The unseeing class the Horned Larks among “brown birds” and miss the vaulting spirit beneath the modest mien. Yet our gentle Lark is of noble blood and ancient lineage. The Skylark, of peerless fame, is his own cousin; and, while he cannot hope to vie with the foreign bird in song, the same poet soul is in him. Whether in the pasture, upon the hillside, or in the desert, the coming of spring proclaims him laureate; and the chief vocal interest of nesting-time centers in the song-flight of the male Horned Lark.
The song itself is, perhaps, nothing remarkable, a little ditty or succession of sprightly syllables which have no considerable resonance or modulation, altho they quite defy vocalization; yet such are the circumstances attending its delivery that it is set down by everyone as “pleasing,” while for the initiated it possesses a charm which is quite unique. Twidge-widge, widgity, widgy-widge, conveys no idea of the tone-quality, indeed, but may serve to indicate the proportion and tempo of the common song; while Twidge, widgity, eelooy, eelooy, idgity, eelooy, eew, may serve the same purpose for the rare ecstasy song. The bird sometimes sings from a fence post, a sage bush, or even from a hummock on the ground, but usually the impulse of song takes him up into the free air. Here at almost any hour of the day he may be seen poising at various heights, like a miniature hawk, and sending down tender words of greeting and cheer to the little wife who broods below.
COLUMBIAN HORNED LARKS.
It is, however, at the sacred hour of sunset that the soul of the heavenly singer takes wing for its ethereal abode. The sun is just sinking; the faithful spouse has settled herself to her gentle task for the night; and the bird-man has lain down in the shadow of the fence to gaze at the sky. The bird gives himself to the buoyant influences of the trembling air and mounts aloft by easy gradations. As he rises he swings round in a wide, loose circle, singing softly the while. At the end of every little height he pauses and hovers and sends down the full voiced song. Up and up he goes, the song becoming tenderer, sweeter, more refined and subtly suggestive of all a bird may seek in the lofty blue. As he fades from the unaided sight I train my glasses on him and still witness the heavenward spirals. I lower the glasses. Ah! I have lost him now! Still there float down to us, the enraptured wife and me, those most ethereal strains, sublimated past all taint of earth, beatific, elysian. Ah! surely, we have lost him! He has gone to join the angels. “Chirriquita, on the nest, we have lost him.” “Never fear,” she answers; “Hark!” Stronger grows the dainty music once again. Stronger! Stronger! Dropping out of the boundless darkening blue, still by easy flights, a song for every step of Jacob’s ladder, our messenger is coming down. But the ladder does not rest on earth. When about two hundred feet high the singer suddenly folds his wings and drops like a plummet to the ground. Within the last dozen feet he checks himself and lights gracefully near his nest. The bird-man steals softly away to dream of love and God, and to waken on the morrow of earth, refreshed.
The Columbian Horned Lark enjoys a wide distribution thruout eastern Washington during the nesting season, the only requirement of the bird being open country. The convenience of water is no object, and the bird favors the undifferentiated wastes of sage, rather than the cultivated fields. Elevated situations are especially attractive, and thousands of these Horned Larks nest along barren, wind-swept ridges and on the smaller mountains where no other species can be found.
No. 89.
PACIFIC HORNED LARK.
A. O. U. No. 474 g. Otocoris alpestris strigata Henshaw.
Synonym.—Streaked Horned Lark.
Description.—Similar to O. alpestris but darker and much smaller, above streaked broadly with black and tinged with buffy; nape, rump and bend of wing more rufescent; underparts usually more or less suffused with yellowish. Adult female more strongly and handsomely marked than that of any other form. Length of adult male (skins) 5.98 (52); wing 3.85 (98); tail 2.59 (65.8); bill .44 (11.3); tarsus .82 (20.8).
Recognition Marks.—As in preceding; smaller, darker and more yellow than other local forms.
Nesting.—Nest and eggs as in preceding. Season: second week in May, second week in June; two broods.
General Range.—Breeding in Pacific Coast district of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia; “migrating to eastern Oregon and Washington, and northern California (Red Bluff; San Francisco)” (Ridgway).
Range in Washington.—Found breeding only on prairies west of Cascades, therefore chiefly confined to Pierce, Thurston and Chehalis Counties; said to winter on East-side.
Migrations.—Spring: last week in February; Tacoma, February 25, 1905, February 10, 1908.
Authorities.—Eremophila cornuta Boie, Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., IX. 1858, 404, 405. (T). C&S. L¹. Ra. B.
Specimens.—(U. of W.) Prov. B.
The prairies of Pierce, Thurston, and Chehalis Counties, so often referred to in these pages, are of comparatively recent formation—mere gravel beds leveled off by the action of a retreating sea—and so thoroly washed thru portions of their area as to be capable of supporting little else than a carpet of moss. The wanton recklessness of the Pacific Horned Larks, which inhabit these open stretches, is really but one degree removed from the modesty of their more fortunate kinfolk across the Cascades. It is modesty without opportunity; and that easily becomes shamelessness. For here the ground is of an uncompromising green, and the “cover,” afforded by slight depressions in the moss, is usually unworthy of the name.
The perfection of green barrenness was attained in the golf-links of South Tacoma, before they were surrendered to the demands of the growing city. Yet this was the very place where the Horned Larks appeared to the best advantage. Returning, as they did, about the 25th of February, in good seasons, they disported themselves like mad Pixies for a month or so, engaging in amorous pursuit and frequent song-flight; until in some way, late in April, domestic order began to emerge from the chaos of rival claims, and little homes dotted the prairie, where belted squires and red-jacketed ladies pursued the twinkling gutta-percha. The conflict of interests, avian and human, was sometimes disastrous to the birds. Mr. Bowles records three instances in which Larks were killed by flying golf balls; and another gentleman, himself a devotee of the game, tells me he once saw a bird struck dead in mid-air.