prickly cradle for the unhappy fledglings. Very rarely a nest is made in the hollow trunk of a tree; but wherever the home is, the kingfishers become strongly attached to it, returning again and again to the spot that has cost them so much labor to excavate. Some observers have accused them of appropriating the holes of the water-rats.

In ancient times of myths and fables, kingfishers or halcyons were said to build a floating nest on the sea, and to possess some mysterious power that calmed the troubled waves while the eggs were hatching and the young birds were being reared, hence the term "halcyon days," meaning days of fair weather.

Blue Jay

Crow and Jay family

No bird of finer color or presence sojourns with us the year round than the blue jay. In a peculiar sense his is a case of "beauty covering a multitude of sins." Among close students of bird traits, we find none so poor as to do him reverence. Dishonest, cruel, inquisitive, murderous, voracious, villainous, are some of the epithets applied to this bird of exquisite plumage. Emerson, however, has said in his defence he does "more good than harm," alluding, no doubt, to his habit of burying nuts and hard seeds in the ground, so that many a waste place is clothed with trees and shrubs, thanks to his propensity and industry.

He is mischievous as a small boy, destructive as a monkey, deft at hiding as a squirrel. He is unsociable and unamiable, disliking the society of other birds. His harsh screams, shrieks, and most aggressive and unmusical calls seem often intended maliciously to drown the songs of the sweet-voiced singers.

From April to September, the breeding and moulting season, the blue jays are almost silent, only sallying forth from the woods to pillage and devour the young and eggs of their more peaceful neighbors. In a bulky nest, usually placed in a tree-crotch high above our heads, from four to six eggs, olive-gray with brown spots, are laid and most carefully tended.

Notwithstanding the unlovely characteristics of the blue jay, we could ill spare the flash of color, like a bit of blue sky dropped from above, which is so rare a tint even in our land, that we number not more than three or four true blue birds, and in England, it is said, there is none.

Blue Grosbeak

Finch family

This beautiful but rather shy and solitary bird occasionally wanders eastward to rival the bluebird and the indigo bunting in their rare and lovely coloring, and eclipse them both in song. Audubon, we remember, found the nest in New Jersey. Pennsylvania is still favored with one now and then, but it is in the Southwest only that the blue grosbeak is as common as the evening grosbeak is in the Northwest. Since rice is its favorite food, it naturally abounds where that cereal grows. Seeds and kernels of the hardest kinds, that its heavy, strong beak is well adapted to crack, constitute its diet when it strays beyond the rice-fields.

Possibly the heavy bills of all the grosbeaks make them look stupid whether they are or not--a characteristic that the blue grosbeak's habit of sitting motionless with a vacant stare many minutes at a time unfortunately emphasizes.

When seen in the roadside thickets or tall weeds, such as the field sparrow chooses to frequent, it shows little fear of man unless actually approached and threatened, but whether this fearlessness comes from actual confidence or stupidity is by no means certain. Whatever the motive of its inactivity, it accomplishes an end to be desired by the cleverest bird; its presence is almost never suspected by the passer-by, and its grassy nest on a tree-branch, containing three or four pale bluish-white eggs, is never betrayed by look or sign to the marauding small boy.

Barn Swallow

Swallow family

Any one who attempts to describe the coloring of a bird's plumage knows how inadequate words are to convey a just idea of the delicacy, richness, and brilliancy of the living tints. But, happily, the beautiful barn swallow is too familiar to need description. Wheeling about our barns and houses, skimming over the fields, its bright sides flashing in the sunlight, playing "cross tag" with its friends at evening, when the insects, too, are on the wing, gyrating, darting, and gliding through the air, it is no more possible to adequately describe the exquisite grace of a swallow's flight than the glistening buff of its breast.

This is a typical bird of the air, as an oriole is of the trees and a sparrow of the ground. Though the swallow may often be seen perching on a telegraph wire, suddenly it darts off as if it had received a shock of electricity, and we see the bird in its true element.

Up in the rafters of the barn, or in the arch of an old bridge that spans a stream, these swallows build their bracket-like nests of clay or mud pellets intermixed with straw. Here the noisy little broods pick their way out of the white eggs curiously spotted with brown and lilac that were all too familiar in the marauding days of our childhood.

Cliff Swallow

Swallow family

Such great numbers of these swallows have been seen in the far West that the name of Rocky Mountain swallows is sometimes given to them; though however rare they may have been in 1824, when DeWitt Clinton thought he "discovered" them near Lake Champlain, they are now common enough in all parts of the United States.

In the West this swallow is wholly a cliff-dweller, but it has learned to modify its home in different localities. As usually seen, it is gourd-shaped, opened at the top, built entirely of mud pellets , softly lined with feathers and wisps of grass, and attached by the larger part to a projecting cliff or eave.

Like all the swallows, this bird lives in colonies, and the clay-colored nests beneath the eaves of barns are often so close together that a group of them resembles nothing so much as a gigantic wasp's nest. It is said that when swallows pair they are mated for life; but, then, more is said about swallows than the most tireless bird-lover could substantiate. The tradition that swallows fly low when it is going to rain may be easily credited, because the air before a storm is usually too heavy with moisture for the winged insects, upon which the swallows feed, to fly high.

Mourning Dove

Pigeon family

What the dove finds to adore so ardently in the "shiftless housewife," as Mrs. Wright calls his lady-love, must pass the comprehension of the phbe, that constructs such an exquisite home, or of a bustling, energetic Jenny wren, that "looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness." She is a flabby, spineless bundle of flesh and pretty feathers, gentle and refined in manners, but slack and incompetent in all she does. Her nest consists of a few loose sticks, without rim or lining; and when her two babies emerge from the white eggs, that somehow do not fall through or roll out of the rickety lattice, their tender little naked bodies must suffer from many bruises. We are almost inclined to blame the inconsiderate mother for allowing her offspring to enter the world unclothed--obviously not her fault, though she is capable of just such negligence. Fortunate are the baby doves when their lazy mother scatters her makeshift nest on top of one that a robin has deserted, as she frequently does. It is almost excusable to take her young birds and rear them in captivity, where they invariably thrive, mate, and live happily, unless death comes to one, when the other often refuses food and grieves its life away.

In the wild state, when the nesting season approaches, both birds make curious acrobatic flights above the tree-tops; then, after a short sail in midair, they return to their perch. This appears to be their only giddiness and frivolity, unless a dust-bath in the country road might be considered a dissipation.

In the autumn a few pairs of doves show slight gregarious tendencies, feeding amiably together in the grain fields and retiring to the same roost at sundown.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Gnatcatcher family

In thick woodlands, where a stream that lazily creeps through the mossy, oozy ground attracts myriads of insects to its humid neighborhood, this tiny hunter loves to hide in the denser foliage of the upper branches. He has the habit of nervously flitting about from twig to twig of his relatives, the kinglets, but unhappily he lacks their social, friendly instincts, and therefore is rarely seen. Formerly classed among the warblers, then among the flycatchers, while still as much a lover of flies, gnats, and mosquitoes as ever, his vocal powers have now won for him recognition among the singing birds. Some one has likened his voice to the squeak of a mouse, and Nuttall says it is "scarcely louder," which is all too true, for at a little distance it is quite inaudible. But in addition to the mouse-like call-note, the tiny bird has a rather feeble but exquisitely finished song, so faint it seems almost as if the bird were singing in its sleep.

If by accident you enter the neighborhood of its nest, you soon find out that this timid, soft-voiced little creature can be roused to rashness and make its presence disagreeable to ears and eyes alike as it angrily darts about your unoffending head, pecking at your face and uttering its shrill squeak close to your very ear-drums. All this excitement is in defence of a dainty, lichen-covered nest, whose presence you may not have even suspected before, and of four or five bluish-white, speckled eggs well beyond reach in the tree-tops.

During the migrations the bird seems not unwilling to show its delicate, trim little body, that has often been likened to a diminutive mocking-bird's, very near the homes of men. Its graceful postures, its song and constant motion, are sure to attract attention. In Central Park, New York City, the bird is not unknown.

BROWN, OLIVE OR GRAYISH BROWN, AND BROWN AND GRAY SPARROWY BIRDS

House Wren Bank Swallow and Carolina Wren Rough-winged Swallow Winter Wren Cedar Bird Long-billed Marsh Wren Brown Creeper Short-billed Marsh Wren Pine Siskin Brown Thrasher Smith's Painted Longspur Wilson's Thrush or Veery Lapland Longspur Wood Thrush Chipping Sparrow Hermit Thrush English Sparrow Alice's Thrush Field Sparrow Olive-backed Thrush Fox Sparrow Louisiana Water Thrush Grasshopper Sparrow Northern Water Thrush Savanna Sparrow Flicker Seaside Sparrow Meadowlark and Sharp-tailed Sparrow Western Meadowlark Song Sparrow Horned Lark and Swamp Song Sparrow Prairie Horned Lark Tree Sparrow Pipit or Titlark Vesper Sparrow Whippoorwill White-crowned Sparrow Nighthawk White-throated Sparrow Black-billed Cuckoo

See also winter plumage of the Bobolink, Goldfinch, and Myrtle Warbler. See females of Red-winged Blackbird, Rusty Blackbird, the Grackles, Bobolink, Cowbird, the Redpolls, Purple Finch, Chewink, Bluebird, Indigo Bunting, Baltimore Oriole, Cardinal, and of the Evening, the Blue, and the Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. See also Purple Finch, the Redpolls, Mourning Dove, Mocking-bird, Robin.

House Wren

Wren family

Early some morning in April there will go off under your window that most delightful of all alarm-clocks--the tiny, friendly house wren, just returned from a long visit south. Like some little mountain spring that, having been imprisoned by winter ice, now bubbles up in the spring sunshine, and goes rippling along over the pebbles, tumbling over itself in merry cascades, so this little wren's song bubbles, ripples, cascades in a miniature torrent of ecstasy.

Year after year these birds return to the same nesting places: a box set up against the house, a crevice in the barn, a niche under the eaves; but once home, always home to them. The nest is kept scrupulously clean; the house-cleaning, like the house-building and renovating, being accompanied by the cheeriest of songs, that makes the bird fairly tremble by its intensity. But however angelic the voice of the house wren, its temper can put to flight even the English sparrow. Need description go further?

Six to eight minutely speckled, flesh-colored eggs suffice to keep the nervous, irritable parents in a state bordering on frenzy whenever another bird comes near their habitation. With tail erect and head alert, the father mounts on guard, singing a perfect ecstasy of love to his silent little mate, that sits upon the nest if no danger threatens; but both rush with passionate malice upon the first intruder, for it must be admitted that Jenny wren is a sad shrew.

While the little family is being reared, or, indeed, at any time, no one is wise enough to estimate the millions of tiny insects from the garden that find their way into the tireless bills of these wrens.

It is often said that the house wren remains at the north all the year, which, though not a fact, is easily accounted for by the coming of the winter wrens just as the others migrate in the autumn, and by their return to Canada when Jenny wren makes up her feather-bed under the eaves in the spring.

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