In Bird Land

by Leander S. Keyser

as Lowell would phrase it.

One of my surprises was a warbler’s trill on the twelfth of August. The little tantalizer kept itself so far up in the trees as to baffle all attempts at identification, but I am disposed to think it was a cerulean warbler. On the nineteenth of August two warbler trills, one of them, I feel almost sure, from the throat of the chestnut-sided warbler, were heard, which is all the more novel because these birds are not residents, but only migrants in this latitude. I should have felt amply repaid for all my efforts, had I proved nothing more than that warblers will sometimes regale one with an aftermath of song in the dog days.

The most persistent minstrel of the midsummer orchestra was the wood-pewee,—the only bird whose song I heard on every excursion to the woods during July and August; and even when September came, there seemed to be little abatement in his musical industry. All the year round, the song-sparrow is the most prolific lyrist of my acquaintance, but in midsummer he is distanced by his sylvan neighbor, the wood-pewee. During my walks on the twenty-ninth and thirty-first of August the pewee’s was the only song heard.

Then, he does not confine himself wholly to his ordinary song, Phe-e-w-e-e or Phe-e-e-o-r-e-e-e, for one day in July he twittered a quaint medley in a low, caressing tone, as if singing a lullaby to his nestlings. At first I could not tell what bird was the author of the new style of melody, but presently the song glided sweetly into the well-known Pe-e-w-e-e. On another occasion I was charmed by the vocal rehearsals of a young pewee. His youth was evident from the fact that he twinkled his wings and coaxed for food from the mother bird, who rewarded his vocal efforts by feeding him. The song was extremely beautiful, spite of the crudeness of its execution; a clear continuous strain, repeated quite loudly, with here and there a partially successful attempt to emit the ordinary pewee notes. Occasionally the parent bird would respond, as if setting the ambitious novice a musical copy, and then he would make a heroic effort to pipe the notes he had just heard, and several times he succeeded admirably. He had a voice of excellent quality, but did not have it under perfect control; still, the immature song was so innocent, so naïve and striking, that it was a temptation to wish he would never learn to sing otherwise.

Permit me to add, in conclusion, that, while the birds are not equally musical or plentiful all the year round, yet there is never a time when their behavior is not worth careful attention. Moreover, midsummer is the most favorable time for the study of the quaint behavior and varied plumage of young birds,—a theme connected with our avian fauna that merits more consideration than it has yet received.

X.
WHERE BIRDS ROOST.

One winter evening found me tramping through a swamp not far from my home, listening to the dulcet trills of the song-sparrows, which had recently returned from a brief visit to a more southern latitude. There was no snow on the ground, and the day had been pleasant; but, as evening approached, the west wind blew raw across the fields. For some reason which I cannot now recall, an impulse seized me to clamber over the fence into the adjacent meadow, where I stalked about somewhat aimlessly for a minute or two, little thinking that I was on the eve of a discovery,—one that was destined to lead me into a delightful field of investigation.

The ground was rather soggy, but a pair of tall rubber boots make one indifferent to mire and mud. The dusk was now gathering rapidly, and it was time for most birds to go to bed. I soon found, too, that they were going to bed, and, moreover, were taking lodgings in the most unexpected quarters. Imagine my surprise when, as I trudged about, the little tree-sparrows, which are winter residents in my neighborhood, flew up here and there out of the deep grass. They seemed to be hidden somewhere until I came near, and then they would suddenly dart up as if they had emerged from a hole in the ground.

This unexpected behavior led me to investigate; and I soon found that in many places there were cosey apartments hollowed out under the long, thick tufts of marsh grass, with neat entrances at one side like the door of an Eskimo hut. These hollows gave ample evidence of having been occupied by the birds, so that there could be no doubt about their being bird bedrooms. Very frequently they were burrowed in the sides of the mounds of sod raised by the winter frosts, and were thus lifted above the intervening hollows, which contained ice-cold water. In every case the overhanging grass made a thatched roof to carry off the rain.

I do not mean to say that these little dugouts were made by the birds themselves. Perhaps they were, but it is more probable that they had been scooped out the previous summer by field-mice, and had only been appropriated for sleeping-apartments by the sparrows. However that may be, they were exceedingly cunning and cosey; and soft must have been the slumbers of the feathered occupants while the wintry blasts howled unharming above them.