The cedars are treasure-houses in winter, and many birds find shelter among the thick foliage, and feast upon the plentiful supply of berries, when elsewhere there seems little that could keep a bird’s life in its body. When the tinkling of breaking icicles is taken up by the wind and re-echoed from the tops of the cedars, you may know that a flock of purple finches is near, and so greedy and busy are they that you may approach within a few feet. These birds are unfortunately named, as there is nothing purple about their plumage. The males are a delicate rose-red, while the females look like commonplace sparrows, streaked all over with black and brown.
There are other winter birds, whose home is in the North, with a similar type of coloration. Among the pines you may see a flock of birds, as large as a sparrow, with strange-looking beaks. The tips of the two mandibles are long, curved, and pointed, crossing each other at their ends. This looks like a deformity, but is in reality a splendid cone-opener and seed-extracter. These birds are the crossbills.
Even in the cold of a February day, we may, on very rare occasions, be fortunate enough to hear unexpected sounds, such as the rattle of a belted kingfisher, or the croak of a night heron; for these birds linger until every bit of pond or lake is sealed with ice; and when a thaw comes, a lonely bat may surprise us with a short flight through the frosty air, before it returns to its winter’s trance.
Of course, in the vicinity of our towns and cities, the most noticeable birds at this season of the year (as indeed at all seasons) are the English sparrows and (at least near New York City) the starlings, those two foreigners which have wrought such havoc among our native birds. Their mingled flocks fly up, not only from garbage piles and gutters, but from the thickets and fields which should be filled with our sweet-voiced American birds. It is no small matter for man heedlessly to interfere with Nature. What may be a harmless, or even useful, bird in its native land may prove a terrible scourge when introduced where there are no enemies to keep it in check. Nature is doing her best to even matters by letting albinism run riot among the sparrows, and best of all by teaching sparrow hawks to nest under our eaves and thus be on equal terms with their sparrow prey. The starlings are turning out to be worse than the sparrows. Already they are invading the haunts of our grackles and redwings.
On some cold day, when the sun is shining, visit all the orchards of which you know, and see if in one or more you cannot find a good-sized, gray, black, and white bird, which keeps to the topmost branch of a certain tree. Look at him carefully through your glasses, and if his beak is hooked, like that of a hawk, you may know that you are watching a northern shrike, or butcher bird. His manner is that of a hawk, and his appearance causes instant panic among small birds. If you watch long enough you may see him pursue and kill a goldfinch, or sparrow, and devour it. These birds are not even distantly related to the hawks, but have added a hawk’s characteristics and appetite to the insect diet of their nearest relations. If ever shrikes will learn to confine their attacks to English sparrows, we should offer them every encouragement.
All winter long the ebony forms of crows vibrate back and forth across the cold sky. If we watch them when very high up, we sometimes see them sail a short distance, and without fail, a second later, the clear “Caw! caw!” comes down to us, the sound-waves unable to keep pace with those of light, as the thunder of the storm lags behind the flash. These sturdy birds seem able to stand any severity of the weather, but, like Achilles, they have one vulnerable point, the eyes,—which, during the long winter nights, must be kept deep buried among the warm feathers.
FISH LIFE
We have all looked down through the clear water of brook or pond and watched the gracefully poised trout or pickerel; but have we ever tried to imagine what the life of one of these aquatic beings is really like? “Water Babies” perhaps gives us the best idea of existence below the water, but if we spend one day each month for a year in trying to imagine ourselves in the place of the fish, we will see that a fish-eye view of life holds much of interest.