Birds of the Rockies Part 3

A little over half a day was spent in walking down from Moraine Lake to the Halfway House. It was a saunter that shall never be forgotten, for I gathered a half day's tribute of lore from the birds. A narrow green hollow, wedging itself into one of the gorges of the towering Peak, and watered by a snow-fed mountain brook, proved a very paradise for birds.

Here was that queer little midget of the Rockies, the broad-tailed humming-bird, which performs such wonderful feats of balancing in the air; the red-shafted flicker; the western robin, singing precisely like his eastern half-brother; a pair of house-wrens guarding their treasures; Lincoln's sparrows, not quite so shy as those at Moraine Lake; mountain chickadees; olive-sided flycatchers; on the pine-clad mountain sides the lyrical hermit thrushes; and finally those ballad-singers of the mountain vales, the white-crowned sparrows, one of whose nests I was so fortunate as to come upon. It was placed in a small pine bush, and was just in process of construction. One of the birds flew fiercely at a mischievous chipmunk, and drove him away, as if he knew him for an arrant nest-robber.

Leaving this enchanting spot, I trudged down the mountain valleys and ravines, holding silent converse everywhere with the birds, and at length reached a small park, green and bushy, a short distance above the Halfway House. While jogging along, my eye caught sight of a gray-headed junco, which flitted from a clump of bushes bordering the stream to a spot on the ground close to some shrubs. The act appeared so suggestive that I decided to reconnoitre. I walked cautiously to the spot where the bird had dropped down, and in a moment she flew up with a scolding chipper. There was the nest, set on the ground in the gra.s.s and cosily hidden beneath the over-arching branches of a low bush. Had the mother bird been wise and courageous enough to retain her place, her secret would not have been betrayed, the nest was so well concealed.

The pretty couch contained four juvenile juncos covered only with down, and yet, in spite of their extreme youth, their foreheads and lores showed black, and their backs a distinctly reddish tint, so early in life were they adopting the pattern worn by their parents. The persistency of species in the floral and faunal realms presents some hard nuts for the evolutionist to crack. But that is an excursus, and would lead us too far afield. This was the first junco's nest I had ever found, and no one can blame me for feeling gratified with the discovery. The gray-headed juncos were very abundant in the Rockies, and are the only species at present known to breed in the State of Colorado.

They are differentiated from the common slate-colored s...o...b..rd by their ash-gray suits, modestly decorated with a rust-colored patch on the back.

It was now far past noon, and beginning to feel weak with hunger, I reluctantly said adieu to the junco and her brood, and hurried on to the Halfway House, where a luncheon of sandwiches, pie and coffee strengthened me for the remainder of my tramp down the mountain to Manitou. That was a walk which lingers like a Greek legend in my memory on account of--well, that is the story that remains to be told.

On a former visit to the Halfway House I was mentally knocked off my feet by several glimpses of a woodp.e.c.k.e.r which was entirely new to me, and of whose existence I was not even aware until this gorgeous gentleman hove in sight. He was the handsomest member of the _Picidae_ family I have ever seen--his upper parts glossy black, some portions showing a bluish iridescence; his belly rich sulphur yellow, a bright red median stripe on the throat, set in the midst of the black, looking like a small necktie; two white stripes running along the side of the head, and a large white patch covering the middle and greater wing-coverts. Altogether, an odd livery for a woodp.e.c.k.e.r. Silently he swung from bole to bole for a few minutes, and then disappeared.

Not until I reached my room in Manitou could I fix the bird's place in the avicular system. By consulting Coues's _Key_ and Professor Cooke's brochure on the _Birds of Colorado_, I found this quaintly costumed woodp.e.c.k.e.r to be Williamson's sapsucker (_Sphyrapicus thyroideus_), known only in the western part of the United States from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coast. I now lingered in the beautiful pine grove surrounding the Halfway House, hoping to see him again, but he did not appear, and I reluctantly started down the cog-wheel track.

As I was turning a bend in the road, I caught sight of a mountain chickadee flitting to a dead snag on the slope at the right, the next moment slipping into a small hole leading inside. I climbed up to the shelf, a small level nook among the tall pines on the mountain side, to inspect her retreat, for it was the first nest of this interesting species that I found. The chickadee flashed in and out of the orifice, carrying food to her little ones, surrept.i.tiously executing her housewifely duties. The mountain t.i.t seems to be a shy and quiet little body when compared with the common black-cap known in the East.

While watching this bird from my place of concealment, I became conscious of the half-suppressed chirping of a woodp.e.c.k.e.r, and, to my intense joy, a moment later a Williamson's sapsucker swung to a pine bole a little below me and began pecking leisurely and with a.s.sumed nonchalance for grubs in the fissures of the bark. From my hiding-place behind some bushes I kept my eye on the handsome creature. An artist might well covet the privilege of painting this elegant bird as he scales the wall of a pine tree. Presently he glided to a snag not more than a rod from the chickadee's domicile, and then I noticed that the dead bole was perforated by a number of woodp.e.c.k.e.r holes, into one of which the sapsucker presently slipped with the tidbit he held in his bill. The doorway was almost too small for him, obliging him to turn slightly sidewise and make some effort to effect an entrance. Fortune had treated me as one of her favorites: I had discovered the nest of Williamson's sapsucker.

But still another surprise was in store. A low, dubious chirping was heard, and then the female ambled leisurely to the snag and hitched up to the orifice. She made several efforts to enter, but could not while her spouse was within. Presently he wormed himself out, whereupon she went in, and remained for some time. At length I crept to the snag and beat against it with my cane. She was loath to leave the nest, but after a little while decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

When she came out, my presence so near her nursery caused her not a little agitation, which she displayed by flinging about from bole to bole and uttering a nervous chirp.

As to costume, the male and the female had little in common. Her back was picturesquely mottled and barred with black and white, her head light brown, her breast decorated with a large black patch, and her other under parts yellow. Had the couple not been seen together flitting about the nest, they would not have been regarded as mates, so differently were they habited.

Standing before the doorway of the nursery--it was not quite so high as my head--I could plainly hear the chirping of the youngsters within.

Much as I coveted the sight of a brood of this rare species, I could not bring myself to break down the walls of their cottage and thus expose them to the claws and beaks of their foes. Even scientific curiosity must be restrained by considerations of mercy.

The liege lord of the family had now disappeared. Desirous of seeing him once more, I hid myself in a bush-clump near at hand and awaited his return. Presently he came ambling along and scrambled into the orifice, turning his body sidewise, as he had done before. I made my way quietly to the snag and tapped upon it with my cane, but he did not come out, as I expected him to do. Then I struck the snag more vigorously. No result.

Then I whacked the bole directly in the rear of the nest, while I stood close at one side watching the doorway. The bird came to the orifice, peeped out, then, seeing me, quickly drew back, determined not to desert his brood in what he must have regarded as an emergency. In spite of all my pounding and coaxing and feigned scolding--and I kept up the racket for several minutes--I did not succeed in driving the _pater familias_ from his post of duty. Once he apparently made a slight effort to escape, but evidently stuck fast in the entrance, and so dropped back and would not leave, only springing up to the door and peeping out at me when my appeals became especially vigorous. It appeared like a genuine case of "I'm determined to defend my children, or die in the attempt!"

Meanwhile the mother bird was flitting about in an agitated way, uttering piteous cries of remonstrance and entreaty. Did that bandit intend to rob her of both her husband and her children? It was useless, if not wanton, to hector the poor creatures any longer, even to study their behavior under trying circ.u.mstances; and I left them in peace, and hurried down to my lodgings in Manitou, satisfied with the results of my day's ramble.

BIRDS OF THE ARID PLAIN

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE III

LAZULI BUNTING--_Cyanospiza amoena_ (Upper figure, male; lower, female)]

Having explored the summit of Pike's Peak and part of its southern slope down to the timber-line, and spent several delightful days in the upper valleys of the mountains, as well as in exploring several canons, the rambler was desirous of knowing what species of birds reside on the plain stretching eastward from the bases of the towering ranges. One afternoon in the latter part of June, I found myself in a straggling village about forty miles east of Colorado Springs.

On looking around, I was discouraged, and almost wished I had not come; for all about me extended the parched and treeless plain, with only here and there a spot that had a cast of verdure, and even that was of a dull and sickly hue. Far off to the northeast rose a range of low hills spa.r.s.ely covered with scraggy pines, but they were at least ten miles away, perhaps twenty, and had almost as arid an aspect as that of the plains themselves. Only one small cl.u.s.ter of deciduous trees was visible, about a mile up a shallow valley or "draw." Surely this was a most unpromising field for bird study. If I had only been content to remain among the mountains, where, even though the climbing was difficult, there were brawling brooks, shady woodlands, and green, copsy vales in which many feathered friends had lurked!

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Desert Horned Larks_

"_They were plentiful in this parched region_"]

But wherever the bird-lover chances to be, his mania leads him to look for his favorites, and he is seldom disappointed; rather, he is often delightfully surprised. People were able to make a livelihood here, as was proved by the presence of the village and a few scattering dwellings on the plain; then why not the birds, which are as thrifty and wise in many ways as their human relatives? In a short time my baggage was stowed in a safe place, and, field-gla.s.s in hand, I sallied forth for my first jaunt on a Colorado plain. But, hold! what were these active little birds, hopping about on the street and sipping from the pool by the village well? They were the desert horned larks, so called because they select the dry plains of the West as their dwelling place. They are interesting birds. The fewer trees and the less humidity, provided there is a spot not too far away at which they may quench their thirst and rinse their feathers, the better they seem to be pleased. They were plentiful in this parched region, running or flying cheerfully before me wherever my steps were bent. I could not help wondering how many thousands of them--and millions, perhaps--had taken up free homesteads on the seemingly limitless plains of eastern Colorado.

Most of the young had already left the nest, and were flying about in the company of their elders, learning the fine art of making a living for themselves and evading the many dangers to which bird flesh is heir.

The youngsters could readily be distinguished from their seniors by the absence of distinct black markings on throat, chest, and forehead, and the lighter cast of their entire plumage.

Sometimes these birds are called sh.o.r.e larks; but that is evidently a misnomer, or at least a very inapt name, for they are not in the least partial to the sea-sh.o.r.e or even the sh.o.r.es of lakes, but are more disposed to take up their residence in inland and comparatively dry regions. There are several varieties, all bearing a very close resemblance, so close, indeed, that only an expert ornithologist can distinguish them, even with the birds in hand. The common horned lark is well known in the eastern part of the United States as a winter resident, while in the middle West, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, etc., are to be found the prairie horned larks, which, as their name indicates, choose the open prairie for their home. The desert horned larks are tenants exclusively of the arid plains, mesas, and mountain parks of the West. There is still another variety, called the pallid horned lark, which spends the winter in Colorado, then hies himself farther north in summer to rear his brood.

As I pursued my walk, one of these birds suddenly a.s.sumed an alert att.i.tude, then darted into the air, mounting up, up, up, in a series of swift leaps, like "an embodied joy whose race has just begun." Up he soared until he could no longer be seen with the naked eye, and even through my field-gla.s.s he was a mere speck against the blue canopy, and yet, high as he had gone, his ditty filtered down to me through the still, rarefied atmosphere, like a sifting of fine sand. His descent was a grand plunge, made with the swiftness of an Indian's arrow, his head bent downward, his wings partly folded, and his tail perked upward at precisely the proper angle to make a rudder, all the various organs so finely adjusted as to convert him into a perfectly dirigible parachute.

Swift as his descent was, he alighted on the ground as lightly as a tuft of down. It was the poetry of motion. One or two writers have insisted that the horned lark's empyrean song compares favorably with that of the European skylark; but, loyal and patriotic an American as we are, honesty compels us to concede that our bird's voice is much feebler and less musical than that of his celebrated relative across the sea. It sounds like the unmelodious clicking of pebbles, while the song of the skylark is loud, clear, and ringing.

Our birds of the plain find insects to their taste in the short gra.s.s which carpets the land with greenish or olive gray. The following morning a mother lark was seen gathering insects and holding them in her bill--a sure sign of fledglings in the near neighborhood. I decided to watch her, and, if possible, find her bantlings. It required not a little patience, for she was wary and the sun poured down a flood of almost blistering heat. This way and that she scurried over the ground, now picking up an insect and adding it to the store already in her bill, and now standing almost erect to eye me narrowly and with some suspicion. At length she seemed to settle down for a moment upon a particular spot, and when I looked again with my gla.s.s, her beak was empty. I examined every inch of ground, as I thought, in the neighborhood of the place where she had stopped, but could find neither nest nor nestlings.

Again I turned my attention to the mother bird, which meanwhile had gathered another bunch of insects and was hopping about with them through the croppy gra.s.s, now and then adding to her acc.u.mulation until her mouth was full. For a long time she zigzagged about, going by provoking fits and starts. At length fortune favored me, for through my levelled gla.s.s I suddenly caught sight of a small, grayish-looking ball hopping and tumbling from a cactus clump toward the mother bird, who jabbed the contents of her bill into a small, open mouth. I followed a bee-line to the spot, and actually had to scan the ground sharply for a few moments before I could distinguish the youngster from its surroundings, for it had squatted flat, its gray and white plumage harmonizing perfectly with the grayish desert gra.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Lark_

"_It was a dear little thing_"]

It was a dear little thing, and did not try to escape, although I took it up in my hand and stroked its downy back again and again. Sometimes it closed its eyes as if it were sleepy. When I placed it on the ground, it hopped away a few inches, and by accident punctured the fleshy corner of its mouth with a sharp cactus thorn, and had to jerk itself loose, bringing the blood from the lacerated part. Meanwhile the mother lark went calmly about her household duties, merely keeping a watchful eye on the human meddler, and making no outcry when she saw her infant in my possession. I may have been _persona non grata_, but, if so, she did not express her feeling. This was the youngest horned lark seen by me in my rambles on the plains.

Perhaps the reader will care to know something about the winter habits of these birds. They do not spend the season of cold and storm in the mountains, not even those that breed there, for the snow is very deep and the tempests especially fierce. Many of them, however, remain in the foothills and on the mesas and plains, where they find plenty of seeds and berries for their sustenance, unless the weather chances to be unusually severe. One winter, not long ago, the snow continued to lie much longer than usual, cutting off the natural food supply of the larks. What regimen did they adopt in that exigency? They simply went to town. Many of the kindly disposed citizens of Colorado Springs scattered crumbs and millet seeds on the streets and lawns, and of this supply the little visitors ate greedily, becoming quite tame. As soon, however, as the snow disappeared they took their departure, not even stopping to say thanks or adieu; although we may take it for granted that they felt grateful for favors bestowed.

Besides the horned larks, many other birds were found on the plain. Next in abundance were the western meadow-larks. Persons who live in the East and are familiar with the songs of the common meadow-lark, should hear the vocal performances of the westerners. The first time I heard one of them, the minstrelsy was so strange to my ear, so different from anything I had ever heard, I was thrown into an ecstasy of delight, and could not imagine from what kind of bird larynx so quaint a medley could emanate. The song opened with a loud, fine, piercing whistle, and ended with an abrupt staccato gurgle much lower in the musical staff, sounding precisely as if the soloist's performance had been suddenly choked off by the rising of water in the windpipe. It was something after the order of the purple martin's melodious sputter, only the tones were richer and fuller and the music better defined, as became a genuine oscine. His sudden and emphatic cessation seemed to indicate that he was in a petulant mood, perhaps impatient with the intruder, or angry with a rival songster.

Afterwards I heard him--or, rather, one of his brothers--sing arias so surpa.s.singly sweet that I voted him the master minstrel of the western plains, prairies, and meadows. One evening as I was returning to Colorado Springs from a long tramp through one of the canons of the mountains, a western meadow-lark sat on a small tree and sang six different tunes within the s.p.a.ce of a few minutes. Two of them were so exquisite and unique that I involuntarily sprang to my feet with a cry of delight. There he sat in the lengthening shadows of Cheyenne Mountain, the champion phrase-fluter of the irrigated meadow in which he and a number of his comrades had found a summer home.

On the plain, at the time of my visit, the meadow-larks were not quite so tuneful, for here the seasons are somewhat earlier than in the proximity of the mountains, and the time of courts.h.i.+p and incubation was over. Still, they sang enough to prove themselves members of a gifted musical family. Observers in the East will remember the sputtering call of the eastern larks when they are alarmed or their suspicions are aroused. The western larks do not utter alarums of that kind, but a harsh "chack" instead, very similar to the call of the grackles. The nesting habits of the eastern and western species are the same, their domiciles being placed on the ground amid the gra.s.s, often prettily arched over in the rear and made snug and neat.

It must not be thought, because my monograph on the western larks is included in this chapter, that they dwell exclusively on the arid plain.

No; they revel likewise in the areas of verdure bordering the streams, in the irrigated fields and meadows, and in the watered portions of the upper mountain parks.

An interesting question is the following: Are the eastern and western meadow-larks distinct species, or only varieties somewhat specialized by differences of locality and environment? It is a problem over which the scientific professors have had not a little disputation. My own opinion is that they are distinct species and do not cohabit, and the conviction is based on some special investigations, though not of the kind that are made with the birds in hand. It has been my privilege to study both forms in the field. In the first place, their vocal exhibitions are very different, so much so as to indicate a marked diversity in the organic structure of their larynxes. Much as I have listened to their minstrelsy, I have never known one kind to borrow from the musical repertory of the other. True, there are strains in the arias of the westerners that closely resemble the clear, liquid whistle of the eastern larks, but they occur right in the midst of the song and are part and parcel of it, and therefore afford no evidence of mimicry or amalgamation. Even the trills of the gra.s.sfinch and the song-sparrow have points of similarity; does that prove that they borrow from each other, or that espousals sometimes occur between the two species?

The habiliments of the two forms of larks are more divergent than would appear at first blush. Above, the coloration of _neglecta_ (the western) is paler and grayer than that of _magna_, the black markings being less conspicuous, and those on the tertials and middle tail-feathers being arranged in narrow, isolated bars, and not connected along the shaft.

While the flanks and under tail-coverts of _magna_ are distinctly washed with buff, those of _neglecta_ are white, very faintly tinged with buff, if at all. The yellow of the throat of the eastern form does not spread out laterally over the malar region, as does that of the western lark.

All of which tends to prove that the two forms are distinct.

Early in the spring of 1901 the writer took a trip to Oklahoma in the interest of bird-study, and found both kinds of meadow-larks extremely abundant and lavish of their melodies on the fertile prairies. He decided to carry on a little original investigation in the field of inquiry now under discussion. One day, in a draw of the prairie, he noticed a western meadow-lark which was unusually lyrical, having the skill of a past-master in the art of trilling and gurgling and fluting.

Again and again I went to the place, on the same day and on different days, and invariably found the westerner there, perching on the fence or a weed-stem, and greeting me with his exultant lays. But, mark: no eastern lark ever intruded on his preserve. In other and more distant parts of the broad field the easterners were blowing their piccolos, but they did not encroach on the domain of the lyrical westerner, who, with his mate--now on her nest in the gra.s.s--had evidently jumped his claim and held it with a high hand. In many other places in Oklahoma and Kansas where both species dwell, I have noticed the same interesting fact--that in the breeding season each form selects a special precinct, into which the other form does not intrude. They perhaps put up some kind of trespa.s.s sign. These observations have all but convinced me that _S. magna_ and _S. neglecta_ are distinct species, and avoid getting mixed up in their family affairs.

Nor is that all. While both forms dwell on the vast prairies of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, yet, as you travel eastward, the western larks gradually diminish in number until at length they entirely disappear; whereas, if you journey westward, the precise opposite occurs. I have never heard _neglecta_ east of the Missouri River,[4] nor _magna_ on the plains of Colorado. Therefore the conclusion is almost forced upon the observer that there are structural and organic differences between the two forms.

[4] He sometimes ventures, though sparingly, as far east as Illinois and Wisconsin; still my statement is true--I have never heard the western lark even in the bottoms and meadows of the broad valley east of the Missouri River, while, one spring morning, I did hear one of these birds fluting in the top of a cottonwood tree in my yard on the high western bluff of that stream.

After the foregoing deductions had been reached, the writer bethought him of consulting Ridgway's Manual on the subject, and was gratified to find his views corroborated by a footnote answering to an asterisk affixed to the name of the western lark:

"Without much doubt a distinct species. The occurrence of both _S.

neglecta_ and _S. magna_ together in many portions of the Mississippi Valley, each in its typical style (the ranges of the two overlapping, in fact, for a distance of several hundred miles), taken together with the excessive rarity of intermediate specimens and the universally attested radical difference in their notes, are facts wholly incompatible with the theory of their being merely geographical races of the same species."

This has been a long _excursus_, and we must get back to our jaunt on the plain. While I was engaged in watching the birds already named, my ear was greeted by a loud, clear, bell-like call; and, on looking in the direction from which it came, I observed a bird hovering over a ploughed field not far away, and then descending with graceful, poising flight to the ground. It proved to be the Arkansas flycatcher, a large, elegant bird that is restricted to the West. I had never seen this species.

Nothing like him is known in the East, the crested flycatcher being most nearly a copy of him, although the manners of the two birds are quite unlike. The body of the western bird is as large as that of the robin, and he must be considerably longer from tip of beak to tip of tail. He is a fine-looking fellow, presenting a handsome picture as he stands on a weed-stalk or a fence-post, his yellow jacket gleaming in the sun. He is the possessor of a clear, musical voice, and if he had the vocal organs of some of the oscines, he certainly would be one of the best feathered lyrists of America. Unfortunately he is able to do nothing but chirp and chatter, although he puts not a little music into his simple vocal exercises.