A Bird-Lover in the West

by Olive Thorne Miller

However the student may miss the birds he knows at home, he must rejoice in the absence of one,—the English sparrow. When one sees the charming purple finch and summer yellow-bird, nesting and singing in the streets of Denver, and the bewitching Arkansas goldfinch and the beautiful Western bluebird perfectly at home in Colorado Springs, he is reminded of what might be in the Eastern cities, if only the human race had not interfered with Nature's distribution of her feathered families. In Utah, indeed, we meet again the foreigner, for in that unfortunate Territory the man, wise in his own conceit, was found to introduce him, and Salt Lake, the city of their pride and glory, is as completely infested by the feathered tramp as New York itself. Happy is Colorado that great deserts form her borders, and that chains of mountains separate her from her neighbors; for, since the sparrow is as fond of the city as Dr. Johnson, it may be hoped that neither he, nor his children, nor his grandchildren, will ever cross the barriers.

In Utah, as everywhere, the English sparrows are sharp-witted rogues, and they have discovered and taken possession of the most comfortable place for bird quarters to be found, for protection from the terrible heat of summer, and the wind and snow of winter; it is between the roof and the stone or adobe walls of the houses. Wherever the inequalities of the stones or the shrinkage of the wood has left an opening, and made penetration possible, there an English sparrow has established a permanent abode.

The first bird I noticed in the quiet Mormon village where I settled myself to study was a little beauty in blue. I knew him instantly, for I had met him before in Colorado. He was dining luxuriously on the feathery seeds of a dandelion when I discovered him, and at no great distance was his olive-clad mate, similarly engaged. They were conversing cheerfully in low tones, and in a few minutes I suppose he called her attention to the superior quality of his dandelion; for she came to his side, and he at once flew to a neighboring bush and burst into song. It was a pretty little ditty, or rather a musical rattle on one note, resembling the song of the indigo bird, his near relative.

The lazuli-painted finch should be called the blue-headed finch, for the exquisite blueness of his whole head, including throat, breast, and shoulders, as if he had been dipped so far into blue dye, is his distinguishing feature. The bluebird wears heaven's color; so does the jay, and likewise the indigo bird; but not one can boast the lovely and indescribable shade, with its silvery reflections, that adorns the lazuli. Across the breast, under the blue, is a broad band of chestnut, like the breast color of our bluebird, and back of that is white, while the wings and tail are dark. Altogether, he is charming to look upon. Who would not prefer him about the yard to the squawking house sparrow, or even the squabbling chippy?

My catching the pair at dinner was not an accident; I soon found out that they lived there, and had settled upon a row of tall raspberry bushes that separated the garden from the lawn for their summer home. Madam was already at work collecting her building materials, and very soon the fragile walls of her pretty nest were formed in an upright crotch of the raspberries, about a foot below the top.

Naturally, I was greatly interested in the fairy house building, and often inspected the work while the little dame was out of sight. One day, however, as I was about to part the branches to look in, I heard an anxious "phit," and glanced up to see the owner alight on the lowest limb of a peach-tree near by. Of course I turned away at once, pretending that I was just passing, and had no suspicion of her precious secret in the raspberries, and hoping that she would not mind. But she did mind, very seriously; she continued to stand on that branch with an aggrieved air, as if life were no longer worth living, now that her home was perhaps discovered. Without uttering a sound or moving a muscle, so far as I could see, she remained for half an hour before she accepted my taking a distant seat and turning my attention to dragonflies as an apology, and ventured to visit her nest again. After that I made very sure that she was engaged elsewhere before I paid my daily call.

The dragonflies, by the way, were well worth looking at; indeed, they divided my interest with the birds. So many and such variety I never noticed elsewhere, and they acted exactly like fly-catching birds, staying an hour at a time on one perch, from which every now and then they sallied out, sweeping the air and returning to the perch they had left. Sometimes I saw four or five of them at once, resting on different dead twigs in the yard the other side of the lawn, and I have even seen one knock a fellow-dragonfly off a favorite perch and take it himself.

They were very beautiful, too: some with wings of transparent white or light amber barred off by wide patches of rich dark brown or black; others, again, smaller, and all over blue as the lazuli's head; and a third of brilliant silver, which sparkled as it flew, as if covered with spangles. One alighted there with wings which seemed to be covered with a close and intricate design in the most brilliant gold thread. I went almost near enough to put my hand on him, and I never saw a more gorgeous creature; beside his beautiful wings his back was of old gold, coming down in scallops over the black and dark blue under part.

In due time four lovely blue eggs filled the nest of the lazuli, and about the middle of June madam began to sit, and I had to be more careful than ever in timing my visits.

Some birds approach their nest in a loitering, aimless sort of way, as if they had no particular business, in that quarter, and, if they see any cause for alarm, depart with an indifferent air that reveals nothing of their secret. Not thus the ingenuous lazuli. She showed her anxiety every moment; coming in the most businesslike way, and proclaiming her errand to the most careless observer, till I thought every boy on the street would know where her eggs were to be found. She had a very pretty way of going to the nest; indeed, all her manners were winning. She always alighted on the peach-tree branch, looked about on all sides, especially at me in my seat on the piazza, flirted her tail, uttered an anxious "phit," and then jumped off the limb and dived under the bushes near the ground. It is to be presumed that she ascended to her nest behind the leaves by hopping from twig to twig, though this I could never manage to see.