Twenty years ago the wild pigeons were quite plentiful in the fall of the year in this part of our State, but each fall they came in decreasing numbers, and for the last four or five years I have not seen a single bird.
There is no sweeter songster than the shy hermit thrush, and I am much pleased in believing that his numbers are increasing. In former years they were not often heard; now, as our spring afternoons decline into twilight, his charming notes come to us from almost every suitable point.
For the first eight or ten years of my residence in Au Sable Forks I did not see a turtle dove, and now I see them nearly every summer.
Our American eagle is occasionally seen in the Adirondacks, and some years ago a large female golden eagle was caught in a steel trap near my home and came into my possession, where she occupied a slatted hencoop, and whenever curiosity led a hen to poke her bill through the slats her head was taken off very quickly. I was afraid that if I kept the eagle I would turn vivisectionist or become too cruel for a hunter, so I presented her to the Zoölogical Gardens in Central Park.
In birds of prey the female is the larger and finer bird, while the reverse is true with other birds; but there is a striking exception in the noble woodcock. No bird is held in higher appreciation by the sportsman, and a female woodcock in full plumage is as rich in coloring and as beautiful in marking as any bird I know. He lies well for the dog, is rare sport for the gunner, and has no equal for the palate. He nests in our alder thickets or on wet marshy ground, and around my home it is the work of a man to get him. He is nocturnal in his habits, feeding at night and pushing his long, slender bill into the soft ground, leaving holes that to the casual eye look like worm holes, but which are easily recognized by one familiar with his habits.
Cow blackbirds are common to this locality during the summers, and they are found in our pastures with the cattle. I have never found their eggs in the nests of other birds, but they are Mormonistic in their habits, one often having as many as a dozen wives, and I have known the crow blackbird to have more than one mate.
Some years ago an article went the rounds of the newspapers telling of a man catching a flock of crows by soaking corn in alcohol and leaving it for the crows to eat, and when they became drunk he caught them. I tried bread crumbs soaked in whisky on English sparrows, but they would not eat them, and I finally got a crow, and though I kept him until he was very hungry I could not get him to eat corn soaked in whisky, and he found no difficulty in picking up every unsoaked kernel and leaving the others. You may draw your own moral, but I am satisfied that the crow will not eat food saturated with alcohol. He is either too uncivilized or too intelligent.
Orioles and other birds sometimes give us much annoyance by eating the green peas from our gardens, and, except in the case of English sparrows, we do not like to shoot them. I once killed a hawk and roughly stuffed it with straw, putting it on a pole near my pea vine, where the birds collected in numbers to scold and peck at it, but they were afraid to touch the peas, and finally left mine for those of my neighbors across the street.
The Acadian owl is a pretty, cunning-looking little bird, not much larger than a robin. He is the smallest of our owls and quite tame, and is not often seen around my home. Some two years ago, while hunting with my brother we saw one of these little birds on the limb of a tree not far from the ground, and we concluded to try and snare him. We cut a long pole and made a slip noose with a shoe string, and while my brother kept the owl’s attention by standing in front of him I slipped the noose over his head from behind. When we had the owl we wanted to tie him, and since we could not spare the shoe string for that purpose, my brother decided to tie him with his watch chain. He snapped the catch around one leg, and while trying to fasten the other leg the owl made a flutter and got loose, and the last we saw of him he was sailing over the tops of the trees with the watch chain hanging to his leg.
I have always taken an interest in birds because I have loved them, but it does not follow that I know much about them. Some one said that the more we know men the less we love them, but that man was an old cynic and doubtless told an untruth. Certain it is that the more we know our native birds the more we love them, and it is one of the encouraging signs of the day that it has become fashionable for young people to take an increasing interest in the birds and wild flowers of their own country, and a young person would hardly be considered accomplished to-day who is entirely ignorant of at least the common names of the flowers that bloom in our fields and woods and the birds that pour out their ecstatic music from our trees and hedges.