Your National Parks, with Detailed Information for Tourists

by Enos A. Mills; Laurence Frederick Schmeckebier

In most of the Park streams trout are found—Western brook trout, Eastern brook trout, and California rainbow trout.

Among the more prominent birds common in a number of the Parks are eagles, grouse, ptarmigans, Clarke crows, camp-birds,—Rocky Mountain jays,—robins, bluebirds, blackbirds, song sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, cañon wrens, solitaires, and water-ouzels. In several of the National Parks a number of species of hummingbird are found.

Each spring many species of birds migrate up the mountain-slopes, where they nest in the alpine heights. The mountain migration, requiring a flight of only an hour or two, gives them climatic conditions similar to that of the Arctic Circle, to reach which would cost them a journey of several thousand miles.

Some species bring forth two broods each summer. The first is raised in the lowlands, where the young are fed while flower life in the lowlands is at its best. As soon as the young birds are able to care for themselves, the parent birds move up the mountain-side into the very heart of summer. Here they nest again. How romantic is every habit and custom in Bird World! The second nest of children is thus reared on the alpine slopes. This enables the old birds to bring up each brood in the midst of an abundant food-supply. The white-crowned sparrow and two or three species of hummingbird do this.

A closer study of birds and animals will probably reveal the fact that numbers of them mate for life. My experience has led me to believe that wolves and foxes, bluebirds, wrens, eagles, and other kinds of wild life do this.

Of all the birds in the West, or in the world, the one most hopefully eloquent is the solitaire. The song of the hermit thrush has a touch of sadness—it subdues and gives to one a touch of reflective loneliness; but the song of the solitaire stirs one to be up and doing; it gives the spirit of youth. Its song comes from ages of freedom under peaceful skies, from a mingling of the melody of winds and waters and of all rhythmic sounds that murmur and echo through Nature's wonderlands.

High up in the mountains of the National Parks lives the ptarmigan, the largest bird resident of the snowy heights. It spends the entire year in the alpine zone, rarely descending below timber-line. Even the summits of the peaks are visited by this sky-high dweller. Its dress changes with the seasons; in winter it is pure white, stockings and all; in midsummer it is grayish brown. These changing colors resemble those of the landscape and thus help protect the ptarmigan from its enemies, the weasel, fox, bear, eagle, and mountain lion. Although smaller than the grouse, it reminds one of that bird. It eats grasses and insects and the seeds and buds of alpine plants. Much of the winter-time is spent by these birds in the shelter of deep holes or runs beneath the compressed snow of the heights. Though far from the Arctic Circle, they are close relatives of the ptarmigan that dwells in the realm of the polar bear.

One of the best-dressed and best-mannered bird families that visit National Parks is that of the waxwing—cedar and Bohemian. These birds usually travel in flocks. At a small watering-place they drink in routine, moving forward in an orderly manner. When a number of them are resting upon a limb, if one catches an insect, he is quite likely to pass it to his neighbor, and the neighbor in turn to pass it to the next neighbor. Their dress is quiet, refined, and attractive to a marked degree. It is an interesting fact that these birds, so dainty of dress, so refined of manner, do not sing.

The cañon wren is a beautiful singer. So, too, is the water-ouzel, a bird of the alpine brooks in the mountains of the West that has been immortalized by John Muir. But few species of birds sing every day in the year. One of those that do is the water-ouzel.

Most birds and animals appear to desire human society. Birds will leave the seclusion of the forest to build by the roadside where people pass. Some kinds of little feathered folk have deserted old nesting-scenes and now nest by human homes. Robins, wrens, and bluebirds confidingly raise their families in the scenes where children romp and play.