Birds of the Rockies

by Leander S. Keyser

The most satisfactory lazuli song I heard was on the western side of the range, at the resort called Glenwood. This time, as was usually the case, I heard the little triller before seeing him, and was sure it was Passerina amœna, as the bunting strains were plainly discernible. He was sitting on a telephone wire, and did not flit away as I stood below and peered at him through my glass, and admired his trig and handsome form. I studied his song, and tried to fix the peculiar intonations in my mind, and felt positive that I could never be caught again—but I was.[8]

[8] In the foregoing remarks the lazuli finches have been represented as excessively shy. So they were in 1899 in the neighborhoods then visited. Strangely enough, in the vicinity of Denver in 1901, these birds were abundant and as easily approached and studied as are the indigoes of the East. See the chapter entitled, "Plains and Foothills."

The lazuli finch does not venture very high into the mountains, seldom reaching an altitude of more than seven thousand feet. He is a lover of the plains, the foothills, and the lower ranges of the mountains. In this respect he differs from some other little birds, which seek a summer home in the higher regions. On the southern slope of Pike's Peak, a little below the timber-line, I found a dainty little bird which was a stranger to me. It was Audubon's warbler. At first sight I decided that he must be the myrtle warbler, but was compelled to change my conclusion when I got a glimpse of his throat, which was golden yellow, whereas the throat of Dendroica coronata is pure white. Then, too, the myrtle warbler is only a migrant in Colorado, passing farther north to breed. Audubon's, it must be said, has extremely rich habiliments, his upper parts being bluish-ash, streaked with black, his belly and under tail-coverts white, and his breast in high feather, black, prettily skirted with gray or invaded with white from below; but his yellow spots, set like gleaming gold in various parts of his plumage, constitute his most marked embellishment, being found on the crown, rump, throat, and each side of the chest.

On my first excursion to some meadows and wooded low-grounds south of Colorado Springs, while listening to a concert given by western meadow-larks, my attention was attracted to a large, black bird circling about the fields and then alighting on a fence-post. My first thought was: "It is only a crow blackbird." But on second thought I decided that the crow blackbird did not soar and circle about in this manner. At all events, there seemed to be something slightly peculiar about this bird's behavior, so I went nearer to inspect him, when he left his perch on the post, flapped around over the meadow, and finally flew to a large, partially decayed cottonwood tree in a pasture field. If I could believe my eyes, he clung to the upright stems of the branches after the style of a woodpecker! That was queer indeed—a woodpecker that looked precisely like a blackbird! Such a featherland oddity was certainly foreign to any of my calculations; for, it must be remembered, this was prior to my making acquaintance with Williamson's sapsucker.

Closer inspection proved that this bird was actually hitching up and down the branches of the tree in the regular woodpecker fashion. Presently he slipped into a hole in a large limb, and the loud, eager chirping of young birds was heard. It was not long before his mate appeared, entered the cavity, and fed the clamorous brood. The birds proved to be Lewis's woodpeckers, another distinctly western type. My field-glass soon clearly brought out their peculiar markings.

A beautiful bird-skin, bought of Mr. Charles E. Aiken, now lies on my desk and enables me to describe the fine habiliments of this kind from an actual specimen. His upper parts are glossy black, the sheen on the back being greenish, and that on the wings and tail bluish or purplish, according to the angle of the sun's light; a white collar prettily encircles the neck, becoming quite narrow on the nape, but widening out on the side so as to cover the entire breast and throat. This pectoral shield is mottled with black and lightly stained with buff in spots; the forehead, chin, superciliary line, and a broad space on the cheek are dyed a deep crimson; and, not least by any means, the abdomen is washed with pink, which is delicately stencilled with white, gray, and buff. A most gorgeous bird, fairly rivalling, but not distancing, Williamson's sapsucker.

By accident I made a little discovery relative to the claws of this woodpecker which, I suppose, would be true of all the Picidæ family. The claws of the two fore toes are sharply curved and extremely acute, making genuine hooks, so that when I attempt to pass my finger over them the points catch at the skin. Could a better hook be contrived for enabling the bird to clamber up the trunks and branches of trees? But note: the claws of the two hind toes are not so sharply decurved, nor so acute at the points, the finger slipping readily over them. Who can deny the evidence of design in nature? The fore claws are highly specialized for clinging, the very purpose for which they are needed, while the hind claws, being used for a different purpose—only that of support—are moulded over a different pattern.

Like our common red-head, this bird has the habit of soaring out into the air and nabbing insects on the wing. The only other pair of these woodpeckers I was so fortunate as to meet with were found in the ravine leading up from Buena Vista to Cottonwood Lake.[9] Their nest was in a dead tree by the roadside. While the first couple had been entirely silent, one of the second pair chirped somewhat uneasily when I lingered beneath his tree, suspecting, no doubt, that I had sinister designs upon his nest. Unlike some of their kinsmen, these pickers of wood seem to be quiet and dignified, not given to much demonstration, and are quite leisurely in their movements both on the branch and on the wing.

[9] Two years later a pair were seen on a mountain near Golden, Colorado, and probably twenty individuals were watched a long time from a cañon above Boulder as they circled gracefully over the mountains, catching insects on the wing.

One day, when walking up Ute Pass, celebrated both for its magnificent scenery and its Indian history, I first saw the water-ousel. I had been inspecting Rainbow Falls, and was duly impressed with its attractiveness. Thinking I had lingered long enough, I turned away and clambered up the rocky wall below the falls towards the road above. As I did so, a loud, bell-like song rang above the roar of the water. On looking down into the ravine, I saw a mouse-colored bird, a little smaller than the robin, his tail perked up almost vertically, scuttling about on the rocks below and dipping his body in an expressive way like the "tip-up" sandpiper. Having read about this bird, I at once recognized it as the water-ousel. My interest in everything else vanished. This was one of the birds I had made my pilgrimage to the Rockies to study. It required only a few minutes to scramble down into the ravine again.