Part 58

“‘The Whip-poor-will, but that does not come until late in the month,’ answered a third, a dweller in a remote colony of artists in a picturesque spot of cleared woodland, where the ground dropped quickly to a stream.

“‘No, the Woodcock,’ said her nearest neighbour, a man whose cottage was upon the upper edge of these same woods, where they were margined by moist meadows and soft bottom-lands,—a man who spent much time out-of-doors at dawn and twilight studying sky effects.

“‘And I think it’s Red-winged Blackbirds,’ cried the ten-year-old son of the latter; ‘for when I go out up back of the trout brook by the little path along the alders near the squashy place where the cat-tails grow in summer, you’ve just got to hear them. You can’t listen to them as you do to real singing-birds, for they make too much noise, and when you listen for a bird it’s got to be still, at least in the beginning. Sometimes they go it all together down in the bushes out of sight, then a few will walk out up to the dry Meadowlark’s field with Cowbirds, or maybe it’s their wives, and then one or two will lift up and shoot over the marsh back again, calling out just like juicy sky-rockets. Ah, they’re in it before the leaves come out to hide them even the least bit.’ And, in spite of difference of viewpoint, the group finally acknowledged that the boy was right.

“In point of colouring, the Red-wing is faultlessly plumed,—glossy black with epaulets of scarlet edged with gold, the uniform of a soldier,—and this, coupled with the three martial notes that serve him as a song, would make one expect to find in him all the manly and military virtues. But aside from the superficial matter of personal appearance, the Red-wing is lacking in many of the qualities that endear the feathered tribe to us and make us judge them, perhaps, too much by human standards.

“When Red-wings live in colonies it is often difficult to estimate the exact relationship existing between the members, though it is apparent that the sober brown-striped females outnumber the males; but in places where the birds are uncommon and only one or two male birds can be found, it is easily seen that the household of the male consists of from three to five nests, each presided over by a watchful female, and when danger arises, this feathered Mormon shows equal anxiety for each nest, and circles screaming about the general location. In colony life the males ofttimes act in concert as a general guard, being diverted oftentimes from the main issue, it must be confessed, to indulge in duels and pitched battles among themselves.

“The Red-wing belongs to a notable family,—that of the Blackbirds and Orioles,—and in spite of the structural semblances that group them together, the differences of plumage, voice, and breeding habits are very great.

“The Cowbird, the Red-wing’s next of kin, even lacks the rich liquid call-note of the latter, and the lack of marital fidelity, on the part of the male, is met in a truly progressive spirit by the female, who, shirking all domestic responsibility, drops her eggs craftily in the nests of other and usually smaller birds, who cannot easily resent the imposition; though a strong proof of the unconscious affinity of race lies in the fact that these young foundling Cowbirds invariably join the parent flocks in autumn instead of continuing with their foster-mothers.

“The Meadowlark, with the true spring song, who hides his nest in the dry grass of old fields, is also kin to the Red-wing, and the Bobolink, too, the vocal harlequin of the meadows and hillside pastures. The Orchard and Baltimore Orioles, also next of kin, are skilled musicians and model husbands.

“Still another plane is to be found in the Red-wing’s dismal cousins, the Grackles,—Purple, Rusty, Bronzed, and Boat-tailed,—all harsh of voice and furtive in action, as if a Crow fairy had been present at their creating and, endowing them with ready wits, had, at the same time, deprived them of all sense of humour and cast a shadow upon their happiness. For a Grackle is gloomy even during the absurd gyrations of his courtship, and when, in autumn, the great flocks settle on lawns and fields, and solemnly walk about, as they forage they seem like a party of feathered mutes waiting to attend the funeral of the year; and this trait somewhat tinctures the disposition of the Red-wing before and after the breeding season.

“The Red-wing in one of his many subspecific forms, and masquerading under many names,—Red-shouldered Blackbird, American Starling, and Swamp Blackbird,—lives in North America from Nova Scotia and the Great Slave Lake southward to Costa Rica. The Red-wing, as known to us of middle and eastern North America, breeds in all parts of its United States and Canadian range, though it is more numerous by far in the great prairies of the upper Mississippi Valley, with their countless back-water sloughs, than anywhere else. It is in regions of this sort that the great flocks turn both to the fall-sown grain, as well as that of the crop in the ear, causing the farmers the loss that puts a black mark against the Red-wings. Yet those that dwell east of this area, owing to the draining and ditching of their swampy haunts being in much reduced numbers, are comparatively harmless.

“During the winter months the Red-wings are distributed throughout the South, though stragglers may be occasionally seen in many parts of their summer range. Exactly why they begin the southward migration in September and end it with the falling of the leaves in late October, it is not easy to guess; for the food supply is not at an end, and they do not dread moderate cold, else why should they be in the front rank of spring migrants?

“The last of February will bring a few individuals of the advance-guard of males. In early March their calls are heard often before the ice has melted and the hylas found voice; yet in spite of this hurried return, the nesting season does not begin until the middle of May; and so for two months and more the flock life continues, and foraging, fighting, and general courting serve to kill time until the remote marshes show enough green drapery to hide the nests.

“As a nest-builder the Red-wing shows much of the weaver’s skill of its Oriole cousins, though the material they work with is of coarser texture, being fastened firmly to low bushes or reeds and woven of grass and the split leaves of reeds and flags, all nicely lined with soft grasses and various vegetable fibres. Often, like that of the Marsh Wren, the nest will be suspended between three or four reeds, and so firmly knit that it resembles one of the four-legged work-baskets that belonged to the ‘mother’s room’ of our youth. The pale blue eggs of the Red-wing are particularly noticeable from the character of the markings that thickly cover the larger end, for they seem the work of a sharp scratching pen dipped in purplish black ink and held by an aimless human hand, rather than the distribution of natural pigment.

“An eater of grain though the Red-wing is, and a menace to the farmer in certain regions, Professor Beal concedes to him a liberal diet of weed seeds and animal food, itself injurious to vegetation. Dr. B. H. Warren, who has made a wide study of the food habits of this Blackbird, says: ‘The Red-wing destroys large numbers of cutworms. I have taken from the stomach of a single Swamp Blackbird as many as twenty-eight cutworms. In addition to the insects, etc., mentioned above, these birds also, during their residence with us, feed on earthworms, grasshoppers, crickets, plant-lice, and various larvæ, so destructive at times in field and garden. During the summer season fruits of the blackberry, raspberry, wild strawberry, and wild cherry are eaten to a more or less extent. The young, while under parental care, are fed exclusively on an insect diet.’

“Mr. Forbush also tells us that Kalm states in his Travels in America, that in 1749, ‘after a great destruction among the Crows and Blackbirds for a legal reward of three pence per dozen, the northern states experienced a complete loss of their grass and grain crops. The colonists were obliged to import hay from England to feed their cattle. The greatest losses from the ravages of the Rocky Mountain Locust were coincident with, or followed soon after, the destruction by the people of countless thousands of Blackbirds, Prairie Chickens, Quail, Upland Plover, Curlew, and other birds. This coincidence seems significant, at least. A farmer from Wisconsin informed me that, the Blackbirds in his vicinity having been killed off, the white grubs increased in number and destroyed the grass roots, so that he lost four hundred dollars from this cause.’

“These facts should make us of the East welcome rather than discourage the Red-wing; for this is one of the species of familiar birds that must become extinct in many localities, owing to the circumstance, so desirable in itself, of reducing the waste marshlands, and though, later in the year, other birds replace him acceptably, March and April would seem lonely without the Red-wing, for then, as the child said, ‘you’ve just got to look at him.’

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“The Kingfisher is certainly one of the most dashing birds that we have; without having the cruel and ferocious expression of some of the smaller Hawks, he has the swagger and dash of a feathered brigand.

Order—Coccyges Family—Alcedinidæ Genus—Ceryle Species—Alcyon

“His plumage is beautiful in texture and soft in colour; bluish gray that sometimes looks quite blue in the bright light; wings and tail-feathers spotted with white, a white collar deep in front and narrow at the back, and a broad belt of the gray crossing the white breast and seeming to keep the gray mantle from slipping from his shoulders. The long head-feathers, also of the bluish gray, form a crest that the bird can raise at will and thus put on an expression of combined alertness and defiance.

“The Kingfisher’s plumage is more perfect than his form, his head, with its beak two inches in length, being out of proportion to his short tail, and his small, weak feet seeming too small to support a body more than a foot long.

“In disposition the Kingfisher seems to be rather remote and unfriendly; they never seem to travel in flocks, and even in the nesting season, the only time in which they associate in pairs, they seem to be quarrelling and wrangling, so very harsh are their notes. Hereabouts we have very few Kingfishers. Last summer a pair tunnelled a hole in the loamy bank of the river fifty feet below the grist-mill; for the Kingfisher does not build a tree nest, or, in fact, any nest, but, like the Bank Swallow, burrows sidewise into a bank of sufficiently stiff soil not to cave in for the depth of anywhere from three to fifteen feet. This burrow may be only a few feet below the surface, or if the bluff rises above the stream, the hole may be twenty feet from the top and close to high-water mark.

“Sometimes the hole runs straight, and then again it may have several turns before the nesting-chamber is reached, the turns probably being made to avoid stones or tough roots; though one careful observer, whose account of this bird is so novel and charming (I will read it to you from the scrap-book), thought for a time that these turns might be for the purpose of keeping light from the nesting-chamber.

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“A hole in a bank seems a strange place in which to build a nest, but although one may know it to be the home of a Kingfisher, he little imagines the singular course of the passage leading to the room at the other end, and is hardly aware of the six long weeks of faithful care bestowed by the parent birds upon their eggs and family.

“Early in April we may hear the Kingfisher’s voice, sounding like a policeman’s rattle, as he patrols the stream, and we often see him leaving a favourite limb, where he has been keeping watch for some innocent minnow in the water below. Off he goes in his slaty blue coat, shaking his rattle and showing his top-heavy crest, his abnormal bill, and pure white collar.

“The mother bird, as usual with the sex, does most of the work at home. The hole is generally located high upon the bank, is somewhat less than four inches in diameter, and varies from at least five to eight feet in length. It slightly ascends to the dark, mysterious den at the other end,—dark because the passage generally bends once or twice, thereby entirely excluding the light. The roof of the passage is vaulted from end to end, merging into a domed ceiling almost as shapely as that of the Pantheon. Such a home is built to stay, and if undisturbed would endure for years. Two little tracks are worn by the female’s feet the full length of the tunnel as she passes in and out.

“The Kingfisher’s knowledge of construction, her ingenious manner of hiding her eggs from molestation, and her constancy to her young arouse our interest and admiration. We must also appreciate the difficulty with which the digging is attended, the meeting of frequent stones to block the work, which, by the way, may be the cause of the change in direction of the hole, but which I was inclined to believe intentional until I found a perfectly straight passage, in which a brood was successfully raised.