Part 11

Having spent all the time I could spare at Glenwood, one morning I boarded the eastward-bound train, and was soon whirling up through the sublime cañons of Grand and Eagle Rivers, keeping on the alert for such birds as I could see from the car-window. Few birds, as has been said, can be seen in the dark gorges of the mountains, the species that are most frequently descried being the turtle doves, with now and then a small flock of blackbirds. The open, sunlit valleys of the upper mountains, watered by the brawling streams, are much more to the liking of many birds, especially the mountain song-sparrows, the white-crowned sparrows, the green-tailed towhees, and Audubon's and Wilson's warblers. Up, up, for many miles the double-headed train crept, tooting and puffing hard, until at length it reached the highest point on the route, which is Tennessee Pass, through the tunnel of which it swept with a sullen roar, issuing into daylight on the eastern side, where the waters of the streams flow eastward instead of westward. The elevation of this tunnel is ten thousand four hundred and eighteen feet, which is still about a thousand feet below the timber-line. A minute after emerging from the tunnel's mouth I caught sight of a red-shafted flicker which went bolting across the narrow valley. The train swept down the valley for some miles, stopped long enough to have another engine coupled to the one that had brought us down from the tunnel, then wheeled to the left and began the ascent to the city of Leadville. This city is situated on a sloping plain on the mountain side, in full view of many bald mountain peaks whose gorges are filled with deep snow-drifts throughout the summer. For some purposes Leadville may be an exceedingly desirable city, but it has few attractions for the ornithologist. I took a long walk through a part of the city, and, whether you will believe it or not, I did not see a single bird outside of a cage, not even a house-finch or an English sparrow, nor did I see one tree in my entire stroll along the busy streets. The caged birds seen were a canary and a cardinal, and, oddly enough, both of them were singing, mayhap for very homesickness.

Why should a bird student tarry here? What was there to keep him in a birdless place like this? I decided to leave at once, and so, checking my baggage through to Buena Vista, I started afoot down the mountain side, determined to walk to Malta, a station five miles below, observing the birds along the way. Not a feathered lilter was seen until I had gone about a mile from Leadville, when a disconsolate robin appeared among some scraggy pine bushes, not uttering so much as a chirp by way of greeting.

A few minutes later I heard a vigorous and musical chirping in the pine bushes, and, turning aside, found a flock of small, finch-like birds. They flitted about so rapidly that it was impossible to get a good view of them with my glasses; but such glimpses as I obtained revealed a prevailing grayish, streaked with some darker color, while a glint of yellow in their wings and tails was displayed as the birds flew from bush to bush. When the wings were spread, a narrow bar of yellow or whitish-yellow seemed to stretch across them lengthwise, giving them a gauzy appearance. The birds remained together in a more or less compact flock. They uttered a loud, clear chirp that was almost musical, and also piped a quaint trill that was almost as low and harsh as that of the little clay-colored sparrow, although occasionally one would lift his voice to a much higher pitch. What were these tenants of the dry and piney mountain side? They were pine siskins, which I had ample opportunity to study in my rambles among the mountains in 1901.

A mile farther down, a lone mountain bluebird appeared in sight, perched on a gray stump on the gray hillside, and keeping as silent as if it were a crime in bluebird-land to utter a sound. This bird's breeding range extends from the plains to the timber-line; and he dwells on both sides of the mountains, for I met with him at Glenwood. About a half mile above Malta a western nighthawk was seen, hurtling in his eccentric, zigzag flight overhead, uttering his strident call, and "hawking for flies," as White of Selborne would phrase it. A western grassfinch flew over to some bushes with a morsel in its bill, but I could not discover its nest or young, search as I would. Afterwards it perched on a telegraph wire and poured out its evening voluntary, which was the precise duplicate of the trills of the grassfinches of eastern North America. There seems to be only a slight difference between the eastern and western forms of these birds, so slight, indeed, that they can be distinguished only by having the birds in hand.

Turtle doves were also plentiful in the valley above Malta, as they were in most suitable localities. Here were also several western robins, one of which saluted me with a cheerful carol, whose tone and syllabling were exactly like those of the merry redbreast of our Eastern States. I was delighted to find the sweet-voiced white-crowned sparrows tenants of this valley, although they were not so abundant here as they had been a little over a week before in the hollows below the summit of Pike's Peak. But what was the bird which was singing so blithely a short distance up the slope? He remained hidden until I drew near, when he ran off on the ground like a frightened doe, and was soon ensconced in a sage bush. Note his chestnut crest and greenish back. This is the green-tailed towhee. He is one of the finest vocalists of the Rocky Mountains, his tones being strong and well modulated, his execution almost perfect as to technique, and his entire song characterized by a quality that might be defined as human expressiveness.

A pair of western chipping sparrows were feeding their young in one of the sage bushes. I hoped to find a nest, but my quest simply proved that the bantlings had already left their nurseries. It was some satisfaction, however, to establish the fact at first hand that the western chipping sparrows breed at an elevation of nine thousand five hundred and eighty feet above sea-level.

While strolling about a short distance above the town, I discovered an underground passage leading to some of the factories, or perhaps the smelting works, a few miles farther up the valley. The over-arching ground and timbers forming the roof were broken through at various places, making convenient openings for the unwary pedestrian to tumble through should he venture to stroll about here by night. Suddenly a little broad-shouldered bird appeared from some mysterious quarter, and flitted silently about from bush to bush or from one tussock of grass to another. To my surprise, he presently dropped into one of the openings of the subterranean passage, disappeared for a few moments, and then emerged from another opening a little farther away. The bird--let me say at once--was Say's phoebe, with which, as previously told, I made acquaintance at Glenwood. He may be recognized by the reddish or cinnamon-brown cast of his abdomen and sides. Again and again he darted into the passage, perhaps to make sure that his bairns had not been kidnapped, and then came up to keep a vigilant eye on his visitor, whom he was not wholly disposed to trust. I am not sure that there was a nest in the subterranean passage, as my time was too short to look for it. Others may not regard it as an important ornithological discovery, and I do not pretend that it was epoch-making, but to me it was at least interesting to find this species, which was new to me, dwelling at an elevation of five thousand seven hundred and fifty-eight feet on the western side of the range, and on the eastern side at an elevation of nine thousand five hundred and eighty feet. Nowhere else in my peregrinations among the Rockies did I so much as catch a glimpse of Say's phoebe.

In 1901 this bird was seen by me in South Park, and its quaint whistle was heard,--it says Phe-by, but its tone and expression are different from those of its eastern relative. See the chapter entitled "Pleasant Outings."

With the exception of some swallows circling about in the air, I saw no other birds during my brief stay at Malta. I was sorely disappointed in not being able to find accommodation at this place, for it had been my intention to remain here for the night, and walk the next day to a station called Granite, some seventeen miles farther down the valley, making observations on bird life in the region by the way. To this day I regret that my calculations went "agley"; but I was told that accommodation was not to be secured at Malta "for love or money," and so I shook the dust from my feet, and boarded an evening train for my next stopping-place, which was Buena Vista.

The elevation of this beautiful mountain town is seven thousand nine hundred and sixty-seven feet. It nestles amid cottonwood trees and green meadows in a wide valley or park, and is flanked on the east by the rolling and roaring Arkansas River, while to the west the plain slopes up gradually to the foothills of the three towering college peaks,--Harvard, Yale, and Princeton,--crowned all the year with snow. And here were birds in plenty. Before daybreak the avian concert began with the shrieking of the western wood-pewees--a vocal performance that they, in their innocence, seriously mistake for melody--and continued until night had again settled on the vale. In this place I spent three or four days, giving myself up to my favorite study and pastime, and a list of all the birds that I saw in the neighborhood would surprise the reader. However, a mere catalogue would be of slight interest, I apprehend, and therefore mention will be made only of those species which I had not seen elsewhere, passing by such familiar feathered folk as the Arkansas goldfinches, catbirds, western meadow-larks, Brewer's blackbirds, house-finches, green-tailed towhees, magpies, long-crested jays, summer warblers, and many others, begging their pardon, of course, for paying them such scant courtesy.

Early on a bright morning I was following one of the streets of the village, when, on reaching the suburbs, I was greeted by a blithe, dulcet trill which could come from no other vocalist than the song-sparrow. His tones and vocalization were precisely like those of Melospiza fasciata, to which I have so often listened in my native State of Ohio. It was a dulcet strain, and stirred memories half sad, half glad, of many a charming ramble about my eastern home when the song-sparrows were the chief choralists in the outdoor opera festival. Peering into the bushes that fringed the gurgling mountain brook, I soon caught sight of the little triller, and found that, so far as I could distinguish them with my field-glass, his markings were just like those of his eastern relative--the same mottled breast, with the large dusky blotch in the centre.

Delighted as I was with the bird's aria, I could not decide whether this was the common song-sparrow or the mountain song-sparrow. Something over a week earlier I had seen what I took to be the mountain song-sparrow in a green nook below the summit of Pike's Peak, and had noted his trill as a rather shabby performance in comparison with the tinkling chansons of the song-sparrow of the East. Had I mistaken some other bird for the mountain song-sparrow? Or was the Buena Vista bird the common song-sparrow which had gone entirely beyond its Colorado range? Consulting Professor W. W. Cooke's list of Colorado birds, I found that Melospiza fasciata is marked "migratory, rare," and has been known thus far only in the extreme eastern part of the State; whereas Melospiza fasciata montana is a summer resident, "common throughout the State in migration, and not uncommon as a breeder from the plains to eight thousand feet."

But Professor Cooke fails to give a clue to the song of either variety, and therefore my little problem remains unsolved, as I could not think of taking the life of a dulcet-voiced bird merely to discover whether it should have "montana" affixed to its scientific name or not. All I can say is, if this soloist was a mountain song-sparrow, he reproduced exactly the trills of his half-brothers of the East. On the morning of my departure from Buena Vista another song-sparrow sang his matins, in loud, clear tones among the bushes of a stream that flowed through the town, ringing quite a number of changes in his tune, all of them familiar to my ear from long acquaintance with the eastern forms of the Melospiza subfamily.

The problem has since been solved, through the aid of Mr. Aiken. The Buena Vista bird was montana, while the bird in the Pike's Peak hollow was Lincoln's sparrow.

How well I recall a rainy afternoon during my stay at Buena Vista! The rain was not so much of a downpour as to drive me indoors, although it made rambling in the bushes somewhat unpleasant. What was this haunting song that rose from a thick copse fringing one of the babbling mountain brooks? It mingled sweetly with the patter of the rain upon the leaves. Surely it was the song of the veery thrush! The same rich, melodious strain, sounding as if it were blown through a wind-harp, setting all the strings a-tune at the same time. Too long and closely had I studied the veery's minstrelsy in his summer haunts in northern Minnesota to be deceived now--unless, indeed, this fertile avian region produced another thrush which whistled precisely the same tune. The bird's alarm-call was also like that of the veery. The few glimpses he permitted of his flitting, shadowy form convinced me that he must be a veery, and so I entered him in my note-book.

But on looking up the matter--for the bird student must aim at accuracy--what was my surprise to find that the Colorado ornithologists have decided that the veery thrush is not a resident of the State, nor even an occasional visitor! Of course I could not set up my judgment against that of those scientific gentlemen. But what could this minstrel be? I wrote to my friend, Mr. Charles E. Aiken, of Colorado Springs, who replied that the bird was undoubtedly the willow thrush, which is the western representative of the veery. I am willing to abide by this decision, especially as Ridgway indicates in his Manual that there is very little difference in the coloration of the two varieties. One more mile-post had been passed in my never-ending ornithological journey--I had learned for myself and others that the willow thrush of the Rockies and the veery of our Eastern and Middle States have practically the same musical repertory, and nowhere in the East or the West is sweeter and more haunting avian minstrelsy to be heard, if only it did not give one that sad feeling which Heine calls Heimweh!

A ROCKY MOUNTAIN LAKE

LARK BUNTING--Calamospiza melanocorys (Upper figure, male; lower, female)]

"You will find a small lake just about a mile from town. Follow the road leading out this way"--indicating the direction--"until you come to a red gate. The lake is private property, but you can go right in, as you don't shoot. No one will drive you out. I think you will find it an interesting place for bird study."

"An interesting place for bird study"]

The foregoing is what my landlord told me one morning at Buena Vista. Nor did I waste time in finding the way to the lake, a small sheet of water, as clear as crystal, embowered in the lovely park lying between towering, snow-clad mountains. One might almost call the spot a bird's Arcadia. In no place, in all my tramping among the Rockies, did I find so many birds in an equal area.

In the green, irrigated meadow bordering one side of the sheet of water, I was pleased to find a number of Brewer's blackbirds busily gathering food in the wet grass for their young. And who or what are Brewer's blackbirds? In the East, the purple and bronzed grackles, or crow blackbirds, are found in great abundance; but in Colorado these birds are replaced by Brewer's blackbirds, which closely resemble their eastern kinsfolk, although not quite so large. The iridescence of the plumage is somewhat different in the two species, but in both the golden eye-balls show white at a distance. When I first saw a couple of Brewer's blackbirds stalking featly about on a lawn at Manitou, digging worms and grubs out of the sod, I simply put them down in my note-book as bronzed or purple grackles--an error that had to be corrected afterwards, on more careful examination. The mistake shows how close is the resemblance between the two species.

The Brewer division of the family breed on the plains and in the mountains, to an altitude of ten thousand feet, always selecting marshy places for their early summer home; then in August and September, the breeding season over, large flocks of old and young ascend to the regions above the timber-line, about thirteen thousand feet above sea-level, where they swarm over the grassy but treeless mountain sides in search of food. In October they retire to the plains, in advance of the austere weather of the great altitudes, and soon the majority of them hie to a blander climate than Colorado affords in winter.

Still more interesting to me was the large colony of yellow-headed blackbirds that had taken up their residence in the rushes and flags of the upper end of the lake. These birds are not such exclusive westerners as their ebon-hued cousins just described; for I found them breeding at Lake Minnetonka, near Minneapolis, Minnesota, a few years ago, and they sometimes straggle, I believe, as far east as Ohio. A most beautiful bird is this member of the Icteridæ family, a kind of Beau Brummel among his fellows, with his glossy black coat and rich yellow--and even orange, in highest feather--mantle covering the whole head, neck, and breast, and a large white, decorative spot on the wings, showing plainly in flight. He is the handsomest blackbird with which I am acquainted.

At the time of my visit to the lake, the latter part of June, the yellow-heads were busy feeding their young, many of which had already left the nest. From the shore, I could see dozens of them clinging to the reeds, several of which they would grasp with the claws of each foot, their little legs straddled far apart, the flexile rushes spreading out beneath their weight. There the youngsters perched, without seeming to feel any discomfort from their strained position. And what a racket they made when the parent birds returned from an excursion to distant meadows and lawns, with bill-some tidbits! They were certainly a hungry lot of bairns. When I waded out into the shallow water toward their rushy home, the old birds became quite uneasy, circling about above me like the red-wings, and uttering a harsh blackbird "chack," varied at intervals by a loud, and not unmusical, chirp.

"There the youngsters perched"]

You should see the nest of the yellow-head. It is really a fine structure, showing no small amount of artistic skill--a plaited cup, looking almost as if it had been woven by human hands, the rushes of the rim and sides folding the supporting reeds in their loops. Thus the nest and its reedy pillars are firmly bound together. I waded out to a clump of rushes and found one nest with three eggs in its softly felted cup--the promise, no doubt, of a belated, or possibly a second, brood.

This mountain lake was also the abode of a number of species of ducks, not all of which could be identified, on account of the distance they constantly put between themselves and the observer. Flocks of them floated like light, feathered craft upon the silvery bosom of the lake, now pursuing one another, now drifting lazily, now diving, and anon playing many attractive gambols.