Mr. Chickadee taking Observations.
With the approach of winter the innumerable fat and saucy robins that have hunted angleworms and strutted about the lawns of the park since early spring disappear, except for an occasional hardy fellow who perhaps prefers the dangers of a northern winter to those of the long journey southward. The wood- and the hermit-thrush; the veery, or Wilson’s thrush; the yellow warbler, so abundant and so musical; the perky little redstart, whose song of “Sweet, sweet, sweeter” closely resembles the yellow warbler’s; the somber-colored blackbirds; the Baltimore and the orchard oriole; the scarlet tanager; the catbird; Phœbe; Jenny Wren; the tiny chipping sparrow; the vireos; and many other familiar warm-weather friends have also journeyed southward.
The bare trees and the ground brown with fallen leaves have to some a bleak and dreary look, but this is because a wrong impression has gone abroad concerning them. Nature in winter is not dead, not even sleeping; she is all the time storing up energy to enable her to greet the returning sun in her very best dress. If you will look carefully at the bare limbs and branches of the trees and bushes, you will see the little buds that are slowly but surely swelling up with the pride of young, active, vigorous life, only waiting, with the great patience of Nature, for the proper and suitable time to break away from their winter retirement and take up their part in the new year.
Getting Acquainted.
Some of the pleasantest days I have ever known in the open have been spent in the winter woods, when the snow was on the ground and everything seemed still and unfamiliar. Every little sound is accented on a cold day, and the creaking of a swaying limb or the note of a bird comes to you with almost startling distinctness. Somehow you feel on such days that you are more a part of the things about you than in the full flush of summer. It is like meeting people stripped of all the artificial distinctions of clothes and position.
There is something fine in the way the trees stand up in winter; no one can fail to understand what is meant by the “sturdy oak.” They seem to feel pretty much as you do, and show a spirit of vigorous resistance and power to enjoy and cope with the worst that Jack Frost can bring, and the bright sun sends the sap tingling through their limbs just as it does the blood through yours. One day especially that I remember in Central Park brought me a somewhat novel experience, and gave me the privilege of transferring some old bird acquaintance to the list of my bird friends. It was after a fall of snow, and the air was crisp and sharp, indeed it was nipping, and standing still was a chilly occupation. From long familiarity I knew just about where to go to find certain birds, and I was not disappointed in my hunt. My overcoat pocket, it is needless to say, was fully stocked with peanuts and a box of bird seed, and demands were very soon made upon the peanut supply by the fat and friendly gray squirrels that come bravely up to your hand to be fed. They have a most attractive and appealing way of approaching you. The more timid ones stop often to sit up inquiringly, and put one hand on their heart, as if to stop its excited beating.
The Silent Winter Woods.