Associated with the titmice, kinglets, and nuthatches were the downy woodpeckers, which belong to the artisan family of the bird community, being hammerers, drillers, and chisellers all combined. They pursue their chosen calling most sedulously. “What’s the use of having a vocation if you don’t follow it?” you may almost hear them say as they cant their heads to one side and peep under the bark for a tidbit, or hammer vigorously at a crevice in which a worm is embedded. The hairy woodpeckers, which are somewhat larger, are more erratic in their movements, none having been seen from the autumn until the latter part of January. At this date I heard their loud, nervous Chi-i-i-r-r, as they dashed from tree to tree apparently in great excitement.
I cannot forbear contrasting this winter with the previous one. In the winter of 1889-1890 the song-sparrows never left us at all, but sang on almost every pleasant day when I went to the woods or marsh; but this winter, which was somewhat colder, they went to other climes, and left the fringes of the pools and the thickets in the swamp tenantless, songless, and desolate. In 1889-1890 the cardinal grossbeaks whistled every month, making the woods ring even in January; this winter not a single note was heard from their resonant throats. I had just begun to fear that the pair which had greeted me so frequently the previous winter had been slaughtered by some caterer to the shameful fashions of the day, when, on the twenty-eighth of January, I was gladdened by the sight of them in company with several of their relatives or acquaintances and a bevy of tree-sparrows. Where had the grossbeaks been since November? And if they had gone south, why did they return from their visit so early in the season? Or perhaps a still more pertinent inquiry would be, Why had they gone away at all? It is difficult, however, to explain grossbeak caprice or ratiocination.
What do the birds do when it rains? No doubt, when the rain pours in torrents, they find plenty of coverts in the thick bushes or in the cavities of trees; but when the rain falls gently, and I make my way to their haunts, as I often do, they flit about as industriously as ever in their quest for food, only stopping now and then to shake the pearly drops from their water-proof cloaks. In such humid weather the wood-choppers in the forest—the human ones—stop their work and seek shelter. Not so these feathered workers, who gayly continue their playful toil, and exclaim exultingly, “Isn’t this a jolly rain?”
In another chapter mention has been made of the provident habits of certain birds, especially the titmice and nuthatches, in laying by a winter store. As if to confirm what has been said, one winter day a nuthatch went scudding up and down the trunk of a large oak-tree at the border of the woods. Presently he cried, Yank! yank! as if to announce a discovery. Then he pecked and pried with all his might, until at length he drew a grain of corn out of a crevice of the bark, placed it in a shallow pocket on the other side of the tree, and began to pick it to pieces, swallowing the fragments as he broke them off. When this grain had been disposed of, he found another, and then another, until his hunger seemed to be appeased, when he darted off into the woods.
Other pedestrians and observers may differ from me both in temperament and habits, but to my mind nothing could be more delightful than a ramble in a snow-storm. Let the wind blow a gale from the west, driving the cold pellets blindingly into your face, and trying to rob you of your overcoat and cap; yet, if you have the spirit of the genuine rambler, your blood will tingle with delight, as well as with a sense of masterly overcoming, as you plod along; while you feel that every fierce gust that strikes you is only one of Nature’s love-taps,—a little rough, it is true, but for that very reason all the more expressive of affection. Stalking forth into the teeth of a winter storm develops the hardy traits of character, and puts the ingredients from which heroes are made into the pulsing veins. Many a time, as I have pushed my way triumphantly through the pelting wind, I have answered with a shout of joy Emerson’s vigorous challenge,—
“Come see the north wind’s masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry, evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Carves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.”