Birds of the Rockies Part 8

After a couple of hours of hard climbing, we reached the summit, from which we were afforded a magnificent view of the foothills, the mesas, and the stretching plains below us, while above us to the west hills rose on hills until they culminated in mighty snow-capped peaks and ridges. It must not be supposed, because the snow-mantled summits in the west loomed far above our present station, that this mountain which we had ascended was a comparatively insignificant affair. The fact is, it was of huge bulk and great height measured from its base in the canon; almost as much of a mountain, in itself considered, as Gray's Peak. It must be borne in mind that the snowy peaks were from thirty to forty miles away, and that there is a gradual ascent the entire distance to the upper valleys and gorges which creep about the bases of the loftiest peaks and ridges. A mountain rising from the foothills may be almost as bulky and high and precipitous as one of the alpine peaks covered with eternal snow. Its actual alt.i.tude above sea-level may be less by many thousand feet, while its height from the surrounding canons and valleys may be almost, if not quite, as great. The alpine peaks have the advantage of majesty of situation, because the general level of the country from which they rise is very high. There we stood at a sort of outdoor halfway house between the plains and the towering ridges, and I can only say that the view was superb.

There were certain kinds of birds which had brought their household G.o.ds to the mountain's crest. Lewis's woodp.e.c.k.e.rs ambled about over the summit and rocky ridges, catching insects on the wing, as is their wont.

Some distance below the summit a pair of them had a nest in a dead pine snag, from the orifice of which one was seen to issue. A mother hawk was feeding a couple of youngsters on the snarly branch of a dead pine.

Almost on the summit a western nighthawk sprang up from my feet. On the bare ground, without the faintest sign of a nest, lay her two speckled eggs, which she had been brooding. She swept around above the summit in immense zigzag spirals while I examined her roofless dwelling-place. It was interesting to one bird-lover, at least, to know that the nighthawk breeds in such places. Like their eastern congeners, the western nighthawks are fond of "booming." At intervals a magpie would swing across the canon, looking from side to side, the impersonation of cautious shyness. A few rods below the crest a couple of rock wrens were flitting about some large rocks, creeping in and out among the crevices like gray mice, and at length one of them slyly fed a well-fledged youngster. This proves that these birds, like many of their congeners, are partial to a commanding lookout for a nesting site. These were the only occupants of the mountain's brow at the time of our visit, although in one of the hollows below us the spurred and green-tailed towhees were rendering a selection from Haydn's "Creation," probably "The heavens are telling."

No water was to be found from the bottom of the canon to the summit of the mountain; all was as dry as the plain itself. The feathered tenants of the dizzy height were doubtless compelled to fly down into the gorge for drinking and bathing purposes, and then wing up again to the summit--certainly no light task for such birds as the wrens and towhees.

Before daybreak one morning I made my way to a small park on the outskirts of the village to listen to the birds' matutinal concert. The earliest singers were the western robins, which began their carols at the first hint of the coming dawn; the next to break the silence were the western wood-pewees; then the summer warblers chimed in, followed by the western gra.s.sfinches, Bullock's orioles, meadow-larks, and lark sparrows, in the order named. Before daylight had fully come a family of mountain bluebirds were taking their breakfast at the border of the park, while their human relatives were still snoring in bed. The bluebirds are governed by old-fas.h.i.+oned rules even in this very "modern"

age, among their maxims being,--

"Early to bed and early to rise, Makes bluebirds healthy and wealthy and wise."

Just now I came across a pretty conceit of John B. Tabb, which more aptly sets off the mountain blue than it does his eastern relative, and which I cannot forbear quoting:

"When G.o.d made a host of them, One little flower lacked a stem To hold its blossom blue; So into it He breathed a song, And suddenly, with petals strong As wings, away it flew."

And there is Eben E. Rexford, who almost loses himself in a tangle of metaphors in his efforts to express his admiration of this bird with the cerulean plumes. Hark to his rhapsody:

"Winged lute that we call a bluebird, you blend in a silver strain The sound of the laughing waters, the patter of spring's sweet rain, The voice of the winds, the suns.h.i.+ne, and fragrance of blossoming things; Ah! you are an April poem that G.o.d has dowered with wings."

On our return to the plains from a two weeks' trip to Georgetown and Gray's Peak, we spent several days at Arvada, a village about halfway between Denver and Golden. The place was rife with birds, all of which are described in other chapters of this volume.[10] Mention need be made here only of the song-sparrows, which were seen in a bushy place through which a purling stream wound its way. Of course, they were _Melospiza fasciata montana_, but their clear, bell-like trills were precise copies of those of the merry lowland minstrels of the East. Special attention is called to the fact that, in my first visit to Colorado, the only place in which mountain song-sparrows were met with was Buena Vista, quite a distance up among the mountains, while in the visit now being described they were not found anywhere in the mountains, save in the vale below Ca.s.sels. They were breeding at Arvada, for a female was seen carrying a worm in her bill, and I am sure a nest might easily have been found had I not been so busily occupied in the study of other and rarer species. However, the recollection of the merry lyrists with the speckled b.r.e.a.s.t.s and silvery voices, brings to mind Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton's "Myth of the Song-Sparrow," from which it will be seen that this attractive bird has had something of an adventurous career:

"His mother was the Brook, his sisters were the Reeds, And they every one applauded when he sang about his deeds.

His vest was white, his mantle brown, as clear as they could be, And his songs were fairly bubbling o'er with melody and glee.

But an envious Neighbor splashed with mud our Brownie's coat and vest, And then a final handful threw that stuck upon his breast.

The Brook-bird's mother did her best to wash the stains away, But there they stuck, and, as it seems, are very like to stay.

And so he wears the splashes and the mud blotch, as you see; But his songs are bubbling over still with melody and glee."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_His songs are bubbling over still with melody and glee._"

_Song Sparrow_]

[10] I find I have overlooked the western Maryland yellow-throat, which was seen here; also near Colorado Springs, and in several other bushy spots, only on the plains. It seldom ascends into the mountains, never far. Its song and habits are similar to those of its eastern congener.

RAMBLES ABOUT GEORGETOWN

At nine o'clock on the morning of June 22, the two ramblers boarded a Colorado and Southern train, and bowled up Clear Creek Canon to Georgetown. Having been studying winged creatures on the plains and among the foothills, mesas, and lower mountains, we now proposed to go up among the mountains that were mountains in good earnest, and see what we could find.

The village of Georgetown nestles in a deep pocket of the mountains. The valley is quite narrow, and on three sides, save where the two branches of Clear Creek have hewn out their canons, the ridges rise at a sharp angle to a towering height, while here and there a white-cap peeps out through the depressions. Those parts of the narrow vale that are irrigated by the creek and its numerous tiny tributaries are beautiful in their garb of green, while the areas that are not thus refreshed are as gray as the arid portions of the plains themselves. And that is the case everywhere among the Rockies--where no water flows over the surface the porous, sandy soil is dry and parched. The alt.i.tude of Georgetown is eight thousand four hundred and seventy-six feet. We were therefore three thousand feet higher than we had been in the morning, and had a right to expect a somewhat different avi-fauna, an expectation in which we were not disappointed.

Our initial ramble took us down the valley. The first bird noted was a familiar one--the warbling vireo, which is very abundant in Colorado in its favorite localities, where all day you may be lulled by its "silvery converse, just begun and never ended." No description of a bird so well known in both the East and the West is required, but the one seen that day gave a new performance, which seems to be worthy of more than a pa.s.sing notice. Have other bird students observed it? The bird was first seen flitting about in the trees bordering the street; then it flew to its little pendent nest in the twigs. I turned my gla.s.s upon it, and, behold, there it sat in its tiny hammock singing its mercurial tune at the top of its voice. It continued its solo during the few minutes I stopped to watch it, glancing over the rim of its nest at its auditor with a pert gleam in its twinkling eyes. That was the first and only time I have ever seen a bird indulging its lyrical whim while it sat on its nest. Whether the bird was a male or a female I could not determine, but, whatever its s.e.x, its little bosom was bubbling over with music.[11]

[11] After the foregoing was written, I chanced upon the following note in "Bird Lore" for September and October, 1901, written by a lady at Moline, Illinois, who had made an early morning visit to the haunt of a warbling vireo: "Seated on the ground, in a convenient place for watching the vireo, which was on the nest, we were soon attracted by a vireo's song. Search for the singer failed to find it, until we noted that the bird on the nest seemed to be singing.

Then, as we watched, over and over again the bird was seen to lift up its head and pour out the long, rich warble--a most delicious sight and sound. Are such ways usual among birds, or did we chance to see and hear an unusual thing?"

It was soon evident that the western robins were abundant about Georgetown, as they were on the plains and among the foothills. They were princ.i.p.ally engaged just now in feeding their young, which had already left their nests. Presently I shall have more to say about these birds. Just now I was aware of some little strangers darting about in the air, uttering a fine, querulous note, and at length descending to the ground to feast daintily on the seeds of a low plant. Here I could see them plainly with my gla.s.s, for they gave me gracious permission to go quite near them. Their backs were striped, the predominant color being brown or dark gray, while the whitish under parts were streaked with dusk, and there were yellow decorations on the wings and tails, whether the birds were at rest or in flight. When the wings were spread and in motion, the golden ornamentation gave them a filmy appearance.

On the wing, the birds, as I afterwards observed, often chirped a little lay that bore a close resemblance in certain parts to the "pe-chick-o-pe" of the American goldfinch. Indeed, a number of their notes suggested that bird, as did also their manner of flight, which was quite undulatory. The birds were the pine siskins. They are very common in the Rockies, ranging from an elevation of eight thousand feet to the timber-line. This pert and dainty little bird is the same wherever found in North America, having no need of the cognomen "western" prefixed to his name when he takes it into his wise little head to make his abode in the Rocky Mountains.

_CLEAR CREEK VALLEY_

_A scene near Georgetown. The copses in the valley are the home of white-crowned sparrows, willow thrushes, Lincoln's sparrows and Wilson's warblers; the steep, bushy acclivities are selected by the spurred and green-tailed towhees, Audubon's and Macgillivray's warblers; while the western robins, pine siskins, and broad-tailed humming-birds range all over the region. The robins and siskins make some of their most thrilling plunges over such cliffs as are shown in the picture._

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The reader will perhaps recall that a flock of pine siskins were seen, two years prior, in a patch of pine scrub a short distance below Leadville, at which time I was uncertain as to their ident.i.ty. Oddly enough, that was the only time I saw these birds in my first trip to Colorado, but here in the Georgetown region, only seventy-five or a hundred miles farther north, no species were more plentiful than they.

The siskins try to sing--I say "try" advisedly. It is one of the oddest bits of bird vocalization you ever heard, a wheezy little tune in the ascending scale--a kind of crescendo--which sounds as if it were produced by inhalation rather than exhalation. It is as labored as the alto strain of the clay-colored sparrow of the Kansas and Nebraska prairies, although it runs somewhat higher on the staff. The siskins seen at Georgetown moved about in good-sized flocks, feeding awhile on weed-seeds on the sunny slopes, and then wheeling with a merry chirp up to the pine-clad sides of the mountains. As they were still in the gregarious frame at Georgetown, I concluded that they had not yet begun to mate and build their nests in that locality. Afterwards I paid not a little attention to them farther up in the mountains, and saw several feeding their young, but, as their nests are built high in the pines, they are very difficult to find, or, if found, to examine. Our birdlets have superb powers of flight, and actually seem to revel in hurling themselves down a precipice or across a chasm with a recklessness that makes the observer's blood run cold. Sometimes they will dart out in the air from a steep mountain side, sing a ditty much like the goldfinch's, then circle back to their native pines on the dizzy cliff.

I must be getting back to my first ramble below Georgetown. Lured by the lyrics of the green-tailed towhee, I climbed the western acclivity a few hundred feet, but found that few birds choose such dry and eerie places for a habitat. Indeed, this was generally my experience in rambling among the mountains; the farther up the arid steeps, the fewer the birds. If you will follow a mountain brook up a sunny slope or open valley, you will be likely to find many birds; but wander away from the water courses, and you will look for them, oftentimes, in vain. The green-tailed towhees, spurred towhees, Audubon's warblers, and mountain hermit thrushes are all partial to acclivities, even very steep ones, but they do not select those that are too remote from the babbling brook to which they may conveniently resort for drinking and bathing.

A green and bushy spot a half mile below the village was the home of a number of white-crowned sparrows. None of them were seen on the plains or in the foothills; they had already migrated from the lower alt.i.tudes, and had sought their summer residences in the upper mountain valleys, where they may be found in great abundance from an elevation of eight thousand feet to copsy haunts here and there far above the timber-line hard by the fields of snow.

The white-crowns in the Georgetown valley seemed to be excessively shy, and their singing was a little too reserved to be thoroughly enjoyable, for which reason I am disposed to think that mating and nesting had not yet begun, or I should have found evidences of it, as their gra.s.sy cots on the ground and in the bushes are readily discovered. Other birds that were seen in this afternoon's ramble were Wilson's and Audubon's warblers, the spotted sandpiper, and that past-master in the art of whining, the killdeer. Another warbler's trill was heard in the thicket, but I was unable to identify the singer that evening, for he kept himself conscientiously hidden in the tanglewood. A few days later it turned out to be one of the most beautiful feathered midgets of the Rockies, Macgillivray's warbler, which was seen in a number of places, usually on bushy slopes. He and his mate often set up a great to-do by chirping and flitting about, and I spent hours in trying to find their nests, but with no other result than to wear out my patience and rubber boots. I can recall no other Colorado bird, either large or small, except the mountain jay, that made so much ado about nothing, so far as I could discover. But I love them still, on account of the beauty of their plumage and the gentle rhythm of their trills.

The next morning, chilly as the weather was--and it was cold enough to make one s.h.i.+ver even in bed--the western robins opened the day's concert with a splendid voluntary, waking me out of my slumbers and forcing me out of doors for an early walk. No one but a systematic ornithologist would be able to mark the difference between the eastern and western types of robins, for their manners, habits, and minstrelsy are alike, and their markings, too, so far as ordinary observation goes. The carolling of the two varieties is similar, so far as I could discern--the same cherry ringing melody, their voices having a like propensity to break into falsetto, becoming a veritable squeak, especially early in the season before their throat-harps are well tuned.

With his powerful muscles and wide stretch of wing the robin is admirably adapted to the life of a mountaineer. You find him from the plains to the timber-line, sometimes even in the deepest canons and on the most precipitous mountain sides, always the same busy, noisy, cheery body. One day I saw a robin dart like a meteor from the top of a high ridge over the cliffs to the valley below, where he alighted on a cultivated field almost as lightly as a flake of snow. He--probably she (what a trouble these p.r.o.nouns are, anyway!)--gathered a mouthful of worms for his nestlings, then dashed up to the top of the ridge again, which he did, not by flying out into the air, but by keeping close up to the steep, cliffy wall, striking a rock here and twig there with his agile feet to help him in rising. The swiftness of the robin's movements about the gorges, abysses, and precipices of the mountains often inspires awe in the beholder's breast, and, on reflection, stirs him with envy. Many nests were found in the Georgetown valley, in woodsy and bushy places on the route to Gray's Peak as far as the timber-line, in the neighborhood of Boulder, in the Platte River Canon, in South Park, and in the Blue River region beyond the Divide. Some of the nests contained eggs, others young in various stages of plumage, and still others were already deserted. For general ubiquity as a species, commend me to the American robin, whether of the eastern or western type.

Wherever found he is a singer, and it is only to be regretted that--

"All will not hear thy sweet, out-pouring joy That with morn's stillness blends the voice of song, For over-anxious cares their souls employ, That else, upon thy music borne along And the light wings of heart-ascending prayer, Had learned that Heaven is pleased thy simple joys to share."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Western Robin_

"_Out-pouring joy_"]

In Georgetown, Silver Plume, and other mountain towns the lovely violet-green swallow is frequently seen--a distinctly western species and one of the most richly apparelled birds of the Rockies. It nests in all sorts of niches and crannies about the houses, often sits calmly on a telegraph wire and preens its iridescent plumes, and sometimes utters a weak and squeaky little trill, which, no doubt, pa.s.ses for first-rate music in swallowdom, whatever we human critics might think of it. Before man came and settled in those valleys, the violet-greens found the crevices of rocks well enough adapted to their needs for nesting sites, but now they prefer cosey niches and crannies in human dwellings, and appear to appreciate the society of human beings.

For over a week we made Georgetown our headquarters, going off every day to the regions round about. Among my most treasured finds here was the nest of Audubon's warbler--my first. It was saddled in the crotch of a small pine a short distance up an acclivity, and was prettily roofed over with a thick network of branches and twigs. Four white, daintily speckled eggs lay in the bottom of the cup. While I was sitting in the shadow of the pine, some motion of mine caused the little owner to spring from her nest, and this led to its discovery. As she flitted about in the bushes, she uttered a sharp _chip_, sometimes consisting of a double note. The nest was about four feet from the ground, its walls built of gra.s.ses and weed-stems, and its concave little floor carpeted with cotton and feathers. A cosey cottage it was, fit for the little poets that erected it. Subsequently I made many long and tiresome efforts to find nests of the Audubons, but all these efforts were futile.

One enchanting day--the twenty-fourth of June--was spent in making a trip, with b.u.t.terfly-net and field-gla.s.s, to Green Lake, an emerald gem set in the mountains at an alt.i.tude of ten thousand feet, a few miles from Georgetown. Before leaving the town, our first gray-headed junco for this expedition was seen. He had come to town for his breakfast, and was flitting about on the lawns and in the trees bordering the street, helping himself to such dainties as pleased his palate. It may be said here that the gray-headed juncos were observed at various places all along the way from Georgetown to Green Lake and far above that body of water. Not so with the broad-tailed hummers, which were not seen above about eight thousand five hundred feet, while the last warbling vireo of the day was seen and heard at an alt.i.tude of nine thousand feet, possibly a little more, when he decided that the air was as rare as was good for his health.

A short distance up the canon of the west branch of Clear Creek, a new kind of flycatcher was first heard, and presently seen with my gla.s.s. He sat on a cliff or flitted from rock to bush. He uttered a sharp call, "Cheep, cheep, cheep"; his under parts were bright yellow, his upper parts yellow-olive, growing darker on the crown, and afterwards a nearer view revealed dark or dusky wings, yellowish or gray wing-bars, and yellow eye-rings. He was the western flycatcher, and bears close likeness to our eastern yellow-breasted species. Subsequently he was quite frequently met with, but never far above the alt.i.tude of Georgetown.

In the same canon a beautiful Macgillivray's warbler was observed, and two water-ousels went das.h.i.+ng up the meandering stream, keeping close to the seething and roaring waters, but never stopping to sing or bid us the time of day. Very few ousels were observed in our rambles in this region, and no nests rewarded my search, whereas in the vicinity of Colorado Springs, as the reader will recall, these interesting birds were quite frequently near at hand. A mother robin holding a worm in her bill sped down the gulch with the swiftness of an arrow. We soon reached a belt of quaking asps where there were few birds. This was succeeded by a zone of pines. The green-tailed towhees did not accompany us farther in our climb than to an elevation of about nine thousand three hundred feet, but the siskins were chirping and cavorting about and above us all the way, many of them evidently having nests in the tops of the tall pines on the dizzy cliffs. Likewise the hermit thrushes were seen in suitable localities by the way, and also at the highest point we reached that day, an elevation of perhaps ten thousand five hundred feet.

While some species were, so to speak, our "companions in travel" the entire distance from the town to the lake, and others went with us only a part of the way, still other species found habitats only in the higher regions clambering far up toward the timber-line. Among these were the mountain jays, none of which were found as far down the range as Georgetown. They began to proclaim their presence by raucous calls as soon as we arrived in the vicinity of Green Lake. A family of them were hurtling about in the pine woods, allowing themselves to be inspected at short range, and filling the hollows with their uncanny calls. What a voice the mountain jay has! Nature did a queer thing when she put a "horse-fiddle" into the larynx of this bird--but it is not ours to ask the reason why, simply to study her as she is. In marked contrast with the harsh calls of these mountain hobos were the roulades of the sweet and musical ruby-crowned kinglets, which had absented themselves from the lower alt.i.tudes, but were abundant in the timber belts about ten thousand feet up the range and still higher.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Red-naped Sapsuckers_

"_Chiselling grubs out of the bark_"]

On the border of the lake, among some gnarly pines, I stumbled upon a woodp.e.c.k.e.r that was entirely new to my eastern eyes--one that I had not seen in my previous touring among the heights of the Rockies. He was sedulously pursuing his vocation--a divine call, no doubt--of chiselling grubs out of the bark of the pine trees, making the chips fly, and producing at intervals that musical snare-drumming which always sets the poet to dreaming of sylvan solitudes. What was the bird? The red-naped sapsucker, a beautifully habited Chesterfield in plumes. He presently ambled up the steep mountain side, and buried himself in the pine forest, and I saw him no more, and none of his kith.

When I climbed up over a tangle of rocks to a woodsy ravine far above the lake, it seemed at first as if there were no birds in the place, that it was given up entirely to solitude; but the winged creatures were only shy and cautious for the nonce, waiting to learn something about the errand and disposition of their uninvited, or, rather, self-invited, guest, before they ventured to give him a greeting. Presently they discovered that he was not a collector, hunter, nest-robber, or ogre of any other kind, and there was the swish of wings around me, and a medley of chirps and songs filled the sequestered spot. Away up here the gray-headed juncos were trilling like warblers, and hopping about on their pine-needle carpet, creeping in and out among the rocks, hunting for tidbits. Here also was the mountain chickadee, found at this season in the heights hard by the alpine zone, singing his dulcet minor strain, "Te-te-re-e-e, te-eet," sometimes adding another "te-eet" by way of special emphasis and adornment. Oh, the sweet little piper piping only for Pan! The loneliness of the place was accentuated by the sad cadenzas of the mountain hermit thrushes. Swallows of some kind--cliff-swallows, no doubt--were silently weaving invisible filigree across the sky above the tops of the stately pines.