Part 4

A small, dark heron common to all water areas, breeding in a combination of wooded or brush habitats and marshes. It is also found along the wooded margins of lakes and ponds. It often shows more blue than green and is easily confused with the little blue heron. Its flight appears crowlike at a distance, moving with slow, arched wing beats.

The most generously distributed of small herons, its series of “kucks” or its loud skyow can often be heard in areas near urban settlements.

It breeds from the Gulf of Mexico north to southern Canada and winters from Florida south.

HERRING GULL (Larus argentatus)

This is the common large sea gull of much of our interior and coasts and a familiar urban bird; a gray mantled, black wing tipped gull seen in garbage dumps and harbors in all U.S. coastal cities. Oceans, bays, estuaries, beaches, fields, inland lakes, reservoirs and large streams ... all provide habitat for this inspirer of “Jonathan Livingstone Seagull.”

His free wheeling grace in the sky and his raucous yet lonely kee-ow, ke-ow manage to bring beauty to even the most odoriferous city dump.

It breeds from the Arctic to the northern states and winters from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

HOUSE SPARROW (Passer domesticus)

Perhaps the most citified of birds, this import’s incessant chattering, quarrelsome disposition, and abundance about human habitations distinguish it from our native sparrows. Actually, it is not a sparrow at all, but a weaver finch.

Almost universally condemned after its introduction into the United States, the house sparrow not only held its own, but increased in numbers and extended its range. It now occupies its own niche and is regarded with amusement and considerable affection in our inner cities.

In rural areas it does some damage to fruit, vegetables, and grain. On the other hand, it also eats a number of insects that damage those same crops.

HOUSE WREN (Troglodytes aedon)

Less than 5 inches long, this tiny bird seems to live right at home with a man-made house. It breeds throughout the United States, except for the South Atlantic and Gulf areas, and also nests in southern Canada. It winters in the southern United States and Mexico.

The rich, bubbling song of the familiar little house wren is one of the sweetest associations connected with town or suburban life. Its tiny body allows it to creep into all sorts of nooks and crannies for its insect food. A cavity in a fence post or porch roof, a wren box, a hole in a tree, will be welcomed as a nesting site. Their food is grasshoppers, beetles, bugs, spiders, cutworms, ticks, and plant lice.

Recognized universally as Johnny and Jenny wren, welcome neighbors, they still show peculiarities in their behavior. Jealous of their home areas, wrens sometimes puncture the eggs of other small species nesting nearby, and Johnny may have two, possibly three mates at one time.

JUNCO (Junco hyemalis)

A dark, slate-gray sparrow with conspicuous white outer tail feathers and a white belly. An abundant species, it breeds in brushy, cutover forests and is usually seen by urban dwellers when transient or wintering flocks come into residential areas. Juncos often winter at feeding stations in cities, suburbs, or towns.

It breeds from the tree line south to the northern states, farther south in the mountains. It winters in most of the U.S.

KILLDEER (Charadrius vociferus)

These birds are commonplace in appearance and not very large at a length of 10 inches, but are distinguished by piercing and oft-repeated cries of “kildee.” They breed throughout the United States and most of Canada, and winter from the central United States to South America.

The killdeer is probably the best known of the shorebirds, perhaps because of its contrasting colors and startling cry. It is noisy and restless, like people, but most of its activities are beneficial to man. Its food is harmful insects, particularly weevils and beetles, flies, ticks, and wondrously enough, mosquitoes and their larvae.

The four pointed eggs are marked like pebbles, and laid in an unlined depression on the ground. Such dangerous sites as gravel roads, quarries, or even potato patches have been used.

MALLARD (Anas platyrhynchos)

One of the largest ducks, mallards range across the entire northern hemisphere, and are probably the best known of all waterfowl, likely to set down in migration on small pools in city parks. It has also been widely domesticated or semidomesticated.

Its coloration makes identification easy, and the loud quack helps identify it. The birds breed in prairie waterholes in Canada, the Dakotas, Minnesota, and, to a minor extent, in other northern States. They move with the great spring and fall migrations and, adjusting easily to the presence of man, are likely to be seen in town or city. Add the domesticated mallards that swim about in so many parks and you have the most urbanized of the ducks that can still claim a wild heritage. They are most abundant in the Mississippi Valley.

MOCKINGBIRD (Mimus polyglottos)

Ten inches long and neatly but soberly feathered, this was the bird of the Old South, but it is resident now from southern Mexico north to Michigan, Maine, even up to Wyoming, and seems to be spreading farther.

Because of its incomparable medleys and ability to mimic other birds, whistles, clocks, and bells, the mockingbird is the most renowned singer of the Western Hemisphere. Even in confinement it is a masterly performer, and in the nineteenth century, many were trapped and sold for cage birds. This practice ceased long ago, under law and close scrutiny. Mockers will feed on cultivated fruits, but they have so won human affection that this is rarely charged against them—principally because of that reputation as a songster and the fact that they eat a variety of destructive insects.