Our Bird Comrades

by Leander S. Keyser

Falling a little behind the thrashers in vocal power and technical execution were the catbirds, which sent up their cavatinas from the bushes in the hollow. Their voices lacked the volume and strength of their rivals, yet some of their strains were truly the quintessence of sweetness.

Conspicuous members of the early chorus were the wood thrushes, a dozen or more of which were often singing at the same time. From every part of the woods their peals arose. Of course, there was no attempt—at least, so far as I could discover—to sing in concert, but each minstrel followed his own sweet will, and so the combined result was not what you would call a harmony, but a medley, albeit a very pleasing one. If the wood thrush's execution were less labored, he would certainly be a marvelous songster, and even as it is, he furnishes unending delight to those whose ears are trained to appreciate avian minstrelsy.

Two or three rose-breasted grossbeaks piped their liquid, childlike arias; towhees, at least a half-dozen of them, flung forth their loud, explosive trills that have a real musical quality; several cardinals whistled as if they meant to drown out all the other voices; scarlet and summer tanagers drawled their good-natured tunes, while their rich robes gleamed in the level rays of the rising sun; running like silver threads through all the other music, could be heard the fine trills of the field sparrows; the swinging chant of the creeping warblers and the loud rattle of the Tennessee warblers ran high up in the scale, furnishing a gossamer tenor; that golden optimist, the Baltimore oriole, piped his cheery recitative in the tops of the trees; chickadees supplied the minor strains and tufted titmice the alto; four or five turtle doves soothed the ear with their meditative cooing; while the calls and songs of numerous jays and a few yellow-breasted chats made a kind of trombone accompaniment. Surely it is worth one's while to hie early to the haunts of the birds to hear such a tumult of song.

One spring I made up my mind to make a closer study than ever of the dainty creeping warbler, wishing to know just how he contrives to scuttle up and down the boles and branches of the trees with so much ease and grace. He is the only warbler we have in eastern North America that makes a habit of scaling the tree trunks and descending them head downward. How does he do this? The muscles of his legs and pelvis are as elastic as India rubber, so that he can twist and twirl about in a marvelous way, pointing his head one moment to the east and the next, without losing his hold, in the opposite direction. He is able to swing himself around almost as if he were hung on a pivot.

But how does he hold himself on his shaggy wall as he hitches head downward? Just as the nuthatch does—not by keeping both feet directly under him, as most people suppose, but by thrusting one foot slightly forward and the other outward and backward, thus preserving his balance at the same time that he holds himself firmly with his sharp little claws to his upright wall. Some of the pictures of the creeper seen in the books are not quite true to creeper methods of clinging and locomotion, for they represent him as stuck to the bark of a tree trunk with both feet invisible, presumably held directly under his striped breast. In the real position it is likely that one or both feet could be seen, the one thrust forward and the other flung back and to one side. At least one foot would be visible, whatever the angle at which the bird would be inspected, and from many points of view both of his tiny feet may be plainly seen in the position described.

Our little striped friend, usually called in the books the black-and-white warbler, is not, after all, so expert a creeper as is the nuthatch, which may be called the arboreal skater par excellence. The warbler does not go scuttling straight down a vertical bole or branch as the nuthatch does, but swings his lithe body from side to side, as if he did not loosen the hold of both feet simultaneously but alternately. Besides, both in ascending and descending he must have more frequent recourse to his wings to tide him over the difficult places. While the nuthatch can glide over the smoothest and hardest bark, and even descend the wall of a brick house, his sharp claws taking a firm grip on the edges of the bricks, the warbler is not quite so much of a gymnast, for when he strikes a difficult spot in his promenade ground, he flies or flits over it to the next protuberance which his claws can hold. He has a decided advantage, however, over all his warbler kin, for he is not only gifted with the creeping talent, but is also just as dexterous as they in perching on a horizontal twig.

The little bird known as the brown creeper belongs to a different avicular family entirely, but in one respect he is like the black-and-white warbler—that is, he scales the trunks and branches of the trees. There, however, the resemblance ceases, for the creeper rarely goes head downward, evidently thinking that the proper position for a bird's head is pointing toward the sky, not toward the ground. Besides, he seldom, if ever, sits crosswise on a perch; no, he is an inveterate creeper. My study of him proves that he does not hold his feet directly under his breast, but spreads them out well toward either side, knowing instinctively how to make a broad enough base to enable him to preserve his center of gravity.

Like the woodpecker, he uses his stiff tail as a brace; nor does he go zigzagging up his wall after the manner of the creeping warbler, but hitches along in a direct line—unless, of course, a tidbit attracts him to one side—proving that he is a true creeper, one to the manner born. However, the warbler has one advantage—he is able to perch with perfect security on a twig, an accomplishment that has not yet been attained by his little brown cousin. How cunningly the creeper peeps into the crannies of the bark as he plies his trade, thrusts his long, curved beak into the tiny holes and crevices, and draws out a worm or a grub, which the next moment goes twinkling down his throat! His economic value to the farmer and the fruit grower cannot be estimated, and he should never be destroyed.

The conduct of different birds is not alike upon their arrival from the South at their summer nesting haunts in our more northern latitudes; some heralding their advent with jubilant song as if in greeting to the familiar scenes, while others are silent and wary. The first I knew of the Baltimore and orchard orioles last spring, they were singing blithely in the trees about the house; but the brown thrashers flitted about slyly and silently for a few days, apparently to make sure that the coast was clear of danger; having done which, they burst into their dithyrambs with a will. Out in the woodland the gorgeous scarlet tanager announced his arrival one morning with a lively sonnet, which was heard long before the singer was seen; whereas his cousin, the summer tanager, uttered only his quaint alarm-call, "Chip-burn, chip-burn," and was excessively shy, dashing wildly away as I approached, unwilling to vouchsafe a wisp of song. Once he even pounced angrily upon his black-winged relative and drove him to the other side of the hollow, precisely as if he meant to say, "Your singing is out of place, sir, and dangerous, too! Don't you know that the man prowling about yonder will shoot little birds who betray their presence by singing?"