The Greycliff girls, of course, had brought their field glasses, in the hope of discovering new birds in a different state. “Not a bit of wind this morning, and warm,” said Hilary, “so of course the birds are out.”
“I don’t call this warm, this cool morning air,” returned Lilian.
“I mean the bright sunshine and everything. O, look!”
A plump little indigo bunting, shining a bright green-blue in the sun, flew across the lane and dropped to the ground not far in front of them.
“Hark!” whispered Lilian. A Maryland yellow-throat was singing now, “We greet you, we greet you, we greet you!” as Lilian interpreted it.
“He does say that,” confirmed Hilary. “It’s funny, isn’t it? They say he says ‘wichity’, but I almost always hear him accent the song differently. The other day I heard one say, ‘We beat you, we beat you, Phoebe!’”
“Let’s go over on the rocks near those birches. I hear a lot of wood warblers singing over there.”
Silently the girls climbed across rocks and bushes. It was indeed warbler land. Hilary, who lived where the warblers often pass through quickly in the spring migration, on account of hot days, was especially interested. “There are a lot of redstarts,” said she. “I think that the ones we see near our cabin, and the yellow warbler there, too, are nesting in those bushes by us.”
“I wish I could see the chap that’s singing that song,” said Betty, “Listen.”
“Zee, zoo, zee-zee, zoo,” hummed Lilian. “The ‘zee-zee’ is musical, a sort of whistle, but the other notes sound like an insect, or some low tones on a ‘cello’.”