Birds of the Rockies

by Leander S. Keyser

But his song is different from our eastern towhee's. My notes say that it is "a cross between the song of the chewink and that of dickcissel," and I shall stand by that assertion until I find good reason to disown it—should that time ever come. The opening syllabication is like dickcissel's; then follows a trill of no specially definable character. There are times when he sings with more than his wonted force, and it is then that his tune bears the strongest likeness to the eastern towhee's. But his alarm-call! It is no "chewink" at all, but almost as close a reproduction of a cat's mew as is the catbird's well-known call. Such crosses and anomalies does this country produce!

On the arid mountain sides among the stunted bushes, cactus plants, sand, and rocks, this quaint bird makes his home, coming down into the valleys to drink at the tinkling brooks and trill his roundelays. Many, many times, as I was following a deep fissure in the mountains, his ditty came dripping down to me from some spot far up the steep mountain side—a little cascade of song mingling with the cascades of the brooks. The nests are usually placed under a bush on the sides of the mesas and mountains.

And would you believe it? Colorado furnishes another towhee, though why he should have been put into the Pipilo group by the ornithologists is more than I can tell at this moment. He has no analogue in the East. True, he is a bird of the bushes, running sometimes like a little deer from one clump to another; but if you should see him mount a boulder or a bush, and hear him sing his rich, theme-like, finely modulated song, you would aver that he is closer kin to the thrushes or thrashers than to the towhees. There is not the remotest suggestion of the towhee minstrelsy in his prolonged and well-articulated melody. It would be difficult to find a finer lyrist among the mountains.

But, hold! I have neglected to introduce this pretty Mozart of the West. He is known by an offensive and inapt title—the green-tailed towhee. Much more appropriately might he be called the chestnut-crowned towhee, for his cope is rich chestnut, and the crest is often held erect, making him look quite cavalier-like. It is the most conspicuous part of his toilet. His upper parts are grayish-green, becoming slightly deeper green on the tail, from which fact he derives his common name. His white throat and chin are a further diagnostic mark. The bright yellow of the edge of the wings, under coverts and axillaries is seldom seen, on account of the extreme wariness of the bird.

In most of the dry and bushy places I found him at my elbow—or, rather, some distance away, but in evidence by his mellifluous song. Let me enumerate the localities in which I found my little favorite: Forty miles out on the plain among some bushes of a shallow dip; among the foothills about Colorado Springs and Manitou; on many of the open bushy slopes along the cog-road leading to Pike's Peak, but never in the dark ravines or thick timber; among the bushes just below timber-line on the southern acclivity of the peak; everywhere around the village of Buena Vista; about four miles below Leadville; and, lastly, beyond the range at Red Cliff and Glenwood.[1]

[1] This list was greatly enlarged in my second trip to Colorado in 1901.

The song, besides its melodious quality, is full of expression. In this respect it excels the liquid chansons of the mountain hermit thrush, which is justly celebrated as a minstrel, but which does not rehearse a well-defined theme. The towhee's song is sprightly and cheerful, wild and free, has the swing of all outdoors, and is not pitched to a minor key. It gives you the impression that a bird which sings so blithesome a strain must surely be happy in his domestic relations.

Among the Rockies the black-headed grosbeak is much in evidence, and so is his cheerful, good-tempered song, which is an exact counterpart of the song of the rose-breasted grosbeak, his eastern kinsman. Neither the rose-breast nor the cardinal is to be found in Colorado, but they are replaced by the black-headed and blue grosbeaks, the former dwelling among the lower mountains, the latter occurring along the streams of the plains. Master black-head and his mate are partial to the scrub oaks for nesting sites. I found one nest with four callow bantlings in it, but, much to my grief and anger, at my next call it had been robbed of its precious treasures. A few days later, not far from the same place, a female was building a nest, and I am disposed to believe that she was the mother whose children had been kidnapped.

Instead of the scarlet and summer tanagers, the Rocky Mountain region is honored with that beautiful feathered gentleman, the Louisiana tanager, most of whose plumage is rich, glossy yellow, relieved by black on the wings, back, and tail; while his most conspicuous decoration is the scarlet or crimson tinting of his head and throat, shading off into the yellow of the breast. These colors form a picturesque combination, especially if set against a background of green. The crimson staining gives him the appearance of having washed his face in some bright-red pigment, and like an awkward child, blotched his bosom with it in the absence of a napkin.

So far as I could analyze it, there is no appreciable difference between his lyrical performances and those of the scarlet tanager, both being a kind of lazy, drawling song, that is slightly better than no bird music at all. One nest was found without difficulty. It was placed on one of the lower branches of a pine tree by the roadside at the entrance to Engleman's Cañon. As a rule, the males are not excessively shy, as so many of the Rocky Mountain birds are. The tanagers were seen far up in the mountains, as well as among the foothills, and also at Red Cliff and Glenwood on the western side of the Divide.