In Bird Land

by Leander S. Keyser

That year the crow blackbirds arrived from the south in February, all bedecked in holiday attire, the rich purple of their necks scintillating in the sunshine. You have perhaps observed the droll antics of these birds as they sing their guttural O-gl-ee. It is amusing to see them fluff up their feathers, spread out their wings and tails, bend their heads forward and downward with a spasmodic movement, and then emit that queer, gurgling, half-musical note. It would seem that the little they sing requires a superhuman—more precisely, perhaps, a super-avian—effort, coming aqueously, one might almost say, from some deep fountain in their windpipes. These contortions do not invariably accompany their vocal performances, but certainly occur quite frequently. The red-wings also often behave in a like manner; and both species always spread out their tails like a fan when they sing, whether they fluff up their plumes and twist their necks or not.

Another bit of bird behavior gave me not a little surprise during the same spring. It started this query in my mind: Is the white-breasted nuthatch a sap-sucker? It has been proved by Mr. Burroughs and Mr. Frank Bolles, I think, that the yellow-bellied woodpecker is. But how about the frisky nuthatch, so versatile in ways and means? Here is an incident. One day I saw a nuthatch thrusting his slender bill into a hole in the bark of a young hickory-tree. Nuthatches often hunt for grubs in that way, but something about this fellow’s conduct prompted me to watch him closely for some minutes. He bent over the hole with a lingering movement, as if sipping something. Presently I slowly approached the tree, keeping my eye intent on the bird.

Of course, he flew away on my approach, but my eye was never taken from the spot to which he had been clinging. Being forced to climb the trunk of the tree a few feet, what discovery do you suppose awaited me? There was a small hole pierced through the bark from which the sap was flowing down the crannies, and into that fount the little wassailer had been thrusting his bill, with a sort of lingering motion, precisely as if he had been sipping the sweet liquor. The evidence was sufficient to convince me that he had been doing this very unorthodox thing. The real sap-suckers, no doubt, had dug the well, for there were a number of them in the woods, and the nuthatch had been stealing the nectar. Perhaps, however, I wrong him; he may have asked permission of the owner to drink from the saccharine fountain.

The next autumn I took occasion to pry into the affairs of my beloved intimates of the woods, and had more than one surprise. Some species of birds, like some other animals, lay by a supply of food for winter, proving that they do take some thought for the morrow. So far as my observation goes, this provident care is displayed only by those birds that are winter residents in our more northern latitudes. I have never seen any of the vast company of migrants making such provision for the proverbial rainy day; and, indeed, it would be unnecessary. To them sufficient unto the day is the care as well as the evil thereof, and so they take their “daily bread” as they happen to find it.

Our winter residents, however, are more thrifty, as I have observed again and again. Here is an instance which once came under my eye. While sauntering along the border of the woods one day in September, I noticed several nuthatches and black-capped titmice busily gathering seeds from a clump of sunflower stalks, and flying with them to the trees near by. I found a seat and watched them for a long while. A nuthatch would dart over to a sunflower stalk, cry, Yak! yak! in his familiar way, as if talking affectionately to himself, deftly pick out a seed from its encasement, fly with it to the trunk of an oak-tree, and then thrust it into a crevice of the bark with his long slender beak. He would then hurry back for another seed, which he would treat in the same way.

The behavior of one of these little toilers was especially interesting. By mistake he pushed a seed into a cranny which seemed to be too deep for his purpose, and so he proceeded in his vigorous way to pry and chisel it out. He seemed to say to himself: “That would be too hard to dig out on a cold winter day; I think I’d better get it out now.” When he had secured it, he put it into another crevice, which also proved too deep; and so his dainty had to be recovered once more. The third attempt, however, proved a charm, for that time he found a little pocket just to his liking. To make very sure he did not eat the seed, I did not take my eye from him for a single moment. The fact is, during the entire time spent in watching the birds, I did not see them eat a single seed. The titmice flew farther into the woods with their winter “goodies,” where the foliage was so dense, while the birds were so quick in movement, that it was impossible to see just where they hid their store; but they returned too soon for a new supply to allow time for eating the seeds.

One autumn I spent a week in a part of Kentucky where beechnuts were very plentiful, and saw the hairy and red-headed woodpeckers putting away their hoard of “mast” for the winter, industrious husbandmen that they were. A farmer said that he had often seen the woodpeckers carrying these nuts to a hole in a tree and dropping them into it. He once found such a winter store that must have contained fully a quart of beechnuts. In my own neighborhood the hairy woodpecker often hides tidbits in gullies of the bark, after the manner of the nuthatch. The crested tit also stows corn and various kinds of seeds in some safe niche for a time of exigency. Several times in the winter, when the ground was covered with snow, I have surprised this bird eating a corn grain in the very depth of the woods, a considerable distance from the neighboring cornfields.

One winter day a nuthatch picked three grains of corn in succession from the fissures of an oak, and greedily devoured them. On another occasion one of these nuthatches was seen diving into a hole on the under side of a limb. Presently he emerged with a nut of some kind in his bill, and flew away, remaining just about long enough to eat it, when he returned for another. This he repeated until his dinner was finished.

No doubt, when cold and stormy weather comes, these birds have many a luscious mouthful because of their forehandedness, and no doubt they enjoy their well-kept stores as much as the farmer and his family relish their dish of mellow apples around the glowing hearth on a winter evening. It is no fancy flight, but a literal truth, that many a niche and cleft is made to do duty as larder for the feathered and furred tenants of the woods.

With the birds that migrate, autumn is the season for gathering in large convocations, holding “windy congresses in trees,” as Lowell aptly puts it. The aerial movements of some of these feathered armies are often worthy of observation. Memory lingers fondly about a day in autumn when two friends and myself were clambering up the side of a steep hill or ridge that bounded a green hollow on the south. We had gone half-way to the top when we turned to admire the panorama spread out picturesquely before us. Our exclamations of pleasure at the scene were soon interrupted by a shadow hurtling across the hollow, and on looking up, we saw a vast army of crow blackbirds sweeping overhead, moving about fifty abreast. How long the column was I cannot say, but it extended over the hollow from hilltop to hilltop and some distance beyond in both directions. The odd feature about the ebon army’s evolutions was this: The vanguard had gone on far beyond the ravine, and was pushing over the opposite ridge, when there was a peculiar swaying movement near the centre directly above the hollow; then that part of the column dropped gracefully downward toward the trees below them; at the same moment those in the van swung lightly around to the right and returned, while the rear part of the column advanced rapidly, and then all swept grandly down into the tops of the tall trees in the ravine. It was a splendid military pageant, and might well start several queries in the interrogative mind. Where was the commander-in-chief of that sable army? Was he near the centre of the column? If so, why should he station himself there instead of at the head? Again, how could the message to return be sent so speedily to the vanguard? Do birds employ some occult method of telegraphy? But these are questions more easily asked than answered; for no one, so far as I know, has yet given special attention to the military tactics of the armies in feathers.