Our Bird Comrades Part 5

"One of his favorite performances is to fly up and, with rattling wings, execute an aerial seesaw, a line of sharp-angled VVVVVVV's, helping himself at the short turns by rapidly opening and shutting his long white scissors. As he goes up and down he utters all the while a penetrating scream, _Ka-quee-ka-quee-ka-quee-ka-quee-ka-quee_, the emphasis being given each time at the top of the ascending line.

"Frequently when he is pa.s.sing along with the even flight of a sober-minded crow, and you are quietly admiring the salmon lining of his wings, he shoots rattling into the air, and, as you stare after him, drops back as suddenly as he rose. He does this apparently because the spirit moves him, as a boy slings a stone at the sky, but fervor is added by the appearance of a rival or an enemy, for he is much like a _Tyrannus_ in his masterful way of controlling the landscape. He will attack caracaras and white-necked ravens, lighting on their backs and giving them vicious blows while screaming in their ears."

AN ALPINE ROSY FINCH*

*Part of the material used in this chapter has already appeared in the author's work ent.i.tled "Birds of the Rockies," but it is here printed in different form, that of a monograph, with a number of additional facts. The writer feels that the readers of the present volume will relish at least a taste of bird study among the alpine heights of the Rocky Mountains. The article is reprinted from the "Denver Post,"

whose courtesy is hereby acknowledged.

The common name of the subject of this sketch is the brown-capped rosy finch; in the scientific works on ornithology he is called the brown-capped leucosticte. He is certainly a bird of peculiar habits and out-of-the-way preferences. Should he send you his card from his summer residence, it would read something like this: "At home in the mountains of Colorado, from 10,000 feet above sea-level to the summits of the highest peaks." There is only one other bird in Colorado that has so high a summer range, and that is the white-tailed ptarmigan, usually called, in hunter's parlance, the "mountain quail."

The rosy finch is slightly larger than the bluebird. His general color is light brown, suffused with a beautiful pink or rosy tint, the dark shaft lines and pale edges of the feathers of the back giving it a striped appearance. The forepart of the top of the head is blackish, and the cap is brown, from which he gets the qualifying adjective of his name. In the best nuptial plumage the rosy coloring is heightened to an intense crimson, especially on the wings, tail coverts, and the under parts. The female's attire is paler and duller of tint, the pink being sometimes almost obsolete. Oddly enough, in summer the bills of these birds are deep black, while in winter they become yellow, only the tip remaining black or blackish.

My introduction to the leucostictes occurred on the summit of Pikes Peak, at an elevation of 14,147 feet above the level of the sea. With exhausting toil I climbed the peak one night, and the next morning, when I stepped out of the signal station, where I had secured lodging, a flock of the brown-caps were flitting merrily about the garbage heap, helping themselves to an early breakfast. Their blithe chirping sounded very much like conversation all among themselves, and proclaimed two pleasant traits of character--cheerfulness and good temper. It was evident that they were happy and contented in their alpine home, in the upper story of the world, the rare, cool, exhilarating air, the majestic panoramas, and the unlimited freedom all contributing to the blithesomeness of their spirits. The keepers of the signal station told me that the birds came to the refuse pile every day for their meals.

Two years later, on the twenty-eighth of June, a friend and I clambered up Grays Peak, which is several hundred feet higher than Pikes Peak.

It was a long and toilsome climb, winding about the s...o...b..ds of the mountain side. Sometimes we scaled straight up the acclivity on "all fours," throwing ourselves down on the rocks at frequent intervals to rest our aching limbs and fill our lungs with the rarefied air; up and up and up, until at last, with a long pull and a strong pull, we stood on the sky-haunting ridge above all the surrounding elevations, looking down upon the rest of the world, which seemed to be crouching at our feet.

Long before we reached the summit we were saluted by a new bird voice--one that had not been heard farther down the mountain. It was a cordial chirp, which seemed to bid us welcome to the alpine region and to a.s.sure us that there was no risk in climbing to these sky-aspiring summits. A glance proved that our little salutarian was the brown-capped rosy finch, which I had not seen since my ascent of Pikes Peak. Down in the green, copsy valley at the base of the mountain we had met with the white-crowned sparrows and Wilson and Audubon warblers; then, as we began to climb the steep shoulder of the mountain, the American pipits had become our comrades, accompanying us about half way up the elevation; now all other birds had disappeared and we entered the arctic precincts of the leucostictes, which, like a gallant bodyguard, escorted us to the summit, cheering us on with their friendly chirping. The bailiwicks of the pipits and the rosy finches slightly overlapped, as did also those of the pipits and the white-crowned sparrows near the great mountain's base. However, no pipits ventured to the upper story of this elevated region--at least, not at the time of our visit, although they may have ascended to the summit later in the season.

How blithe and cheerful were the pretty leucostictes! Now they darted fearlessly about in the air over the summit and the gorges; now they alighted on the wall of the dilapidated old signal station, and anon hopped and flitted about over the extensive snow beds, picking up dainties that were evidently to their taste, all the while beguiling the time with their companionable, half-musical chirping. So far as I observed, they have no real song. If they have, it is strange that they did not furnish a sample of their lyrical gifts on so calm and sweet a summer day in the season of courts.h.i.+p.

What billsome morsels did they find on the snow? We examined their white tablecloth and found a number of small beetles and other insects creeping up through it or crawling around over its surface. Thus Nature spreads her banquet everywhere for her feathered children.

One cannot help falling into the speculative mood as one reflects on these little birds and their remarkable habits. Why do they, of all birds, choose the highest mountain peaks for their summer homes? Might the cause be physiological? Are their lungs, muscles, and nervous systems so constructed as to be adapted to a dry, rare, crisp atmosphere, which would prove injurious, perhaps fatal, to birds of a different structural organization? Who can tell? At all events, they live on these towering elevations all summer long, woo their plainly-clad mates, build their nests, and rear their happy families.

Their nests are set amid the rocks, and are quite bulky, the walls composed of gra.s.ses and the lining consisting of soft feathers. In order to procure the gra.s.ses required, they must descend at least to the belt of scant vegetation just below the region of bare rocks and boulders. Where they get the downy feathers for the carpet of their nurseries I have not been able to ascertain. No nest has yet been discovered below an elevation of 12,000 feet. Our little bird may, indeed, be called a "haunter of the sky." The height of the breeding season is in the latter part of July. The broods having left the nests, old and young gather in small flocks and range over the peaks and ridges, feeding on the insects to be found on the fields of snow.

No less interesting are the habits of these birds in winter. In October and November most of them descend only to the timber line, where they remain throughout the winter, save as they are driven down into the denser forests by the fierce tempests of this arctic region.

What feathered Vikings they are! They do not even make for themselves snow huts for protection from the winter storms. However, a few descend almost to the base of the foothills, while others--perhaps the less hardy--seek a blander climate in the northern part of Mexico.

There are in North America four other species of the genus Leucosticte; the Aleutian, whose habitat is the Aleutian and Prybilof islands and east as far as the island of Kadiak; the gray-crowned, which breeds in British America near the Rocky Mountains, comes to Colorado in winter, and has been taken as far east as western Iowa; the Hepburn, dwelling chiefly in the mountain ranges of the Pacific coast, breeding mostly in the far North, and in winter coming as far south and east as Nevada and Colorado; and, lastly, the black leucosticte, which winters in the central lat.i.tudes in the Rocky Mountains and whose summer range and breeding home is unknown to men of science.

HAPPENINGS BY THE WAY

If one were to keep on writing monographs of all our interesting avian species, the books that would result would make a good-sized library.

The few examples that have been given will ill.u.s.trate what can be done in this direction with the help of the field gla.s.s and the handbook. A few chapters will now be given on what might be called "odds and ends of bird life," and these are written not only for the information they may impart, but also for the purpose of showing how many interesting facts can be gathered along the way by the method of bird study commended in our opening chapter.

The prince of American ornithologists, Dr. Elliott Coues, has somewhere said that he would travel a long distance to discover a new kind of bird, or even to ascertain a new fact about a familiar species. I would applaud and echo that sentiment, for by all means let us have bird news that really is news, instead of revamping the familiar facts again and again, as some amateurish writers do. While I am not able to add any new species to science, I have made note of many pleasing incidents in the bird realm, and these, I venture to hope, may be of not a little general interest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pewee, or Phoebe (missing from book)]

There is the companionable white-breasted nuthatch which goes scudding up and down the tree trunks with as much ease and aplomb as a fly gliding over a window-pane. I have already told you something about him. I had long been aware that he wedged grains of corn, sunflower seeds, and kernels of nuts in the crannies of the bark; but one day he invented a trick that was a surprise to me. It occurred at a summer resort in northern Indiana, where I noticed a nuthatch hitching up and down and around the slender stem of a sapling, pausing at intervals to thrust something into the crevices of the bark. My curiosity led me to pry into the bird's affairs. Stepping smartly forward, I drove him away, not heeding his vigorous protest of "yank, yank," and examined the bark of the sapling. What did I discover? A colony of black ants were scuttling up and down the tree, apparently under stress of great excitement; and good reason they had, for here and there one of their number was tightly wedged into a c.h.i.n.k of the bark, often doubled up into a bow or an angle. They were not killed, at least not all of them, for they were still wiggling their legs and antennas; but they were evidently benumbed, or some of their backs were broken, and they were fastened so securely in the fissures that they could not escape.

Does it not look as if the forehanded nuthatch was laying by a supply of ants for a coming time of hunger?

One day a family of wood pewees visited the dooryard of my tent. A mult.i.tude of gnats circling about in the air, seemed to be precisely to the taste of the pewee parents and their hungry bairns. The bantlings sat chirping in the saplings, or flitted from twig to twig, twinkling their wings in the coaxing way that is characteristic of young birds, while the papa and mamma swung out into the air, nabbed the insects on the wing, and flew back to the trees, describing many circles, ellipses, and festoons of rare grace and beauty. The snapping of their mandibles could often be heard as they closed upon the fated insects.

Most of the gnats thus captured were thrust into the mouths of the young birds, the parents das.h.i.+ng up to them and feeding them without alighting. As lavish a minstrel as the pewee _pater familias_ is under most circ.u.mstances, that morning he was too busy to tune his wind harp.

Speaking of the voracious appet.i.tes of birds, as exhibited by the young pewees, which never seemed to get enough, I am reminded of something I witnessed one day in a deep, wooded hollow. A red-eyed vireo suddenly appeared in the branches above me, holding an immense green worm in his beak. Then followed a tussle for the "upper hand" that was worth seeing. The bird, holding its squirming victim by one end, proceeded to beat it against the limb, though it was almost too big and recalcitrant for him to handle. Presently the vireo, after a good deal of effort, succeeded in pa.s.sing his quarry through his bill from end to end, thus reducing it to somewhat smaller dimensions. Still, it was a large morsel for so small a diner.

However, there were some intimations that the bird intended to bolt the worm whole. And that was just what he was planning to do! What a struggle ensued! I would have wagered that the little gourmand had reckoned without his host when he undertook to swallow that immense worm. He twisted his neck this way and that, gulped and squeezed and pried, until I feared he would burst his throat open. At length the worm was partly bolted, but it seemed to stick fast, and the bird stood there with his mandibles pressed far apart, the end of his dinner bulging out of his mouth, and I felt uneasy for a time lest he should choke to death before my very eyes. But, after resting a minute, he gave his neck a number of convulsive twists, and at last succeeded in forcing the unwilling worm down his throat, after which he wiped his bill on the limb with a self-satisfied air and flitted away as happy as a lark, knowing that his faithful craw would do the rest.

A slate-colored junco did a pretty thing in the woods one day of early spring--much more pleasing to see than the incident just described. He had rinsed his feathers in a pool of the little stream down in the hollow, and now he was squatting flat on his belly on the ground in a soft bed of brown leaves, preening and primping his plumes with his little white, conical bill. Now he gave his quills a deft touch, now the feathers of his wing, now those of his dainty breast. Lying there in the sun he presented a perfect picture of feathery laziness. Many a bird I have seen arranging his toilet after a bath while perching on a limb or a twig, and even, as in the case of the brown creeper, while clinging to the bole of a tree, but never before did I see one doing this while lolling on the ground. He was not sick or hurt, simply lazy; for when I went near him he flew away as chipper as a bird could be.

The rambler not only sees many of these pretty bird ways, but he sometimes has a hearty laugh at the birds' expense. During one of my outings a bl.u.s.tering whirlwind started on the summit of a small hill scantily covered with scrub oak. It seized the dead leaves and twirled them about as if in a spasm of anger; then it went scurrying noisily down the steep incline, flinging itself against a couple of large brush heaps in the hollow where a number of fox and Harris sparrows were concealed. They had imagined themselves safe in their brushy covert.

Suddenly the whirlwind struck their hiding place with a clang and clatter, sending the birds in a wild panic in every direction. They did not seem to know what had struck them, and, as the wanton breezes tossed them this way and that, they expressed their astonishment in loud and frightened chirping. All over and no harm done, the bird lover burst into a peal of laughter at the discomfiture of his feathered neighbors, who looked at him as if they did not know what to make of his untimely hilarity.

Then, too, one cannot be an observing rambler without stumbling upon some exceedingly odd avian pranks, as the following description will indicate: One day I was sitting on the steep bank of a wooded ravine watching several rare little birds, hoping to discover some of their nests. Presently the susurrus of the hummingbird was heard, and a moment later two ruby-throats, a male and a female, flashed into view on the slope below me. The tiny madam settled on a twig near the ground, while her ruby-throated spouse performed one of the queerest antics I have ever witnessed in featherland. He began to swing back and forth in an arc of almost half a circle, the diameter of which was at least twelve feet, just grazing his mate whenever he reached the lowest point of his concentric movements. Back and forth he swung at least a dozen times, looking like a tiny pendulum moving in an immense arc, and, oddly enough, the segment seemed to be perfectly formed every time. Had the bird wheeled entirely around, he would, I feel sure, have described a circle and not an ellipse. The movement was exceedingly swift, and might well have been called the embodiment of grace. Suddenly, as the diminutive acrobat reached the highest point of his arc, he dashed off to the right in a straight line, followed by his mate, and in a moment both had disappeared. Whether other observers have been witnesses of this curious gambol, I am unable to say.

Have you ever been ill-mannered enough to watch the birds going to bed?

I remember spending an evening in the woods playing the role of Paul Pry on my feathered neighbors. The sun was just sinking behind the bluffs on the other side of a broad river--the Missouri--and the moon, which was half full, was hanging high in the blue sky. What were those two large black objects over yonder in the woods? My gla.s.s soon revealed their ident.i.ty--a pair of turkey buzzards perched side by side on a limb, one of them squatted flat on his belly ready to take his first nap. My curiosity led me to go near them, when they spread their broad, sable wings, flew a few rods, and alighted on another horizontal bar. There they sat as long as I could see them in the thickening darkness, turning their heads now and then to see whether their ill-bred visitor was still spying upon them. They made no efforts to conceal themselves, as the small birds do in roosting, for they knew, no doubt, that nothing would carry off fowls of their size.

A little later on the same evening a whip-poor-will darted up from the roadside and flew into the woods a short distance, alighting on a white flag of good size, so that I could plainly see his dark form in the moonlight. Then I was witness of this uncanny bird's table manners, which were entirely unknown to me and may be to others. At irregular intervals he leaped into the air, now in one direction, now in another, captured an insect, and flew back to the top of the flag. Some of his evolutions were quite wonderful, and all of them were the perfection of grace. He described all kinds of curves and loops. On alighting he uttered a low, hollow chuck suggestive of the sepulchral. Another notch had to be cut in the tally-stick of my ornithological journey--I had learned how the whip-poor-will takes his nocturnal dinner of moths and beetles, and I felt that there was still such a thing as news to be gathered in birdland.

Most birds, however, do not take their dinner at night, and therefore it is easier to watch them at their _table d'hote_. One day a red-headed woodp.e.c.k.e.r was giving a strapping youngster as large as herself his noonday meal. She came close to him with a morsel in her long bill, and, after pounding it awhile against a limb, she thrust it into the screaming youngling's mouth. But she had failed to reduce it to a swallowable size; it stuck in his throat, and, do what he would, he could not bolt it. It was so large that he was choking; what should be done? The simplest thing you can conceive. The mother bird reached over and impatiently jerked the refractory morsel out of her baby's throat, thumped it vigorously several times against the branch, then gave it to him again, as much as to say, "Now try it! I guess you can manage it this time." And he did, for down his gullet it went with very little effort. Then she went after more provender for his s.p.a.cious craw. Whenever she came with a tidbit, she would first drop it into a kind of pocket in the bark, and pound it a while to reduce it to a proper consistency; the while the youngster would sit near and watch her with hungry eyes, and often scream in his coaxing way and twinkle his wings, until she was ready to deliver up the tempting fragment.

Once, after she had given him all she had brought, he still opened his mouth and whimpered for more. At this exhibition of gluttony she lost her patience. Would he never be satisfied, the great, greedy, overgrown lubber? He was simply making a slave and a drudge of her.

She looked at him for a moment with a savage glitter in her dark eyes, then began to peck him angrily right in the mouth, and drove him peremptorily backward down the limb. Mother patience has its limitations in the bird world as well as elsewhere.

On the same day a bank swallow was feeding her little ones, a half dozen or so, which were ranged on a willow stem at the margin of the river. Every time she flew toward them they set up a vigorous calling to be fed. She procured her food by skimming airily over the river and catching the insects that rose from its surface. Having nabbed one, she would dart with it to her little family, and, without alighting, and scarcely pausing in her swift flight, would thrust it into the mouth of one of the birdkins. Thus she fed them one by one until she had gone the round of the little circle, though sometimes, oddly enough, she would serve the same infant twice in succession.

The little family, all perched in a row, looked very attractive, and I was watching them closely most of the time. Suddenly the mother bird disappeared, and was gone for several minutes. I forgot to keep my eye steadily on the youngsters sitting six in a row, and, to my great surprise, when she reappeared they had left their perch, which was in plain sight, and I could not rediscover them for some time. Finally, however, I espied them cuddling among some leafy twigs a few feet away, where the mother resumed her duties of purveyor. My opinion is that she had begun to feel uneasy for their safety in the exposed place where I could see them so plainly, and so, while I was looking elsewhere, had persuaded them to s.h.i.+ft their position. Now they were partly screened by the intervening leaves, and she felt that they were secure.

There can be no doubt that birds have a language which the youngsters soon come to understand, however simple and inarticulated it may be.

In a shady hollow, one day of early spring, a pair of tufted t.i.tmice were supplying the wants of a family of famis.h.i.+ng children, and I invited myself to the family reunion. The young birds had left the nest and were perched in a leafy tree. Most of the time they kept up a great clamor for food--or, perhaps, they shrieked merely from force of habit; but every few minutes one of the parent birds would utter a shrill, commanding cry, at which all the noisy clamorings of the youthful family would suddenly cease, and for a few moments perfect quiet would reign in t.i.tmouse town; then the hubbub would begin again, and continue until another order for perfect silence was given. So far as I could see, there was no danger from raptorial foes at hand, but the little family seemed to be in training against the approach of a marauder.

It may be a far cry, but from green-robed spring fancy yourself suddenly flung into the lap of snow-bound winter, to look upon scenes quite different from the foregoing. The Frost King had been playing a good many pranks for a week or two, and once, in a spasm of frigid ill humor, had jammed the mercury in our thermometers a dozen or more degrees below zero, and had held it there quite too long for our comfort. More than once had he shrieked and bl.u.s.tered and stamped his feet incontinently, and more than once sent his legions of wind, sleet, and snow howling through the leafless woods. Everybody in our central lat.i.tudes knows what an explosive old fellow the Frost King is, and how fierce and savage he can become let the mood once seize him.

Sometimes, too, by the hour he had ground his ice crystals to powder in mid-air and hurled them to the earth, covering its surface with a robe of purest white, thus proving that, with all his rudeness and bl.u.s.ter, he is an old gentleman of aesthetic tastes. One evening his mood became blander, and he dropped his crystals from the sky in large, damp flakes, which clung tenaciously to the branches and twigs; then during the night his breath became chilled and froze the snowy cylinders, and when morning broke the woods were a miracle of loveliness, every leaf and twig bearing a ridge of gleaming pearls, while the sylvan floor was pure white. Soon the sun was s.h.i.+ning from an unmarred sky, and the snow-clad earth smiled back in s.h.i.+mmering recognition. It was a day for wors.h.i.+p in G.o.d's first sanctuary.

Yet it was a day for watching the gambols of the birds, and such occupation by no means interfered with the spirit of wors.h.i.+p. In the depths of the woods the white-breasted nuthatches were holding a friendly interview. How affectionately they talked to one another in idioms all their own, saying "Hick! hick!" and "Yank! yank!" and "Ha-ha! ha-ha! ha-ha!" which may mean anything that is kind and cordial and confidential. They were either playing at a game of tag, or were having a peep-show among the bushes, hiding for a moment in some leafy cl.u.s.ter, then das.h.i.+ng in pursuit of one another in the most frolicksome way. I crept in under the arches of the snow-clad bushes to watch their caperings more closely, but the birds at once quieted down, and went about their more prosaic vocation of grub gathering. They were no doubt "aching" to frisk about among the snowy bushes, but would not indulge their playful mood under the eye of a human spectator.

Presently one of them was seen carefully primping his feathers--a function that I had not previously seen a nuthatch perform. His plumes seemed to be really quite damp, and, as there was no water at hand--the streams being mailed with ice as well as nearly a half mile away--he must have used a s...o...b..nk for his lavatory. But you ask how he arranged his toilet. I had several times seen the little brown creeper clinging to the vertical wall of a tree and preening his plumes after a bath, and it was natural to suppose that his congener, the nuthatch, being also a bird of reptatory habits, would follow the same formula.

But not so! Instead of clinging to the upright bole of a tree, Master Nuthatch perched crosswise on a twig like a robin or a chickadee, and smoothed his ruffled plumes.

After this interesting interview with the nuthatches, I trudged about in the woods for some time without seeing any birds. What had become of my feathered neighbors, my companions in every ramble throughout the winter? Had the storm driven them to other climes where bland winds prevailed? Oh, no! See what prudent creatures they were that wintry day. At the eastern border of the woods, where the sun shone warmly and the keen westerly breeze was broken and tempered, my little friends were found in goodly numbers, well knowing where the Frost King's anger would be softened.

Here were nuthatches and chickadees in plenty, and also tufted t.i.ts, tree sparrows, juncos, downy woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, and, to make the complement as nearly full as possible, a hairy woodp.e.c.k.e.r drummed and _chir-r-r-red_, several blue jays complained in the distance, and a goldfinch swinging overhead threaded the air with festoons of black and gold. And here I witnessed a new and pretty antic of a tree sparrow, which flew over from a cornfield hard by and perched on a dogwood sapling only a few feet away; then it plunged its beak into the little s...o...b..nk on the twig before it and ate greedily of the snow, some of the crystals clinging to its mandibles, just as the crumbs adhere to the lips of a hungry boy. Had the exclamation not been so much like slang, I would have cried "Next!" And there was a "next," as sure as you live, for the little bird soon flitted to another twig in the same tree and, reaching up, daintily sipped from the dripping underside of the branch just above and in front of it. Its thirst having been a.s.suaged, it flew over into the adjoining field to resume its winter feast of seeds and berries.

And what was happening over in the field? Something worth noting, to be sure. A coterie of juncos and tree sparrows were breakfasting on the seeds of a clump of tall weeds, a few of the little feasters perched on the swaying stems, while others stood on the snow on the ground and picked the seeds from the racemes that were bent down by their burden of crystals. When I went to the place, I could see the delicate tracery of their feet on the snow, as if they had been writing their autographs on an untarnished scroll. Two tiny footprints at regular intervals, one a little before the other, and each pair connected with the next by a slender thread or two traced by the bird's claws--that is a junco's or a tree sparrow's trail in the snow.

A little later a scattering flock of tree sparrows were skipping about on the snowy floor of the woods, picking up at quick intervals a palatable tidbit. Birds often find edibles on the surface of the snow when our duller eyes can see nothing but immaculate whiteness. What long leaps the little birds took across the snow, which looked like a marble pavement with fairies dancing upon it! Near by, on one of the lower twigs of a thorn bush, a sparrow sat with feathers fluffed up and wings hanging negligently at his side, as if he were taking a siesta after a hearty meal of weed seeds and winter berries. Two of his companions soon joined him in his noonday rest, the trio making a pretty picture sitting there within an inch or two of the ground.