Taken in Douglas County. Photo by the Author.
A STOUTLY-WOVEN BASKET.
The nests are stoutly-woven baskets of reeds and grasses, light and dry and handsome. No mud or other matrix material is used in construction, and the interior is always carefully lined with fine dry grass. The illimitable bulrushes are the favorite cover, but rank herbage of any sort is used if only it be near or over water. The most humble situations suffice; and the nest is often placed within a foot of the water, or its equivalent of black ooze.
No. 22.
WESTERN MEADOWLARK.
A. O. U. No. 501.1. Sturnella neglecta Audubon.
Synonyms.—Field Lark. Old-field Lark. Medlark. Medlar (poetical). Mudlark (corruption).
Description.—Adult male: General color of upperparts brownish black modified by much tawny and buffy-gray edgings of the feathers which throw the black into stripes and bars with suggestion of herring-bone pattern; the tawny heaviest on secondaries and upper tail-feathers where taking the form of partial bands, a median crown stripe and posterior portion of superciliary sordid white or buffy; anterior portion of superciliary, cheeks, chin, upper throat, breast (broadly) and middle belly rich lemon yellow (inclining to orange in older specimens); a large black crescent on upper breast; sides and flanks black-streaked and spotted with pale brown on a buffy or whitish ground. Bill variegated, tawny, black and white. Female: Like male but smaller and paler with some substitutions of brown for black in streaking; black of jugulum veiled by grayish tips of feathers; yellow of breast duller, etc. The plumage of both sexes is duller in fall and winter, the normal colors being restrained by buffy overlay. Length of adult male: 10.00-11.00 (254-279.4); wing 4.85 (123.2); tail 3.00 (76.2); bill 1.30 (33); tarsus 1.46 (37.1). Female smaller.
Recognition Marks.—Robin size; yellow breast with black collar distinctive; general streaky appearance above; yellow cheeks as distinguished from the Eastern Meadowlark (Sturnella magna).
Nesting.—Nest: on the ground in thick grass or weeds; a slight depression lined (carefully or not) and usually overarched with dried grasses. Eggs: 4-6, white, speckled and spotted, sometimes very sparingly, with cinnamon brown or purplish; very variable in shape, elliptical ovate to almost round. Av. size, 1.12 × .80 (28.5 × 20.3). Season: April and June; two broods. Tacoma, April 5, 1906, 4 fresh eggs.
General Range.—Western United States, southwestern British Provinces, and northwestern Mexico, east to prairie districts of Mississippi Valley, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, etc., occasionally to Illinois and Michigan; breeding thruout its range.
Range in Washington.—Abundant east and west of the Cascades; largely resident on the West-side, partially on the East-side; numbers augmented from the south during last week in February.
Authorities.—[Lewis and Clark, Hist. Ex. (1814), Ed. Biddle: Coues. Vol II. p. 186.] Sturnella neglecta Aud., Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX. 1858, 539. T. C&S. L². Rh. D¹. Sr. Ra. D². Ss¹. Ss². Kk. B. E.
Specimens.—(U. of W.) Prov. B. E. BN. P¹.
Summer silences the birds so gradually and we ourselves have become so much absorbed in business during the prosy days of September that we have almost forgotten the choruses of springtime and have come to accept our uncheered lot as part of the established order of things. But on a nippy October morning, as we are bending over some dull task, there comes a sound which brings us to our feet. We hasten to the window, throw up the sash and lean out into the cool, fresh air while a Meadowlark rehearses, all at a sitting, the melodies of the year’s youth. It all comes back to us with a rush; the smell of lush grasses, the splendor of apple blossoms, the courage of lengthening days, the ecstacies of courtship—all these are recalled by the lark-song. It is as tho this forethoughted soul had caught the music of a May day, just at its prime, in a crystal vase, and was now pouring out the imprisoned sound in a gurgling, golden flood. What cheer! What heartening! Yea; what rejuvenation it brings! Wine of youth! Splashes of color and gay delight!
It is impossible not to rhapsodize over the Meadowlark. He is a rhapsodist himself. Born of the soil and lost in its embraces for such time as it pleases him, he yet quits his lowly station ever and again, mounts some fence-post or tree-top, and publishes to the world an unquenchable gladness in things-as-they-are. If at sunrise, then the gleams of the early ray flash resplendent from his golden breastplate,—this high-priest of morning; and all Nature echoes his joyous blast: “Thank God for sunshine!” Or if the rain begins to fall, who so quickly grateful for its refreshment as this optimist of the ground, this prophet of good cheer! There is even an added note of exultation in his voice as he shouts: “Thank God for rain!” And who like him can sing farewell to parting day! Piercing sweet from the meadows come the last offerings of day’s daysmen, peal and counterpeal from rival friendly throats, unfailing, unfaltering, unsubdued: “It is good to live. It is good to rest. Thank God for the day now done!”
The Meadowlark of the East has a poet’s soul but he lacks an adequate instrument of expression. His voice does not respond to his requirement. Perhaps his early education, as a species, was neglected. Certain it is that in passing westward across the prairies of Iowa or Minnesota one notices an instant change in the voices of the Meadowlarks. The song of the western bird is sweeter, clearer, louder, longer and more varied. The difference is so striking that we can explain it only upon the supposition of an independent development. The western bird got his early training where prairie wild flowers of a thousand hues ministered to his senses, where breath of pine mingled faintly with the aroma of neighboring cactus bloom, and where the sight of distant mountains fired the imagination of a poet race. At any rate we of the West are proud of the Western Meadowlark and would have you believe that such a blithe spirit could evolve only under such circumstances.
Bird song never exactly conforms to our musical notation, and there is no instrument save the human “whistle” which will even passably reproduce the quality of the Meadowlark’s song. Nevertheless, many interesting experiments have been made in recording these songs and a little attention will convince the least accomplished musician that there is a fascinating field for study here.
A formal song of the Western Meadowlark comprises from four to a dozen notes, usually six or seven. The song phrases vary endlessly in detail, yet certain types are clearly distinguishable, types which reappear in different parts of the country, apparently without regard to local traditions or suppositional schools of song. Thus a Chelan singer says, “Oku wheel′er, ku wheel′er”, and he may not have a rival in a hundred miles; yet another bird on the University campus in Seattle sings, Eh heu, wheel′iky, wheel′iky, or even Eh heu wheel′iky, wheel′iky, wheel′iky, and you recognize it instantly as belonging to the same type. In like manner Owy′hee, rec′itative was heard with perfect distinctness both at Wallula and in Okanogan County.
Each bird has a characteristic song-phrase by which he may be recognized and traced thru a season, or thru succeeding years. One boisterous spirit in Chelan I shall never forget for he insisted on shouting, hour after hour, and day after day, “Hip! Hip! Hurrah! boys; three cheers!” Yet, while this is true, no bird is confined to one style of song. An autumnal soloist in Ravenna Park rendered no less than six distinct songs or song-phrases in a rehearsal lasting five minutes. He gave them without regard to sequence, now repeating the same phrase several times in succession, now hurrying on to new forms, pausing only after each utterance for breath.