Look also among the Olive-brown Birds, especially
for the Cuckoos, Alice's and the Olive-backed
Thrushes; and look in the yellow group, many
of whose birds are olive also. See also females
of the Red Crossbill, Orchard Oriole, Scarlet
Tanager, Summer Tanager.
TREE SWALLOW
(Tachycineta bicolor) Swallow family
|
Called also: WHITE-BELLIED SWALLOW
Length -- 5 to 6 inches. A little shorter
than the English sparrow, but apparently
much larger because of its wide wing spread.
Male -- Lustrous dark steel-green above;
darker and shading into black on wings and
tail, which is forked. Under parts soft white.
Female -- Duller than male. Range -- North
America, from Hudson Bay to Panama. Migrations
-- End of March. September or later. Summer
resident.
"The stork in the heaven knoweth her
appointed times: and the turtle and the crane
and the swallow observe the time of their
coming." -- Jeremiah, viii. 7.
The earliest of the family to appear in the
spring, the tree swallow comes skimming over
the freshly ploughed fields with a wide sweep
of the wings, in what appears to be a perfect
ecstasy of flight. More shy of the haunts
of man, and less gregarious than its cousins,
it is usually to be seen during migration
flying low over the marshes, ponds, and streams
with a few chosen friends, keeping up an
incessant warbling twitter while performing
their bewildering and tireless evolutions
as they catch their food on the wing. Their
white breasts flash in the sunlight, and
it is only when they dart near you, and skim
close along the surface of the water, that
you discover their backs to be not black,
but rich, dark green, glossy to iridescence.
It is probable that these birds keep near
the waterways because their favorite insects
and wax-berries are more plentiful in such
places: but this peculiarity has led many
people to the absurd belief that the tree
swallow buries itself under the mud of ponds
in winter in a state of hibernation. No bird's
breathing apparatus is made to operate under
mud.
In unsettled districts these swallows nest
in hollow trees, hence their name; but with
that laziness that forms a part of the degeneracy
of civilization, they now gladly accept the
boxes about men's homes set up for the martins.
Thousands of these beautiful birds have been
shot on the Long Island marshes and sold
to New York epicures for snipe. |
RUBY-THROATED HUMMING-BIRD
(Trochilus colubris) Humming-bird Family
|
[Called also RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD, AOU
1998]
Length -- 3.5 to 3.75 inches. A trifle over
half as long as the English sparrow. The
smallest bird we have. Male -- Bright metallic
green above; wings and tail darkest, with
ruddy-purplish reflections and dusky-white
tips on outer tail quills. Throat and breast
brilliant metallic -- red in one light, orange
flame in another, and dusky orange in another,
according as the light strikes the plumage.
Sides greenish; underneath lightest gray,
with whitish border outlining the brilliant
breast. Bill long and needle-like. Female
-- Without the brilliant feathers on throat;
darker gray beneath. Outer tail-quills are
banded with black and tipped with white.
Range -- Eastern North America, from northern
Canada to the Gulf Of Mexico in summer. Winters
in Central America. Migrations -- May. October.
Common summer resident.
This smallest, most exquisite and unabashed
of our bird neighbors cannot be mistaken,
for it is the only one of its kin found east
of the plains and north of Florida, although
about four hundred species, native only to
the New World, have been named by scientists.
How does it happen that this little tropical
jewel alone flashes about our Northern gardens?
Does it never stir the spirit of adventure
and emulation in the glistening breasts of
its stay-at-home cousins in the tropics by
tales of luxuriant tangles of honeysuckle
and clematis on our cottage porches; of deep-cupped
trumpet-flowers climbing over the walls of
old-fashioned gardens, where larkspur, narcissus,
roses, and phlox, that crowd the box-edged
beds, are more gay and honey-laden than their
little brains can picture? Apparently it
takes only the wish to be in a place to transport
one of these little fairies either from the
honeysuckle trellis to the canna bed or from
Yucatan to the Hudson. It is easy to see
how to will and to fly are allied in the
minds of the humming-birds, as they are in
the Latin tongue. One minute poised in midair,
apparently motionless before a flower while
draining the nectar from its deep cup --
though the humming of its wings tells that
it is suspended there by no magic -- the
next instant it has flashed out of sight
as if a fairy's wand had made it suddenly
invisible. Without seeing the hummer, it
might be, and often is, mistaken for a bee
improving the "shining hour."
At evening one often hears of a "humming-bird"
going the rounds of the garden, but at this
hour it is usually the sphinx-moth hovering
above the flower-beds -- the one other creature
besides the bee for which the bird is ever
mistaken. The postures and preferences of
this beautiful large moth make the mistake
a very natural one.
The ruby-throat is strangely fearless and
unabashed. It will dart among the vines on
the veranda while the entire household are
assembled there, and add its hum to that
of the conversation in a most delightfully
neighborly way. Once a glistening little
sprite, quite undaunted by the size of an
audience that sat almost breathless enjoying
his beauty, thrust his bill into one calyx
after another on a long sprig of honeysuckle
held in the hand.
And yet, with all its friendliness -- or
is it simply fearlessness? -- the bird is
a desperate duellist, and will lunge his
deadly blade into the jewelled breast of
an enemy at the slightest provocation and
quicker than thought. All the heat of his
glowing throat seems to be transferred to
his head while the fight continues, sometimes
even to the death -- a cruel, but marvellously
beautiful sight as the glistening birds dart
and tumble about beyond the range of peace-makers.
High up in a tree, preferably one whose knots
and lichen-covered excrescences are calculated
to help conceal the nest that so cleverly
imitates them, the mother humming-bird saddles
her exquisite cradle to a horizontal limb.
She lines it with plant down, fluffy bits
from cat-tails, and the fronds of fern, felting
the material into a circle that an elm-leaf
amply roofs over. Outside, lichens or bits
of bark blend the nest so harmoniously with
its surroundings that one may look long and
thoroughly before discovering it. Two infinitesimal,
white eggs tax the nest accommodation to
its utmost.
In the mating season the female may be seen
perching -- a posture one rarely catches
her gay lover in -- preening her dainty but
sombre feathers with ladylike nicety. The
young birds do a great deal of perching before
they gain the marvellously rapid wing-motions
of maturity, but they are ready to fly within
three weeks after they are hatched. By the
time the trumpet-vine is in bloom they dart
and sip and utter a shrill little squeak
among the flowers, in company with the old
birds.
During the nest-building and incubation the
male bird keeps so aggressively on the defensive
that he often betrays to a hitherto unsuspecting
intruder the location of his home. After
the young birds have to be fed he is most
diligent in collecting food, that consists
not alone of the sweet juices of flowers,
as is popularly supposed, but also of aphides
and plant-lice that his proboscis-like tongue
licks off the garden foliage literally like
a streak of lightning.
Both parents feed the young by regurgitation
-- a process disgusting to the human observer,
whose stomach involuntarily revolts at the
sight so welcome to the tiny, squeaking,
hungry birds. |
RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET
(Regulus calendula) Kinglet family
|
Called also: RUBY-CROWNED WREN; RUBY-CROWNED
WARBLER
Length -- 4.25 to 4.5 inches. About two inches
smaller than the English sparrow. Male --
Upper parts grayish olive-green, brighter
nearer the tail; wings and tail dusky, edged
with yellowish olive. Two whitish wing-bars.
Breast and underneath light yellowish gray.
In the adult male a vermilion spot on crown
of his ash-gray head. Female -- Similar,
but without the vermilion crest. Range --
North America. Breeds from northern United
States northward. Winters from southern limits
of its breeding range to Central America
and Mexico. Migrations -- October. April.
Rarely a winter resident at the North. Most
common during its migrations.
A trifle larger than the golden-crowned kinglet,
with a vermilion crest instead of a yellow
and flame one, and with a decided preference
for a warmer winter climate, and the ruby-crown's
chief distinguishing characteristics are
told. These rather confusing relatives would
be less puzzling if it were the habit of
either to keep quiet long enough to focus
the opera-glasses on their crowns, which
it only rarely is while some particularly
promising haunt of insects that lurk beneath
the rough bark of the evergreens has to be
thoroughly explored. At all other times both
kinglets keep up an incessant fluttering
and twinkling among the twigs and leaves
at the ends of the branches, jerking their
tiny bodies from twig to twig in the shrubbery,
hanging head downward, like a nuthatch, and
most industriously feeding every second upon
the tiny insects and larvae hidden beneath
the bark and leaves. They seem to be the
feathered expression of perpetual motion.
And how dainty and charming these tiny sprites
are! They are not at all shy; you may approach
them quite close if you will, for the birds
are simply too intent on their business to
be concerned with yours.
If a sharp lookout be kept for these ruby-crowned
migrants, that too often slip away to the
south before we know they have come, we notice
that they appear about a fortnight ahead
of the golden-crested species, since the
mild, soft air of our Indian summer is exactly
to their liking. At this season there is
nothing in the bird's "thin, metallic
call-note, like a vibrating wire," to
indicate that he is one of our finest songsters.
But listen for him during the spring migration,
when a love-song is already ripening in his
tiny throat. What a volume of rich, lyrical
melody pours from the Norway spruce, where
the little musician is simply practising
to perfect the richer, fuller song that he
sings to his nesting mate in the far north!
The volume is really tremendous, coming from
so tiny a throat. Those who have heard it
in northern Canada describe it as a flute-like
and mellow warble full of intricate phrases
past the imitating. Dr. Coues says of it:
"The kinglet's exquisite vocalization
defies description."
Curiously enough, the nest of this bird,
that is not at all rare, has been discovered
only six times. It would appear to be over
large for the tiny bird, until we remember
that kinglets are wont to have a numerous
progeny in their pensile, globular home.
It is made of light, flimsy material -- moss,
strips of bark, and plant fibre well knit
together and closely lined with feathers,
which must be a grateful addition to the
babies, where they are reared in evergreens
in cold, northern woods. |
GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET
(Regulus satrapa) Kinglet family
|
Called also: GOLDEN-CROWNED GOLDCREST; FIERY
CROWNED WREN.
Length -- 4 to 4.25 inches. About two inches
smaller than the English sparrow. Male --
Upper parts grayish olive-green; wings and
tail dusky, margined with olive-green. Underneath
soiled whitish. Centre of crown bright orange,
bordered by yellow and en. closed by black
line. Cheeks gray; a whitish line over the
eye. Female -- Similar, but centre of crown
lemon-yellow and more grayish underneath.
Range -- North America generally. Breeds
from northern United States northward. Winters
chiefly from North Carolina to Central America,
but many remain north all the year. Migrations
-- September. April. Chiefly a winter resident
south Of Canada.
If this cheery little winter neighbor would
keep quiet long enough, we might have a glimpse
of the golden crest that distinguishes him
from his equally lively cousin, the ruby-crowned;
but he is so constantly flitting about the
ends of the twigs, peering at the bark for
hidden insects, twinkling his wings and fluttering
among the evergreens with more nervous restlessness
than a vireo, that you may know him well
before you have a glimpse of his tri-colored
crown.
When the autumn foliage is all aglow with
yellow and flame this tiny sprite comes out
of the north where neither nesting nor moulting
could rob him of his cheerful spirits. Except
the humming-bird and the winter wren, he
is the smallest bird we have. And yet, somewhere
stored up in his diminutive body, is warmth
enough to withstand zero weather. With evident
enjoyment of the cold, he calls out a shrill,
wiry zee, zee, zee, that rings merrily from
the pines and spruces when our fingers are
too numb to hold the opera glasses in an
attempt to follow his restless fittings from
branch to branch. Is it one of the unwritten
laws of birds that the smaller their bodies
the greater their activity?
When you see one kinglet about, you may be
sure there are others not far away, for,
except in the nesting season, its habits
are distinctly social, its friendliness extending
to the humdrum brown creeper, the chickadees,
and the nuthatches, in whose company it is
often seen; indeed, it is likely to be in
almost any flock of the winter birds. They
are a merry band as they go exploring the
trees together. The kinglet can hang upside
down, too, like the other acrobats, many
of whose tricks he has learned; and it can
pick off insects from a tree with as business-like
an air as the brown creeper, but with none
of that soulless bird's plodding precision.
In the early spring, just before this busy
little sprite leaves us to nest in Canada
or Labrador -- for heat is the one thing
that he can't cheerfully endure -- a gushing,
lyrical song bursts from his tiny throat
-- a song whose volume is so out of proportion
to the bird's size that Nuttall's classification
of kinglets with wrens doesn't seem far wrong
after all. Only rarely is a nest found so
far south as the White Mountains. It is said
to be extraordinarily large for so small
a bird but that need not surprise us when
we learn that as many as ten creamy-white
eggs, blotched with brown and lavender, are
no uncommon number for the pensile cradle
to hold. How do the tiny parents contrive
to cover so many eggs and to feed such a
nestful of fledglings? |
SOLITARY VIREO
(Vireo solitarius) Vireo or Greenlet family
|
Called also: BLUE-HEADED VIREO [AOU 1998]
Length -- 5.5 to 7 inches. A little smaller
than the English sparrow. Male -- Dusky olive
above; head bluish gray, with a white line
around the eye, spreading behind the eye
into a patch. Beneath whitish, with yellow-green
wash on the sides. Wings dusky olive, with
two distinct white bars. Tail dusky, some
quills edged with white. Female -- Similar,
but her head is dusky olive. Range -- United
States to plains, and the southern British
provinces. Winters in Florida and southward.
Migrations -- May. Early October. Common
during migrations; more rarely a summer resident
south of Massachusetts.
By no means the recluse that its name would
imply, the solitary vireo, while a bird of
the woods, shows a charming curiosity about
the stranger with opera-glasses in hand,
who has penetrated to the deep, swampy tangles,
where it chooses to live. Peering at you
through the green undergrowth with an eye
that seems especially conspicuous because
of its encircling white rim, it is at least
as sociable and cheerful as any member of
its family, and Mr. Bradford Torrey credits
it with "winning tameness." "Wood-bird
as it is," he says, "it will sometimes
permit the greatest familiarities. Two birds
I have seen, which allowed themselves to
be stroked in the freest manner, while sitting
on the eggs, and which ate from my hand as
readily as any pet canary."
The solitary vireo also builds a pensile
nest, swung from the crotch of a branch,
not so high from the ground as the yellow-throated
vireos nor so exquisitely finished, but still
a beautiful little structure of pine-needles,
plant-fibre, dry leaves, and twigs, all lichen-lined
and bound and rebound with coarse spiders'
webs.
The distinguishing quality of this vireo's
celebrated song is its tenderness: a pure,
serene uplifting of its loving, trustful
nature that seems inspired by a fine spirituality. |
RED-EYED VIREO
(Vireo olivaceus) Vireo or Greenlet family
|
Called also: THE PREACHER
Length -- 5.75 to 6.25 inches. A fraction
smaller than the English sparrow. Male and
Female -- Upper parts light olive-green;
well-defined slaty-gray cap, with black marginal
line, below which, and forming an exaggerated
eyebrow, is a line of white. A brownish band
runs from base of bill through the eye. The
iris is ruby-red. Underneath white, shaded
with light greenish yellow on sides and on
under tail and wing coverts. Range -- United
States to Rockies and northward. Wnters in
Central and South America. Migrations --
April. October. Common summer resident.
"You see it -- you know it -- do you
hear me? Do you believe it?" is Wilson
Flagg's famous interpretation of the song
of this commonest of all the vireos, that
you cannot mistake with such a key. He calls
the bird the preacher from its declamatory
style; an up-and-down warble delivered with
a rising inflection at the close and followed
by an impressive silence, as if the little
green orator were saying, "I pause for
a reply."
Notwithstanding its quiet coloring, that
so closely resembles the leaves it hunts
among, this vireo is rather more noticeable
than its relatives because of its slaty cap
and the black-and-white lines over its ruby
eye, that, in addition to the song, are its
marked characteristics.
Whether she is excessively stupid or excessively
kind, the mother-vireo has certainly won
for herself no end of ridicule by allowing
the cowbird to deposit a stray egg in the
exquisitely made, pensile nest, where her
own tiny white eggs are lying and though
the young cowbird crowd and worry her little
fledglings and eat their dinner as fast as
she can bring it in, no displeasure or grudging
is shown towards the dusky intruder that
is sure to upset the rightful heirs out of
the nest before they are able to fly.
In the heat of a midsummer noon, when nearly
every other bird's voice is hushed, and only
the locust seems to rejoice in the fierce
sunshine, the little red-eyed vireo goes
persistently about its business of gathering
insects from the leaves, not flitting nervously
about like a warbler, or taking its food
on the wing like a flycatcher, but patiently
and industriously dining where it can, and
singing as it goes.
When a worm is caught it is first shaken
against a branch to kill it before it is
swallowed. Vireos haunt shrubbery and trees
with heavy foliage, all their hunting, singing,
resting, and home-building being done among
the leaves -- never on the ground. |
WHITE-EYED VIREO
(Vireo noveboracensis) Vireo or Greenlet
family
|
Male -- 5 to 5.3 inches. An inch shorter
than the English sparrow. Male and Female
-- Upper parts bright olive-green, washed
with grayish. Throat and underneath white;
the breast and sides greenish yellow; wings
have two distinct bars of yellowish white.
Yellow line from beak to and around the eye,
which has a white iris. Feathers of wings
and tail brownish and edged with yellow.
Range -- United States to the Rockies, and
to the Gulf regions And beyond in winter.
Migrations -- May. September. Summer resident.
"Pertest of songsters," the white-eyed
vireo makes whatever neighborhood it enters
lively at once. Taking up a residence in
the tangled shrubbery or thickety undergrowth,
it immediately begins to scold like a crotchety
old wren. It becomes irritated over the merest
trifles -- a passing bumblebee, a visit from
another bird to its tangle, an unsuccessful
peck at a gnat -- anything seems calculated
to rouse its wrath and set every feather
on its little body a-trembling, while it
sharply snaps out what might perhaps be freely
constructed into "cuss-words."
And yet the inscrutable mystery is that this
virago meekly permits the lazy cowbird to
deposit an egg in its nest, and will patiently
sit upon it, though it is as large as three
of her own tiny eggs; and when the little
interloper comes out from his shell the mother-bird
will continue to give it the most devoted
care long after it has shoved her poor little
starved babies out of the nest to meet an
untimely death in the smilax thicket below.
An unusual variety of expression distinguishes
this bird's voice from the songs of the other
vireos, which are apt to be monotonous, as
they are incessant. If you are so fortunate
to approach the white-eyed vireo before he
suspects your presence, you may hear him
amusing himself by jumbling together snatches
of the songs of the other birds in a sort
of potpourri; or perhaps he will be scolding
or arguing with an imaginary foe, then dropping
his voice and talking confidentially to himself.
Suddenly he bursts into a charming, simple
little song, as if the introspection had
given him reason for real joy. All these
vocal accomplishments suggest the chat at
once; but the minute your intrusion is discovered
the sharp scolding, that is fairly screamed
at you from an enraged little throat, leaves
no possible shadow of a doubt as to the bird
you have disturbed. It has the most emphatic
call and song to be heard in the woods; it
snaps its words off very short. "Chick-a-rer
chick" is its usual call-note, jerked
out with great spitefulness.
Wilson thus describes the jealously guarded
nest: "This bird builds a very neat
little nest, often in the figure of an inverted
cone; it is suspended by the upper end of
the two sides, on the circular bend of a
prickly vine, a species of smilax, that generally
grows in low thickets. Outwardly it is constructed
of various light materials, bits of rotten
wood, fibres of dry stalks, of weeds, pieces
of paper (commonly newspapers, an article
almost always found about its nest, so that
some of my friends have given it the name
of the politician); all these materials are
interwoven with the silk of the caterpillars,
and the inside is lined with fine, dry grass
and hair." |
WARBLING VIREO
(Vireo gilvus) Vireo or Greenlet family
|
Length -- 5.5 to 6 inches. A little smaller
than the English sparrow. Male and Female
-- Ashy olive-green above, with head and
neck ash-colored. Dusky line over the eye.
Underneath whitish, faintly washed with dull
yellow, deepest on sides; no bars on wings.
Range -- North America, from Hudson Bay to
Mexico. Migrations -- May. Late September
or early October. Summer resident.
This musical little bird shows a curious
preference for rows of trees in the village
street or by the roadside, where he can be
sure of an audience to listen to his rich,
continuous warble. There is a mellowness
about his voice, which rises loud, but not
altogether cheerfully, above the bird chorus,
as if he were a gifted but slightly disgruntled
contralto. Too inconspicuously dressed, and
usually too high in the tree-top to be identified
without opera-glasses, we may easily mistake
him by his voice for one of the warbler family,
which is very closely allied to the vireos.
Indeed, this warbling vireo seems to be the
connecting link between them.
Morning and afternoon, but almost never in
the evening, we may hear him rippling out
song after song as he feeds on insects and
berries about the garden. But this familiarity
lasts only until nesting time, for off he
goes with his little mate to some unfrequented
lane near a wood until their family is reared,
when, with a perceptibly happier strain in
his voice, he once more haunts our garden
and row of elms before taking the southern
journey. |
OVENBIRD
(Seiurus aurocapillus) Wood Warbler family
|
Called also: GOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSH; THE TEACHER;
WOOD WAGTAIL; GOLDEN-CROWNED WAGTAIL; GOLDEN-CROWNED
ACCENTOR
Length -- 6 to 6.15 inches. Just a shade
smaller than the English sparrow. Male and
Female -- Upper parts olive, with an orange-brown
crown, bordered by black lines that converge
toward the bill. Under parts white; breast
spotted and streaked on the sides. White
eye-ring. Range -- United States, to Pacific
slope. Migrations -- May. October. Common
summer resident.
Early in May you may have the good fortune
to see this little bird of the woods strutting
in and out of the garden shrubbery with a
certain mock dignity, like a child wearing
its father's boots. Few birds can walk without
appearing more or less ridiculous, and however
gracefully and prettily it steps, this amusing
little wagtail is no exception. When seen
at all -- which is not often, for it is shy
-- it is usually on the ground, not far from
the shrubbery or a woodland thicket, under
which it will quickly dodge out of sight
at the merest suspicion of a footstep. To
most people the bird is only a voice calling,
"TEACHER TEACHER. TEACHER, TEACHER,
TEACHER!" as Mr. Burroughs has interpreted
the notes that go off in pairs like a series
of little explosions, softly at first, then
louder and louder and more shrill until the
bird that you at first thought far away seems
to be shrieking his penetrating crescendo
into your very ears. But you may look until
you are tired before you find him in the
high, dry wood, never near water.
In the driest parts of the wood, here the
ground is thickly carpeted with dead leaves,
you may some day notice a little bunch of
them, that look as if a plant, in pushing
its way up through the ground, had raised
the leaves, rootlets, and twigs a trifle.
Examine the spot more carefully, and on one
side you find an opening, and within the
ball of earth, softly lined with grass, lie
four or five cream-white, speckled eggs.
It is only by a happy accident that this
nest of the ovenbird is discovered. The concealment
could not be better. It is this peculiarity
of nest construction -- in shape like a Dutch
oven -- that has given the bird what DeKay
considers its "trivial name." Not
far from the nest the parent birds scratch
about in the leaves like diminutive barnyard
fowls, for the grubs and insects hiding under
them. But at the first suspicion of an intruder
their alarm becomes pitiful. Panic-stricken,
they become fairly limp with fear, and drooping
her wings and tail, the mother-bird drags
herself hither and thither over the ground.
As utterly bewildered as his mate, the male
darts, flies, and tumbles about through the
low branches, jerking and wagging his tail
in nervous spasms until you have beaten a
double-quick retreat.
In nesting time, at evening, a very few have
heard the "luxurious nuptial song"
of the ovenbird; but it is a song to haunt
the memory forever afterward. Burroughs appears
to be the first writer to record this "rare
bit of bird melody." "Mounting
by easy flight to the top of the tallest
tree," says the author of "Wake-Robin,"
"the ovenbird launches into the air
with a sort of suspended, hovering flight,
like certain of the finches, and bursts into
a perfect ecstasy of song -- clear, ringing,
copious, rivalling the goldfinch's in vivacity
and the linnet's in melody." |
WORM-EATING WARBLER
(Helmintherus vermivorus) Wood Warbler family
|
Length -- 5.50 inches. Less than an inch
shorter than the English sparrow. Male and
Female -- Greenish olive above. Head yellowish
brown, With two black stripes through crown
to the nape; also black Lines from the eyes
to neck. Under parts buffy and white. Range
-- Eastern parts of United States. Nests
as far north as southern Illinois and southern
Connecticut. Winters in the Gulf States and
southward. Migrations -- May. September.
Summer resident.
In the Delaware Valley and along the same
parallel, this inconspicuous warbler is abundant,
but north of New Jersey it is rare enough
to give an excitement to the day on which
you discover it. No doubt it is commoner
than we suppose, for its coloring blends
so admirably with its habitats that it is
probably very often overlooked. Its call-note,
a common chirp, has nothing distinguishing
about it, and all ornithologists confess
to having been often misled by its song into
thinking it came from the chipping sparrow.
It closely resembles that of the pine warbler
also. If it were as nervously active as most
warblers, we should more often discover it,
but it is quite as deliberate as a vireo,
and in the painstaking way in which it often
circles around a tree while searching for
spiders and other insects that infest the
trunks, it reminds us of the brown creeper.
Sunny slopes and hillsides covered with thick
undergrowth are its preferred foraging and
nesting haunts. It is often seen hopping
directly on the dry ground, where it places
its nest, and it never mounts far above it.
The well-drained, sunny situation for the
home is chosen with the wisdom of a sanitary
expert. |
ACADIAN FLYCATCHER
(Empidonax virescens) Flycatcher family
|
Called also: SMALL GREEN-CRESTED FLYCATCHER;
SMALL PEWEE
Length -- 5.75 to 6 inches. A trifle smaller
than the English sparrow. Male -- Dull olive
above. Two conspicuous yellowish wing-bars.
Throat white, shading into pale yellow on
breast. Light gray or white underneath. Upper
part of bill black; lower mandible flesh-color.
White eye-ring. Female -- Greener above and
more yellow below. Range -- From Canada to
Mexico, Central America, and West Indies.
Most common in south temperate latitudes.
Winters in southerly limit of range. Migrations
-- April. September. Summer resident.
When all our northern landscape takes on
the exquisite, soft green, gray, and yellow
tints of early spring, this little flycatcher,
in perfect color-harmony with the woods it
darts among, comes out of the south. It might
be a leaf that is being blown about, touched
by the sunshine filtering through the trees,
and partly shaded by the young foliage casting
its first shadows.
Woodlands, through which small streams meander
lazily, inviting swarms of insects to their
boggy shores, make ideal hunting grounds
for the Acadian flycatcher. It chooses a
low rather than a high, conspicuous perch,
that other members of its family invariably
select; and from such a lookout it may be
seen launching into the air after the passing
gnat -- darting downward, then suddenly mounting
upward in its aerial hunt, the vigorous clicks
of the beak as it closes over its tiny victims
testifying to the bird's unerring aim and
its hearty appetite.
While perching, a constant tail-twitching
is kept up; and a faint, fretful "Tshee-kee,
tshee-kee" escapes the bird when inactively
waiting for a dinner to heave in sight.
In the Middle Atlantic States its peeping
sound and the clicking of its particolored
bill are infrequently heard in the village
streets in the autumn, when the shy and solitary
birds are enticed from the deep woods by
a prospect of a more plentiful diet of insects,
attracted by the fruit in orchards and gardens.
Never far from the ground, on two or more
parallel branches, the shallow, unsubstantial
nest is laid. Some one has cleverly described
it as "a tuft of hay caught by the limb
from a load driven under it," but this
description omits all mention of the quantities
of blossoms that must be gathered to line
the cradle for the tiny, cream white eggs
spotted with brown. |
YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER
(Empidonax flaviventris) Flycatcher family
|
Length -- 5 to 5.6 inches. About an inch
smaller than the English sparrow. Male --
Rather dark, but true olive-green above.
Throat and breast yellowish olive, shading
into pale yellow underneath, including wing
linings and under tail coverts. Wings have
yellowish bars. Whitish ring around eye.
Upper part of bill black, under part whitish
or flesh-colored. Female -- Smaller, with
brighter yellow under parts and more decidedly
yellow wing-bars. Range -- North America,
from Labrador to Panama, and westward from
the Atlantic to the plains. Winters in Central
America. Migrations -- May. September. Summer
resident. More commonly a migrant only.
This is the most yellow of the small flycatchers
and the only Eastern species with a yellow
instead of a white throat. Without hearing
its call-note, "pse-ek-pse-ek,"
which it abruptly sneezes rather than utters,
it is quite impossible, as it darts among
the trees, to tell it from the Acadian flycatcher,
with which even Audubon confounded it. Both
these little birds choose the same sort of
retreats -- well-timbered woods near a stream
that attracts myriads of insects to its spongy
shores -- and both are rather shy and solitary.
The yellow-bellied species has a far more
northerly range, however, than its Southern
relative or even the small green-crested
flycatcher. It is rare in the Middle States,
not common even in New England, except in
the migrations, but from the Canada border
northward its soft, plaintive whistle, which
is its love-song, may be heard in every forest
where it nests. All the flycatchers seem
to make a noise with so much struggle, such
convulsive jerkings of head and tail, and
flutterings of the wings that, considering
the scanty success of their musical attempts,
it is surprising they try to lift their voices
at all when the effort almost literally lifts
them off their feet.
While this little flycatcher is no less erratic
than its Acadian cousin, its nest is never
slovenly. One couple had their home in a
wild-grape bower in Pennsylvania; a Virginia
creeper in New Jersey supported another cradle
that was fully twenty feet above the ground;
but in Labrador, where the bird has its chosen
breeding grounds, the bulky nest is said
to be invariably placed either in the moss
by the brookside or in some old stump, should
the locality be too swampy. |
BLACK-THROATED GREEN WARBLER
(Dendroica virens) Wood Warbler family
|
Length -- 5 inches. Over an inch smaller
than the English sparrow. Male -- Back and
crown of head bright yellowish olive-green.
Forehead, band over eye, cheeks, and sides
of neck rich yellow. Throat, upper breast,
and stripe along sides black. Underneath
yellowish white. Wings and tail brownish
olive, the former with two white bars, the
latter with much white in outer quills. In
autumn, plumage resembling the female's.
Female -- Similar; chin yellowish; throat
and breast dusky, the black being mixed with
yellowish. Range -- Eastern North America,
from Hudson Bay to Central America and Mexico.
Nests north of Illinois and New York. Winters
in tropics. Migrations -- May. October. Common
summer resident north of New Jersey.
There can be little difficulty in naming
a bird so brilliantly and distinctly marked
as this green, gold, and black warbler, that
lifts up a few pure, sweet, tender notes,
loud enough to attract attention when he
visits the garden. "See-see, see-saw,"
he sings, but there is a tone of anxiety
betrayed in the simple, sylvan strain that
always seems as if the bird needed reassuring,
possibly due to the rising inflection, like
an interrogative, of the last notes.
However abundant about our homes during the
migrations, this warbler, true to the family
instinct, retreats to the woods to nest --
not always so far away as Canada, the nesting
ground of most warblers, for in many Northern
States the bird is commonly found throughout
the summer. Doubtless it prefers tall evergreen
trees for its mossy, grassy nest; but it
is not always particular, so that the tree
be a tall one with a convenient fork in an
upper branch.
Early in September increased numbers emerge
from the woods, the plumage of the male being
less brilliant than when we saw it last,
as if the family cares of the summer had
proved too taxing. For nearly a month longer
they hunt incessantly, with much flitting
about the leaves and twigs at the ends of
branches in the shrubbery and evergreens,
for the tiny insects that the warblers must
devour by the million during their all too
brief visit. |
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