Birds Every Child Should Know Part 17

SHORT-EARED OWL

_Called also: Marsh Owl; Meadow Owl_

This owl, and its long-eared cousin, wear the tufts of feathers in their ears that resemble harmless horns. Unlike its relatives, the short-eared owl does some hunting by daylight, especially in cloudy weather, and like the marsh hawk it prefers to live in gra.s.sy, marshy places frequented by meadow mice. On the other hand, the long-eared owl respects family traditions, and goes about only after dark. "It usually spends the day in some evergreen woods, thick willow copse or alder swamp, although rarely it may be found in open places," says Dr.

Fisher. "The bird is not wild and will allow itself to be closely approached. When conscious that its presence is recognised, it sits upright, draws the feathers close to its body, and erects the ear-tufts, resembling in appearance a piece of weather-beaten bark more than a bird." The long and the short of it is, that few people, except professional bird students, know very much about these or any other owls, for few find them by day or forsake their couches when they are abroad. We may take Dr. Johnson's advice and "give our days and nights to the study of Addison," but few of us give even a part of our days and less of our nights to the study of the birds about us.

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BARRED OWL

_Called also: Hoot Owl_

If "a good child should be seen and not heard" what can be said for this owl? Its deep-toned _whoo-whoo-who-whoo-to-whoo-ah_, like the wail of some lost soul asking the way, is the only indication you are likely to have that a hoot owl lives in your neighbourhood. You can imitate its voice and deliberately "hoot it up." Few people who know its voice will ever see its smooth, round, bland, almost human face.

"As useless as a last year's nest" can have no meaning to a pair of these large hardy owls that go about toward the end of winter looking for a deserted woodp.e.c.k.e.r's nest or a hawk's, crow's, or squirrel's bulky cradle in some tree top. Ever after they hold it as their own.

Farmers shoot the owl that occasionally takes one of their broilers or a game bird, not knowing that the remainder of its diet really leaves them in its debt.

SCREECH OWLS

A boy I know had a pair of little screech owls invite themselves to live in a box he had nailed {231} up for bluebirds in his father's orchard. Although they had full liberty, in time they became tame pets, even pampered darlings, with a willing slave to trap mice for them in the corn crib and hay loft. At first mice were plentiful enough, and every day after school the boy would empty the traps, climb the apple tree and feed the owls. But presently the mice learned the danger that may lurk behind an innocent looking lump of cheese.

One foolish, hungry mouse now and then was all the boy could catch.

This he would carry by the tail to his sleeping pets, arouse them by dangling it against their heads, at which, while half asleep, they would click their beaks like castanets. When both were wide awake he would allow one of them to bolt the mouse while he still held on firmly to the tail. Then, jerking the mouse back out of the owl's throat, he would allow the other owl to really swallow it. When next he caught a mouse, the operation was reversed: the owl that had been satisfied before now gulped the mouse first, only to have it jerked away and fed to its mate. In this way, strange to say, the boy kept on friendly terms with the pair for several weeks, when he discovered that they liked bits of raw beef quite as well as mice. After that he carried his queer pets to the house and kept them in his room all winter. Early in the spring they {232} returned to the bird house and raised a family of funny, fluffy, plump little owlets.

This boy discovered for himself the screech owls' strange characteristic of changing their colour without changing their feathers, as moulting song birds change theirs. They have a rusty, reddish-brown phase and a mottled-gray phase. So far as is known, these changes of colour are not dependent upon age, s.e.x, or season. No one understands what causes them or what they mean. Sometimes the same family will contain birds with plumage that is rusty-brown or gray or intermediate. But you may always know a screech owl by its small size (it is only about as long as a robin) and by the ear tufts that make it look wide-awake and very wise.

By day it keeps well hidden in some deserted woodp.e.c.k.e.r's hole or a hollow in some old orchard tree, which is its favourite residence; but some mischievous little birds, with sharper eyes than ours, often discover its hiding place, wake it up, and chase it, blinking and bewildered, all about the farm. By night, when its tormentors are asleep, this little owl goes forth for its supper, and then we hear its weird, sweet, s.h.i.+vering, tremulous cry. Because it lives near our homes and is, perhaps, the commonest of the owls all over our country, every child can know it by sound, if not by sight.

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Father and mother barn owls

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The heavenly twins: young barn owls

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CHAPTER XVI

MOURNER, WHISTLER, AND DRUMMER

Mourning Dove Bob-White Ruffed Grouse

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MOURNING DOVE

_Called also: Carolina Dove_

Do not waste any sympathy on this incessant love-maker that slowly sings _coo-o-o, ah-coo-o-o-ooo-o-o-ooo-o-o_, in a sweetly sad voice.

Really he is no more melancholy than the plaintive pewee but, on the contrary, is so happy in his love that his devotion has pa.s.sed into a proverb. Nevertheless, the song he sings to his "turtle dove" sounds more like a dirge than a rapture. While she lives, there is no more contented bird in the woods.

Dove lovers are quite self-sufficient. Their larger cousins, the wild pigeons, that once were so abundant, depended on friends for much of their happiness and lived in enormous flocks. Now only a few pairs survive in this land of liberty to refute the adage "In union there is strength." Because millions of pigeons slept in favourite roosts many miles in extent, they were all too easily netted, and it did not take greedy men long to turn the last flock into cash. Happily, doves preserved their race by scattering in couples over a wide area--from {236} Panama, in winter, as far north as Ontario in warm weather. Not until nursery duties, which begin early in the spring, are over, late in summer, do they give up their shy, unsocial habits to enjoy the company of a few friends. When they rise on whistling wings from tree-bordered fields, where they have been feeding on seeds and grain, not a gun is fired: no one cares to eat them.

Only the cuckoo of our common birds builds so flimsy a nest as the dove's adored darling. I am sorry to tell you she is a slack, incompetent housekeeper, but evidently her lover is blind to every fault. What must the expert phoebe think of such a poorly made, untidy cradle, or that bustling, energetic housewife, Jenny Wren, or the tiniest of clever architects, the hummingbird? It is a wonder that the dove's two white eggs do not fall through the rickety, rimless, unlined lattice. How scarred and bruised the naked bodies of the twins must be by the sticks! Like pigeons, hummingbirds, flickers, and some other feathered parents, doves feed their fledglings by pumping partly digested food--"pigeon's milk"--from their own crops into theirs.

When they leave the open woodlands to take a dust bath in the road, or to walk about and collect gravel for their interior grinding machines, or to get a drink of water before going to sleep, you may have a good look at them.

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A little screech owl in the sunlight where only a photographer could find him.

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Mrs. White on her nest while Bob whistles to her from the wild-strawberry patch.

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As they walk, they bob their heads in a funny manner of their own.

They are bluish, fawn-coloured birds about a foot long. The male has some exquisite metallic colours on his neck, otherwise he resembles his best beloved. Both wear black crescent patches on their cheeks.

All the feathers on their long, pointed tails, except the two largest central ones, have a narrow, black band across the end and are tipped with white. The breast feathers shade from pinkish fawn to pale buff below. Beautiful birds these, in spite of their quiet, Quaker clothes.

BOB-WHITE

_Called Also: "Quail-on-Toast"; Partridge_

What a cheerful contrast is Bob White's clear, staccato whistle to the drawing coo of the amorous dove! Character is often expressed in a bird's voice as well as in ours. From their voices alone you might guess that the dove and the quail are no relation. They do not belong even to the same order, bob-white being a scratching bird and having the ruffed grouse and barnyard chicken for his kin. Pheasants and turkeys are distantly related. In the South people call him a partridge; in {238} New England it is the ruffed grouse that is known by that name; therefore, to save confusion, why not always give bob-white the name by which he calls himself? The chickadee, phoebe, peewee, towhee, whip-poor-will and bobolink, who tell their names less plainly than he, save every child who tries to know them much trouble.

Don't you wish every bird would introduce himself?

The boy who

"Drives home the cows from the pasture, Up through the long, shady lane, Where the quail whistles loud in the wheat fields, That are yellow with ripening grain,"

probably "whistles up" those bob-whites on his way home as you would start up the roosters in the barnyard by imitating their crow. _Bob White! Ah, Bob White!_ rings from some plump little feathered gallant on the outskirts of almost any farm during the long nesting season.

A slight depression in some dry, gra.s.sy field or a hole at the foot of an old stump or weed-hedged wall will be lined with leaves and gra.s.ses by both mates in May to receive from ten to eighteen brilliant white eggs that are packed in, pointed end downwards, to economise s.p.a.ce. If an egg were removed, it would be difficult indeed to re-arrange the clutch with such economy. Would it not be cruel to touch a {239} nest which the outraged owners would at once desert?