Part 10

No doubt John Vance Cheney had in mind another species when he composed the following metrical description, but it aptly characterized the volatile broad-tail as well:

"Voyager on golden air, Type of all that's fleet and fair, Incarnate gem, Live diadem, Bird-beam of the summer day,-- Whither on your sunny way?

* * * * *

Stay, forget lost Paradise, Star-bird fallen from happy skies."

After that first meeting the broad-tailed hummers were frequently seen in my rambles among the Rockies. In some places there were small colonies of them. They did not always dwell together in harmony, but often pursued one another like tiny furies, with a loud z-z-z-zip that meant defiance and war. The swiftness of their movements often excited my wonder, and it was difficult to see how they kept from impaling themselves on thorns or snags, so reckless were their lightning-like passages through the bushes and trees. When four or five of them were found in one place, they would fairly thread the air with green and purple as they described their circles and loops and festoons with a rapidity that fairly made my head whirl. At one place several of them grew very bold, dashing at me or wheeling around my head, coming so close that I could hear the susurrus of their wings as well as the sharp, challenging buzz from their throats.

Perhaps it would interest you to know where the rambler found these tiny hummers. They were never in the dark cañons and gorges, nor in the ravines that were heavily wooded with pine, but in the open, sunshiny glades and valleys, where there were green grass and bright flowers. In the upper part of both North and South Cheyenne Cañons they were plentiful, although they avoided the most scenic parts of these wonderful mountain gorges. Another place where they found a pleasant summer home was in a green pocket of the mountain above Red Cliff, a village on the western side of the great range. On descending the mountains to the town of Glenwood, I did not find them, and therefore am disposed to think that in the breeding season they do not choose to dwell in too low or too high an altitude, but seek suitable places at an elevation of from seven thousand to nine thousand feet.

SUMMIT OF PIKE'S PEAK

Only a small portion of the peak is shown in the view. The comparatively level area referred to in the text lies back of the signal station on the crest. At a garbage heap near the building a flock of leucostictes were seen, and the writer was told that they came there regularly to feed. From this sublime height the American pipits rise on resilient wings hundreds of feet into the air until they disappear in the cerulean depths of the sky, singing all the while at "heaven's gate."

One day, while staying at Buena Vista, Colorado, I hired a saddle-horse and rode to Cottonwood Lake, twelve miles away, among the rugged mountains. The valley is wide enough here to admit of a good deal of sunshine, and therefore flowers studded the ground in places. It was here I saw the only female broad-tailed hummer that was met with in my rambles in the Rockies. She was flitting among the flowers, and did not make the buzzing sound that the males produce wherever found. She was not clad so elegantly as were her masculine relatives, for the throat-patch was white instead of purple, and the green on her back did not gleam so brightly. But, oddly enough, her sides and under tail-coverts were stained with a rufous tint--a color that does not appear at all in the costume of the male.

A curious habit of these hummers is worth describing. The males remain in the breeding haunts until the young are out of the nest and are beginning to be able to shift for themselves. Then the papas begin to disappear, and in about ten days all have gone, leaving the mothers and the youngsters to tarry about the summer home until the latter are strong enough to make the journey to some resort lower in the mountains or farther south. The reason the males do this is perhaps evident enough, for at a certain date the flowers upon whose sweets the birds largely subsist begin to grow scant, and so if they remained there would not be enough for all.

In the San Francisco Mountains of Arizona, Doctor Merriam found the broad-tails very abundant in the balsam timber and the upper part of the pine belt, where they breed in the latter part of July; after which they remain in that region until the middle of September, even though the weather often becomes quite frosty at night. At break of day, in spite of the cold, they will gather in large flocks at some spring to drink and bathe. Doctor Merriam says about them at such times:

"They were like swarms of bees, buzzing about one's head and darting to and fro in every direction. The air was full of them. They would drop down to the water, dip their feet and bellies, and rise and shoot away as if propelled by an unseen power. They would often dart at the face of an intruder as if bent on piercing the eye with their needle-like bills, and then poise for a moment almost within reach before turning, when they were again lost in the busy throng. Whether this act was prompted by curiosity or resentment I was not able to ascertain."

As has already been said, there is not always unruffled peace in the hummer family. Among the Rocky Mountains, and especially on the western side of the range, there dwells another little hummer called the rufous humming-bird, because the prevailing color of his plumage is reddish, and between this family and the broad-tails there exists a bitter feud. When, in the migrating season, a large number of both species gather together in a locality where there is a cluster of wild-flowers, the picture they make as they dart to and fro and bicker and fight for some choice blossom, their metallic colors flashing in the sun, is so brilliant as never to be forgotten by the spectator who is fortunate enough to witness it.

OVER THE DIVIDE AND BACK

One June day a Denver & Rio Grande train bore the bird-lover from Colorado Springs to Pueblo, thence westward to the mountains, up the Grand Cañon of the Arkansas River, through the Royal Gorge, past the smiling, sunshiny upper mountain valleys, over the Divide at Tennessee Pass, and then down the western slopes to the next stopping-place, which was Red Cliff, a village nestling in a deep mountain ravine at the junction of Eagle River and Turkey Creek. The following day, a little after "peep o' dawn," I was out on the street, and was impressed by a song coming from the trees on the acclivity above the village. "Surely that is a new song," I said to myself; "and yet it seems to have a familiar air." A few minutes of hard climbing brought me near enough to get my glass on the little lyrist, and then I found it was only the house-wren! "How could you be led astray by so familiar a song?" you inquire. Well, that is the humiliating part of the incident, for I have been listening to the house-wren's gurgling sonata for some twenty years--rather more than less--and should have recognized it at once; only it must be remembered that I was in a strange place, and had my ears and eyes set for avian rarities, and therefore blundered.

On this incident I quote a personal note from my friend, Mr. Aiken: "The wren of the Rockies is the western house-wren, but is the same form as that found in the Mississippi Valley. It is quite possible that a difference in song may occur, but I have not noticed any."

"On the rugged face of a cliff"]

To my surprise, I found many birds on those steep mountain sides, which were quite well timbered. Above the village a colony of cliff-swallows had a nesting place on the rugged face of a cliff, and were soaring about catching insects and attending to the wants of their greedy young.

Besides the species named, I here found warbling vireos, broad-tailed humming-birds, western nighthawks, ruby-crowned kinglets, magpies, summer warblers, mountain chickadees, western wood-pewees, Louisiana tanagers, long-crested jays, kingfishers, gray-headed juncos, red-shafted flickers, pygmy nuthatches, house-finches, mountain jays, and Clarke's nutcrackers. The only species noted here that had not previously been seen east of the Divide was the pygmy nuthatch, a little bird which scales the trunks and branches of trees like all his family, but which is restricted to the Rocky Mountains. Like the white-breasted nuthatch, he utters an alto call, "Yang! yang! yang!" only it is soft and low--a miniature edition of the call of its eastern relative.

A mountain chickadee's nest was also found, and here I heard for the first time one of these birds sing. Its performance was quite an affecting little minor whistle, usually composed of four distinct notes, though sometimes the vocalist contented himself with a song of two or three syllables. The ordinary run might be represented phonetically in this way, "Phee, ph-e-e-e, phe-phe," with the chief emphasis on the second syllable, which is considerably prolonged. The song is quite different from that of the black-capped chickadee both in the intoning and the technical arrangement, while it does not run so high in the scale, nor does it impress me as being quite so much of a minor strain, if such a distinction can be made in music. Both birds' tunes, however, have the character of being whistled.

Glenwood is a charming summer resort in Colorado on the western side of the Rocky Mountain range, and can be reached by both the Denver & Rio Grande and the Colorado Midland Railways. Beautifully situated in an open mountain valley, it possesses many attractions in the way of natural scenery, while the cool breezes blow down from the snow-mantled ranges gleaming in the distance, and the medicinal springs draw many tourists in search of health and recuperation.

My purpose, however, in visiting this idyllic spot--I went there from Red Cliff--was not primarily to view the scenery, nor to make use of the healing waters, but to gratify my thirst for bird-lore. Having spent some weeks in observing the avi-fauna east of the range, I had a curiosity to know something of bird life west of the great chain of alpine heights, and therefore I selected Glenwood as a fertile field in which to carry on some investigations. While my stay at this resort was all too short, it was of sufficient length to put me in possession of a number of facts that may prove to be of general interest.

For one thing I learned, somewhat to my surprise, that the avian fauna on both sides of the Divide is much the same. Indeed, with one exception--to be noted more at length hereafter--I found no birds on the western side that I had not previously seen on the eastern side, although a longer and minuter examination would undoubtedly have resulted in the discovery of a few species that are peculiar to the regions beyond the range. In the extreme western and southwestern portions of Colorado there are quite a number of species that are seldom or never seen in the eastern part of the State. However, keeping to the mountainous districts, and given the same altitude and other conditions, you will be likely to find the same kinds of feathered folk on both sides of the range. A few concrete cases will make this statement clear. The elevation of Glenwood is five thousand seven hundred and fifty-eight feet; that of Colorado Springs, five thousand nine hundred and ninety-two feet; and the climatic conditions otherwise are practically the same. Hence at both places the following species were found: Lazuli buntings, Arkansas goldfinches, American goldfinches, western wood-pewees, Arkansas kingbirds, Bullock's orioles, grassfinches, and catbirds. At the same time there were a number of species in both localities that have a more extensive vertical range, as, for example, the western robins, which were seen in many places from the bases of the mountains up to the timber-line, over eleven thousand five hundred feet above sea-level.

ROYAL GORGE

In the Grand Cañon of the Arkansas River. In cañons like this, their walls rising almost vertically from one thousand to fifteen hundred feet, few birds are to be seen. Occasionally a dove will fly from one side of the gorge to the other before the scurrying train. From below a magpie or a Clark's crow may sometimes be seen flying overhead across the fearful chasm from one wall to the other, turning its head at intervals as if to inspect and question the spectator over a thousand feet below.

The presence of practically the same avian fauna on both sides of the great range suggests some speculations as to their movements in the migrating season. Do those on the western side of the mountains travel over the towering summits from the eastern plains? Or do they come up from their southern winter homes by way of the valleys and plains west of the range? Undoubtedly the latter is the correct surmise, for there were birds at Glenwood that are never known to ascend far into the mountains, and should they attempt to cross the Divide in the early spring, they would surely perish in the intense cold of those elevated regions, where snow often falls even in June, July, and August. One can easily imagine some of the eastern and western residents meeting in the autumn on the plains at the southern extremity of the mountain range, dwelling together in some southern locality throughout the winter, and then, when spring approaches, taking their separate routes, part going east and part west of the range, for their breeding haunts in the North. More than likely they do not meet again until the following autumn. There are individuals, doubtless, that never catch a glimpse of the western side of the great American watershed, while others are deprived of the privilege of looking upon the majestic panoramas of the eastern side.

What has just been said applies, of course, only to those species that prefer to dwell in the lower altitudes. There are other species that find habitats to their taste in the most elevated localities, ranging at will in the summer time over the bald summits in the regions of perpetual snow. Among these may be mentioned the brown-capped leucostictes, the American pipits, the ravens, and Brewer's blackbirds. These species will often have the privilege of looking upon the scenery on both sides of the range, and you and I can scarcely repress a feeling of envy when we think of their happy freedom, and their frequent opportunities to go sightseeing.

While taking an early morning stroll along one of the streets of Glenwood, I caught sight of a new member of the phoebe family, its reddish breast and sides differentiating it from the familiar phoebe of the East. Afterwards I identified it as Say's phoebe, a distinctly western species. Its habits are like those of its eastern relative. A pair of Say's phoebes had placed their nest on a beam of a veranda, near the roof, where they could be seen carrying food to their young. My notes say nothing of their singing a tune or even uttering a chirp. This was my first observation of Say's phoebe, although, as will be seen, I subsequently saw one under somewhat peculiar circumstances.