The Log of the Sun Part 4

Collision with other birds seems scarcely possible, although it sometimes does occur. When a covey of quail is flushed, occasionally two birds will collide, at times meeting with such force that both are stunned.

Flycatchers darting at the same insect will now and then come together, but not hard enough to injure either bird.

Even the smallest and most wonderful of all flyers, the hummingbird, may come to grief in accidental ways. I have seen one entangled in a burdock burr, its tiny feathers fast locked into the countless hooks, and again I have found the body of one of these little birds with its bill fastened in a spiral tendril of a grapevine, trapped in some unknown way.

Young phoebes sometimes become entangled in the horsehairs which are used in the lining of their nest. When they are old enough to fly and attempt to leave, they are held prisoners or left dangling from the nest. When mink traps are set in the snow in winter, owls frequently fall victims, mice being scarce and the bait tempting.

Lighthouses are perhaps the cause of more accidents to birds than are any of the other obstacles which they encounter on their nocturnal migrations north and south. Many hundreds of birds are sometimes found dead at the base of these structures. The sudden bright glare is so confusing and blinding, as they shoot from the intense darkness into its circle of radiance, that they are completely bewildered and dash headlong against the thick panes of gla.s.s. Telegraph wires are another menace to low-flying birds, especially those which, like quail and woodc.o.c.k, enjoy a whirlwind flight, and attain great speed within a few yards. Such birds have been found almost cut in two by the force with which they struck the wire.

The elements frequently catch birds unaware and overpower them. A sudden wind or storm will drive coast-flying birds hundreds of miles out to sea, and oceanic birds may be blown as far inland. Hurricanes in the West Indies are said to cause the death of innumerable birds, as well as of other creatures. From such a cause small islands are known to have become completely depopulated of their feathered inhabitants. Violent hailstorms, coming in warm weather without warning, are quite common agents in the destruction of birds, and in a city thousands of English sparrows have been stricken during such a storm. After a violent storm of wet snow in the middle West, myriads of Lapland longspurs were once found dead in the streets and suburbs of several villages. On the surface of two small lakes, a conservative estimate of the dead birds was a million and a half!

The routes which birds follow in migrating north and south sometimes extend over considerable stretches of water, as across the Caribbean Sea, but the only birds which voluntarily brave the dangers of the open ocean are those which, from ability to swim, or great power of flight, can trust themselves far away from land. Not infrequently a storm will drive birds away from the land and carry them over immense distances, and this accounts for the occasional appearance of land birds near vessels far out at sea. Overcome with fatigue, they perch for hours in the rigging before taking flight in the direction of the nearest land, or, desperate from hunger, they fly fearlessly down to the deck, where food and water are seldom refused them.

Small events like these are welcome breaks in the monotony of a long ocean voyage, but are soon forgotten at the end of the trip.

Two of these ocean waifs were once brought to me. One was a young European heron which flew on board a vessel when it was about two hundred and five miles southeast of the southern extremity of India. A storm must have driven the bird seaward, as there is no migration route near this locality.

The second bird was a European turtle dove which was captured not less than seven hundred and fifty miles from the nearest land--Ireland. When caught it was in an exhausted condition, but it quickly recovered and soon lost all signs of the buffeting of the storm. The turtle dove migrates northward to the British Islands about the first of May, but as this bird was captured on May 17th, it was not migrating, but, caught by a gust of wind, was probably blown away from the land. The force of the storm would then drive it mile after mile, allowing it no chance of controlling the direction of its flight, but, from the very velocity, making it easy for the bird to maintain its equilibrium.

Hundreds of birds must perish when left by storms far out at sea, and the infinitely small chance of encountering a vessel or other resting-place makes a bird which has pa.s.sed through such an experience and survived, interesting indeed.

In winter ruffed grouse have a habit of burrowing deep beneath the snow and letting the storm shut them in. In this warm, cosey retreat they spend the night, their breath making its way out through the loosely packed crystals. But when a cold rain sets in during the night, this becomes a fatal trap, an impenetrable crust cutting off their means of escape.

Ducks, when collected about a small open place in an ice-covered pond, diving for the tender roots on which they feed, sometimes become confused and drown before they find their way out. They have been seen frozen into the ice by hundreds, sitting there helplessly, and fortunate if the sun, with its thawing power, releases them before they are discovered by marauding hawks or foxes.

In connection with their food supply the greatest enemy of birds is ice, and when a winter rain ends with a cold snap, and every twig and seed is encased in a transparent armour of ice, then starvation stalks close to all the feathered kindred. Then is the time to scatter crumbs and grain broadcast, to nail bones and suet to the tree-trunks and so awaken hope and life in the s.h.i.+vering little forms. If a bird has food in abundance, it little fears the cold. I have kept parrakeets out through the blizzards and storms of a severe winter, seeing them play and frolic in the snow as if their natural home were an arctic tundra, instead of a tropical forest.

A friend of birds once planted many sprouts of wild honeysuckle about his porch, and the following summer two pairs of hummingbirds built their nests in near-by apple trees; he transplanted quant.i.ties of living woodbine to the garden fences, and when the robins returned in the spring, after having remained late the previous autumn feeding on the succulent bunches of berries, no fewer than ten pairs nested on and about the porch and yard.

So my text of this, as of many other weeks is,--study the food habits of the birds and stock your waste places with their favourite berry or vine.

Your labour will be repaid a hundredfold in song and in the society of the little winged comrades.

Worn is the winter rug of white, And in the snow-bare spots once more, Glimpses of faint green gra.s.s in sight,-- Spring's footprints on the floor.

Spring here--by what magician's touch?

'Twas winter scarce an hour ago.

And yet I should have guessed as much,-- Those footprints in the snow!

Frank Dempster Sherman.

DWELLERS IN THE DUST

To many of us the differences between a reptile and a batrachian are unknown. Even if we have learned that these interesting creatures are well worth studying and that they possess few or none of the unpleasant characteristics usually attributed to them, still we are apt to speak of having seen a lizard in the water at the pond's edge, or of having heard a reptile croaking near the marsh. To avoid such mistakes, one need only remember that reptiles are covered with scales and that batrachians have smooth skins.

Our walks will become more and more interesting as we spread our interest over a wider field, not confining our observations to birds and mammals alone, but including members of the two equally distinctive cla.s.ses of animals mentioned above. The batrachians, in the northeastern part of our country, include the salamanders and newts, the frogs and toads, while as reptiles we number lizards, turtles, and snakes.

Lizards are creatures of the tropics and only two small species are found in our vicinity, and these occur but rarely. Snakes, however, are more abundant, and, besides the rare poisonous copperhead and rattlesnake, careful search will reveal a dozen harmless species, the commonest, of course, being the garter snake and its near relative the ribbon snake.

About this time of the year snakes begin to feel the thawing effect of the sun's rays and to stir in their long winter hibernation. Sometimes we will come upon a ball of six or eight intertwined snakes, which, if they are still frozen up, will lie motionless upon the ground. But when spring finally unclasps the seal which has been put upon tree and ground, these reptiles stretch themselves full length upon some exposed stone, where they lie basking in the sun.

The process of shedding the skin soon begins; getting clear of the head part, eye-scales and all, the serpent slowly wriggles its way forward, escaping from the old skin as a finger is drawn from a glove. At last it crawls away, bright and s.h.i.+ning in its new scaly coat, leaving behind it a spectral likeness of itself, which slowly sinks and disintegrates amid the dead leaves and moss, or, later in the year, it may perhaps be discovered by some crested flycatcher and carried off to be added to its nesting material.

When the broods of twenty to thirty young garter snakes start out in life to hunt for themselves, then woe to the earthworms, for it is upon them that the little serpents chiefly feed.

Six or seven of our native species of snakes lay eggs, usually depositing them under the bark of rotten logs, or in similar places, where they are left to hatch by the heat of the sun or by that of the decaying vegetation. It is interesting to gather these leathery sh.e.l.led eggs and watch them hatch, and it is surprising how similar to each other some of the various species are when they emerge from the sh.e.l.l.

APRIL

SPRING SONGSTERS

Early April sees the last contest which winter wages for supremacy, and often it is a half-hearted attempt; but after the army of the North has retreated, with its icicles and snowdrifts, spring seems dazed for a while. Victory has been dearly bought, and April is the season when, for a time, the trees and insects hang fire--paralysed--while the chill is thawing from their marrow. Our northern visitors of the bird world slip quietly away. There is no great gathering of clans like that of the tree swallows in the fall, but silently, one by one, they depart, following the last moan of the north wind, covering winter's disordered retreat with warbles and songs.

One evening we notice the juncos and tree sparrows in the tangled, frost-burned stubble, and the next day, although our eye catches glints of white from sparrow tails, it is from vesper finches, not from juncos, and the weed spray which a few hours before bent beneath a white-throat's weight, now vibrates with the energy which a field sparrow puts into his song. Field and chipping sparrows, which now come in numbers, are somewhat alike, but by their beaks and songs you may know them. The mandibles of the former are flesh-coloured, those of the latter black. The sharp _chip!_ _chip!_ is characteristic of the "chippy," but the sweet, dripping song of the field sparrow is charming. No elaborate performance this, but a succession of sweet, high notes, accelerating toward the end, like a coin of silver settling to rest on a marble table--a simple, chaste vespers which rises to the setting sun and endears the little brown singer to us.

We may learn much by studying these homely little frequenters of our orchards and pastures; each has a hundred secrets which await patient and careful watching by their human lovers. In the chipping sparrow we may notice a hint of the spring change of dress which warblers and tanagers carry to such an extreme. When he left us in the fall he wore a dull-streaked cap, but now he comes from the South attired in a smart head-covering of bright chestnut. Poor little fellow, this is the very best he can do in the way of especial ornament to bewitch his lady love, but it suffices. Can the peac.o.c.k's train do more?

This is the time to watch for the lines of ducks crossing the sky, and be ready to find black ducks in the oddest places--even in insignificant rain pools deep in the woods. In the early spring the great flocks of grackles and redwings return, among the first to arrive as they were the last to leave for the South.

Before the last fox sparrow goes, the hermit thrush comes, and these birds, alike in certain superficialities, but so actually unrelated, for a time seek their food in the same grove.

The hardier of the warblers pa.s.s us in April, stopping a few days before continuing to the northward. We should make haste to identify them and to learn all we can of their notes and habits, not only because of the short stay which most of them make, but on account of the vast a.s.semblage of warbler species already on the move in the Southern States, which soon, in panoply of rainbow hues, will crowd our groves and wear thin the warbler pages of our bird books.

These April days we are sure to see flocks of myrtle, or yellow-rumped warblers, and yellow palm warblers in their olive-green coats and chestnut caps. The black-and-white creeper will always show himself true to his name--a creeping bundle of black and white streaks. When we hear of the parula warbler or of the Cape May warbler we get no idea of the appearance of the bird, but when we know that the black-throated green warblers begin to appear in April, the first good view of one of this species will proclaim him as such.

We have marked the fox sparrow as being a great scratcher among dead leaves. His habit is continued in the spring by the towhee, or chewink, who uses the same methods, throwing both feet backward simultaneously. The ordinary call note of this bird is a good example of how difficult it is to translate bird songs into human words. Listen to the quick, double note coming from the underbrush. Now he says "_towhee'!_" the next time "_chewink'!_" You may change about at will, and the notes will always correspond. Whatever is in our mind at the instant, that will seem to be what the bird says. This should warn us of the danger of reading our thoughts and theories too much into the minds and actions of birds. Their mental processes, in many ways, correspond to ours. When a bird expresses fear, hate, bravery, pain or pleasure, we can sympathise thoroughly with it, but in studying their more complex actions we should endeavour to exclude the thousand and one human attributes with which we are p.r.o.ne to colour the bird's mental environment.

John Burroughs has rendered the song of the black-throated green warbler in an inimitable way, as follows: "---- ----V----!" When we have once heard the bird we will instantly recognise the aptness of these symbolic lines. The least flycatcher, called _minimus_ by the scientists, well deserves his name, for of all those members of his family which make their home with us, he is the smallest. These miniature flycatchers have a way of hunting which is all their own. They sit perched on some exposed twig or branch, motionless until some small insect flies in sight. Then they will launch out into the air, and, catching the insect with a snap of their beaks, fly back to the same perch. They are garbed in subdued grays, olives, and yellows. The least flycatcher has another name which at once distinguishes him--chebec'. As he sits on a limb, his whole body trembles when he jerks out these syllables, and his tail snaps as if it played some important part in the mechanism of his vocal effort.

When you are picking cowslips and hepaticas early in the month, keep a lookout for the first barn swallow. Nothing gives us such an impression of the independence and individuality of birds as when a solitary member of some species arrives days before others of his kind. One fork-tailed beauty of last year's nest above the haymow may hawk about for insects day after day alone, before he is joined by other swallows. Did he spend the winter by himself, or did the _heimweh_ smite his heart more sorely and bring him irresistibly to the loved nest in the rafters? This love of home, which is so striking an attribute of birds, is a wonderfully beautiful thing. It brings the oriole back to the branch where still swings her exquisite purse-shaped home of last summer; it leads each pair of fishhawks to their particular cartload of sticks, to which a few more must be added each year; it hastens the wing beats of the sea-swallows northward to the beach which, ten months ago, was flecked with their eggs--the s.h.i.+fting grains of sand their only nest.

This love of home, of birthplace, bridges over a thousand physical differences between these feathered creatures and ourselves. We forget their expressionless masks of horn, their feathered fingers, their scaly toes, and looking deep into their clear, bright eyes, we know and feel a kins.h.i.+p, a sympathy of spirit, which binds us all together, and we are glad.

Yet these sweet sounds of the early season, And these fair sights of its sunny days, Are only sweet when we fondly listen, And only fair when we fondly gaze.

There is no glory in star or blossom Till looked upon by a loving eye; There is no fragrance in April breezes Till breathed with joy as they wander by.

William Cullen Bryant.