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Anthony Trollope - "The Prime Minister"

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Bird Neighbors

N >> Neltje Blanchan >> Bird Neighbors




Still another characteristic of this particularly interesting bird is its
unique architectural effects produced with coarse grasses woven into globular
form and suspended in the reeds. Sometimes adapting its nest to the building
material at hand, it weaves it of grasses and twigs, and suspends it from the
limb of a bush or tree overhanging the water, where it swings like an
oriole's. The entrance to the nest is invariably on the side.

More devoted homebodies than these little wrens are not among the feathered
tribe. Once let the hand of man desecrate their nest, even before the tiny
speckled eggs are deposited in it, and off go the birds to a more inaccessible
place, where they can enjoy their home unmolested. Thus three or four nests
may be made in a summer.


SHORT-BILLED MARSH WREN (Cistothorus stellaris) Wren family

[Called also: SEDGE WREN, AOU 1998]

Length -- 4 to 5 inches. Actually about one-third smaller than
the English sparrow, but apparently only half its size.
Male and Female -- Brown above, faintly streaked with white,
black, and buff. Wings and tail barred with same. Underneath
white, with buff and rusty tinges on throat and breast. Short
bill.
Range -- North America, from Manitoba southward in winter to Gulf
of Mexico. Most common in north temperate latitudes.
Migrations -- Early May. Late September.

Where red-winged blackbirds like to congregate in oozy pastures or near boggy
woods, the little short-billed wren may more often be heard than seen, for he
is more shy, if possible, than his long-billed cousin, and will dive down into
the sedges at your approach, very much as a duck disappears under water. But
if you see him at all, it is usually while swaying to and fro as he clings to
some tall stalk of grass, keeping his balance by the nervous, jerky tail
motions characteristic of all the wrens, and singing with all his might.
Oftentimes his tail reaches backward almost to his head in a most exaggerated
wren-fashion.

Samuels explains the peculiar habit both the long-billed and the short-billed
marsh wrens have of building several nests in one season, by the theory that
they are made to protect the sitting female, for it is noticed that the male
bird always lures a visitor to an empty nest, and if this does not satisfy his
curiosity, to another one, to prove conclusively that he has no family in
prospect.

Wild rice is an ideal nesting place for a colony of these little marsh wrens.
The home is made of sedge grasses, softly lined with the softer meadow grass
or plant-down, and placed in a tussock of tall grass, or even upon the ground.
The entrance is on the side. But while fond of moist places, both for a home
and feeding ground, it will be noticed that these wrens have no special
fondness for running water, so dear to their long-billed relatives. Another
distinction is that the eggs of this species, instead of being so densely
speckled as to look brown, are pure white.


BROWN THRASHER (Harporhynchus rufus) Thrasher and Mocking-bird
family

Called also: BROWN THRUSH; GROUND THRUSH; RED THRUSH; BROWN
MOCKING-BIRD; FRENCH MOCKING-BIRD; MAVIS

Length -- 11 to 11.5 inches. Fully an inch longer than the robin.
Male -- Rusty red-brown or rufous above; darkest on wings, which
have two short whitish bands. Underneath white, heavily
streaked (except on throat) with dark-brown, arrow-shaped
spots. Tail very long. Yellow eyes. Bill long and curved at
tip.
Female -- Paler than male.
Range -- United States to Rockies. Nests from Gulf States to
Manitoba and Montreal. Winters south of Virginia.
Migrations -- Late April. October. Common summer resident

"There's a merry brown thrush sitting up in a tree;
He is singing to me! He is singing to me!
And what does he say, little girl, little boy?
'Oh, the world's running over with joy!'"

The hackneyed poem beginning with this stanza that delighted our nursery days,
has left in our minds a fairly correct impression of the bird. He still proves
to be one of the perennially joyous singers, like a true cousin of the wrens,
and when we study him afield, he appears to give his whole attention to his
song with a self-consciousness that is rather amusing than the reverse. "What
musician wouldn't be conscious of his own powers," he seems to challenge us,
"if he possessed such a gift?" Seated on a conspicuous perch, as if inviting
attention to his performance, with uplifted head and drooping tail he repeats
the one exultant, dashing air to which his repertoire is limited, without
waiting for an encore. Much practice has given the notes a brilliancy of
execution to be compared only with the mockingbird's; but in spite of the name
"ferruginous mocking-bird" that Audubon gave him, he does not seem to have the
faculty of imitating other birds' songs. Thoreau says the Massachusetts
farmers, when planting their seed, always think they hear the thrasher say,
"Drop it, drop it -- cover it up, cover it up -- pull it up, pull it up, pull
it up."

One of the shatterings of childish impressions that age too often brings is
when we learn by the books that our "merry brown thrush" is no thrush at all,
but a thrasher -- first cousin to the wrens, in spite of his speckled breast,
large size, and certain thrush-like instincts, such as never singing near the
nest and shunning mankind in the nesting season, to mention only two.
Certainly his bold, swinging flight and habit of hopping and running over the
ground would seem to indicate that he is not very far removed from the true
thrushes. But he has one undeniable wren-like trait, that of twitching,
wagging, and thrashing his long tail about to help express his emotions. It
swings like a pendulum as he rests on a branch, and thrashes about in a most
ludicrous way as he is feeding on the ground upon the worms, insects, and
fruit that constitute his diet.

Before the fatal multiplication of cats, and in unfrequented, sandy locations
still, the thrasher builds her nest upon the ground, thus earning the name
"ground thrush" that is often given her; but with dearly paid-for wisdom she
now most frequently selecting a low shrub or tree to cradle the two broods
that all too early in the summer effectually silence the father's delightful
song.


WILSON'S THRUSH (Turdus fuscescens) Thrush family

Called also: VEERY {AOU 1998]; TAWNY THRUSH

Length -- 7 to 7.5 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the
robin.
Male and Female -- Uniform olive-brown, with a tawny cast above.
Centre of the throat white, with cream-buff on sides of throat
and upper part of breast, which is lightly spotted with
wedge-shaped, brown points. Underneath white, or with a faint
grayish tinge.
Range -- United States, westward to plains.
Migrations -- May. October. Summer resident.

To many of us the veery, as they call the Wilson's thrush in New England, is
merely a voice, a sylvan mystery, reflecting the sweetness and wildness of the
forest, a vocal "will-o'-the-wisp" that, after enticing us deeper and deeper
into the woods, where we sink into the spongy moss of its damp retreats and
become entangled in the wild grape-vines twined about the saplings and
underbrush, still sings to us from unapproachable tangles. Plainly, if we want
to see the bird, we must let it seek us out on the fallen log where we have
sunk exhausted in the chase.

Presently a brown bird scuds through the fern. It is a thrush, you guess in a
minute, from its slender, graceful body. At first you notice no speckles on
its breast, but as it comes nearer, obscure arrow-heads are visible -- not
heavy, heart-shaped spots such as plentifully speckle the larger wood thrush
or the smaller hermit. It is the smallest of the three commoner thrushes, and
it lacks the ring about the eye that both the others have. Shy and elusive, it
slips away again in a most unfriendly fashion, and is lost in the wet tangle
before you have become acquainted. You determine, however, before you leave
the log, to cultivate the acquaintance of this bird the next spring, when,
before it mates and retreats to the forest, it comes boldly into the gardens
and scratches about in the dry leaves on the ground for the lurking insects
beneath. Miss Florence Merriam tells of having drawn a number of veeries about
her by imitating their call-note, which is a whistled wheew, whoit, very easy
to counterfeit when once heard. "Taweel-ah, taweel-ah, twil-ah, twil-ah!"
Professor Ridgeway interprets their song, that descends in a succession of
trills without break or pause; but no words can possibly convey an idea of the
quality of the music. The veery, that never claims an audience, sings at night
also, and its weird, sweet strains floating through the woods at dusk, thrill
one like the mysterious voice of a disembodied spirit.

Whittier mentions the veery in "The Playmate":

"And here in spring the veeries sing
The song of long ago."


WOOD THRUSH (Turdus mustelinus) Thrush family

Called also: SONG THRUSH; WOOD ROBIN; BELLBIRD

Length -- 8 to 8.3 inches. About two inches shorter than the
robin.
Male and Female -- Brown above, reddish on head and shoulders,
shading into olive-brown on tail. Throat, breast, and
underneath white, plain in the middle, but heavily marked on
sides and breast with heart-shaped spots of very dark brown.
Whitish eye-ring.
Migrations -- Late April or early May. October. Summer resident.

When Nuttall wrote of "this solitary and retiring songster," before the
country was as thickly settled as it is to-day, it possibly had not developed
the confidence in men that now distinguishes the wood thrush from its shy
congeners that are distinctly wood birds, which it can no longer strictly be
said to be. In city parks and country places, where plenty of trees shade the
village streets and lawns, it comes near you, half hopping, half running, with
dignified unconsciousness and even familiarity, all the more delightful in a
bird whose family instincts should take it into secluded woodlands with their
shady dells. Perhaps, in its heart of hearts, it still prefers such retreats.
Many conservative wood thrushes keep to their wild haunts, and it must be
owned not a few liberals, that discard family traditions at other times, seek
the forest at nesting time. But social as the wood thrush is and abundant,
too, it is also eminently high-bred; and when contrasted with its tawny
cousin, the veery, that skulks away to hide in the nearest bushes as you
approach, or with the hermit thrush, that pours out its heavenly song in the
solitude of the forest, how gracious and full of gentle confidence it seems!
Every gesture is graceful and elegant; even a wriggling beetle is eaten as
daintily as caviare at the king's table. It is only when its confidence in you
is abused, and you pass too near the nest, that might easily be mistaken for a
robin's, just above your head in a sapling, that the wood thrush so far
forgets itself as to become excited. Pit, pit, pit, sharply reiterated, is
called out at you with a strident quality in the tone that is painful evidence
of the fearful anxiety your presence gives this gentle bird.

Too many guardians of nests, whether out of excessive happiness or excessive
stupidity, have a dangerous habit of singing very near them. Not so the wood
thrush. "Come to me," as the opening notes of its flute-like song have been
freely translated, invites the intruder far away from where the blue eggs lie
cradled in ambush. is as good a rendering into syllables of the luscious song
as could very well be made. Pure, liquid, rich, and luscious, it rings out
from the trees on the summer air and penetrates our home like
"Uoli-a-e-o-li-noli-nol-aeolee-lee! strait of music from a stringed quartette.


HERMIT THRUSH (Turdus aonalaschkae pallasii) Thrush family

Called also: SWAMP ANGEL; LITTLE THRUSH

Length -- 7.25 to 7.5 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the
robin.
Male and Female -- Upper parts olive-brown, reddening near the
tail, which is pale rufous, quite distinct from the color of
the back. Throat, sides of neck, and breast pale buff. Feathers
of throat and neck finished with dark arrow-points at tip;
feathers of the breast have larger rounded spots. Sides
brownish gray. Underneath white. A yellow ring around the eye.
Smallest of the thrushes.
Range -- Eastern parts of North America. Most common in the
United States to the plains. Winters from southern Illinois and
New Jersey to Gulf.
Migrations -- April. November. Summer resident.

The first thrush to come and the last to go, nevertheless the hermit is little
seen throughout its long visit north. It may loiter awhile in the shrubby
roadsides, in the garden or the parks in the spring before it begins the
serious business of life in a nest of moss, coarse grass, and pine-needles
placed on the ground in the depths of the forest, but by the middle of May its
presence in the neighborhood of our homes becomes only a memory. Although one
never hears it at its best during the migrations, how one loves to recall the
serene, ethereal evening hymn! "The finest sound in Nature," John Burroughs
calls it. "It is not a proud, gorgeous strain like the tanager's or the
grosbeak's," he says; "it suggests no passion or emotion -- nothing personal,
but seems to be the voice of that calm, sweet solemnity one attains to in his
best moments. It realizes a peace and a deep, solemn joy that only the finest
souls may know."

Beyond the question of even the hypercritical, the hermit thrush has a more
exquisitely beautiful voice than any other American bird, and only the
nightingale's of Europe can be compared with it. It is the one theme that
exhausts all the ornithologists' musical adjectives in a vain attempt to
convey in words any idea of it to one who has never heard it, for the quality
of the song is as elusive as the bird itself. But why should the poets be so
silent? Why has it not called forth such verse as the English poets have
lavished upon the nightingale? Undoubtedly because it lifts up its heavenly
voice in the solitude of the forest. whereas the nightingales, singing in loud
choruses in the moonlight under the poet's very window, cannot but impress his
waking thoughts and even his dreams with their melody.

Since the severe storm and cold in the Gulf States a few winters ago, where
vast numbers of hermit thrushes died from cold and starvation, this bird has
been very rare in haunts where it used to be abundant. The other thrushes
escaped because they spend the winter farther south.


ALICE'S THRUSH (Turdus alicia) Thrush family

Called also: GRAY-CHEEKED THRUSH; [now separated into two
species: the more mid-western GRAY-CHEEKED THRUSH and the New
England and Adirondack BICKNELL'S THRUSH, AOU 1998]

Length -- 7.5 to 8 inches. About the size of the bluebird.
Male and Female -- Upper parts uniform olive-brown. Eye-ring
whitish. Cheeks gray; sides dull grayish white. Sides of the
throat and breast pale cream-buff, speckled with arrow-shaped
points on throat and with half-round dark-brown marks below.
Range -- North America, from Labrador and Alaska to Central
America.
Migrations -- Late April or May. October. Chiefly seen in
migrations, except at northern parts of its range.

One looks for a prettier bird than this least attractive of all the thrushes
in one that bears such a suggestive name. Like the olive-backed thrush, from
which it is almost impossible to tell it when both are alive and hopping about
the shrubbery, its plumage above is a dull olive-brown that is more protective
than pleasing.

Just as Wilson hopelessly confused the olive-backed thrush with the hermit, so
has Alice's thrush been confounded by later writers with the olive-backed,
from which it differs chiefly in being a trifle larger, in having gray cheeks
instead of buff, and in possessing a few faint streaks on the throat. Where it
goes to make a home for its greenish-blue speckled eggs in some low bush at
the northern end of its range, it bursts into song, but except in the nesting
grounds its voice is never heard. Mr. Bradford Torrey, who heard it singing in
the White Mountains, describes the song as like the thrush's in quality, but
differently accented: "Wee-o-wee-o-tit-ti-wee-o!"

In New England and New York this thrush is most often seen during its autumn
migrations. As it starts up and perches upon a low branch before you, it
appears to have longer legs and a broader, squarer tail than its congeners.


OLIVE-BACKED THRUSH (Turdus ustulatus swainsonii) Thrush family

Called also: SWAINSON'S THRUSH [AOU 1998]

Length -- 7 to 7.50 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the
robin.
Male and Female -- Upper parts olive-brown. Whole throat and
breast yellow-buff, shading to ashy on sides and to white
underneath. Buff ring around eye. Dark streaks on sides of
throat (none on centre), and larger, more spot-like marks on
breast.
Range -- North America to Rockies; a few stragglers on Pacific
slope. Northward to arctic countries.
Migrations -- April. October. Summer resident in Canada. Chiefly
a migrant in United States.

Mr. Parkhurst tells of finding this "the commonest bird in the Park (Central
Park, New York), not even excepting the robin," during the last week of May on
a certain year; but usually, it must be owned, we have to be on the lookout to
find it, or it will pass unnoticed in the great companies of more conspicuous
birds travelling at the same time. White-throated sparrows often keep it
company on the long journeys northward, and they may frequently be seen
together, hopping sociably about the garden, the thrush calling out a rather
harsh note -- puk! puk! -- quite different from the liquid, mellow calls of
the other thrushes, to resent either the sparrows' bad manners or the
inquisitiveness of a human disturber of its peace. But this gregarious habit
and neighborly visit end even before acquaintance fairly begins, and the
thrushes are off for their nesting grounds in the pine woods of New England or
Labrador if they are travelling up the east coast, or to Alaska, British
Columbia, or Manitoba if west of the Mississippi. There they stay all summer,
often travelling southward with the sparrows in the autumn, as in the spring.

Why they should prefer coniferous trees, unless to utilize the needles for a
nest, is not understood. Low trees and bushes are favorite building sites with
them as with others of the family, though these thrushes disdain a mud lining
to their nests. Those who have heard the olive-backed thrush singing an
even-song to its brooding mate compare it with the veery's, but it has a break
in it and is less simple and pleasing than the latter's.


LOUISIANA WATER THRUSH (Seiurus motacilla) Wood Warbler family

Length -- 6 to 6.28 inches. Just a trifle smaller than the
English sparrow.
Male and Female -- Grayish olive-brown upper parts, with
conspicuous white line over the eye and reaching almost to the
nape. Underneath white, tinged with pale buff. Throat and line
through the middle, plain. Other parts streaked with very dark
brown, rather faintly on the breast, giving them the speckled
breast of the thrushes. Heavy, dark bill.
Range -- United States, westward to the plains; northward to
southern New England. Winters in the tropics.
Migrations -- Late April. October. Summer resident.

This bird, that so delighted Audubon with its high-trilled song as he tramped
with indefatigable zeal through the hammocks of the Gulf States, seems to be
almost the counterpart of the Northern water thrush, just as the loggerhead is
the Southern counterpart of the Northern shrike. Very many Eastern birds have
their duplicates in Western species, as we all know, and it is most
interesting to trace the slight external variations that different climates
and diet have produced on the same bird, and thus differentiated the species.
In winter the Northern water thrush visits the cradle of its kind, the swamps
of Louisiana and Florida, and, no doubt, by daily contact with its congeners
there, keeps close to their cherished traditions, from which it never deviates
farther than Nature compels, though it penetrate to the arctic regions during
its summer journeys.

With a more southerly range, the Louisiana water thrush does not venture
beyond the White Mountains and to the shores of the Great Lakes in summer, but
even at the North the same woods often contain both birds, and there is
opportunity to note just how much they differ. The Southern bird is slightly
the larger, possibly an inch; it is more gray, and it lacks a few of the
streaks, notably on the throat, that plentifully speckle its Northern
counterpart; but the habits of both of these birds appear to be identical.
Only for a few days in the spring or autumn migrations do they pass near
enough to our homes for us to study them, and then we must ever be on the
alert to steal a glance at them through the opera-glasses, for birds more shy
than they do not visit the garden shrubbery at any season. Only let them
suspect they are being stared at, and they are under cover in a twinkling.

Where mountain streams dash through tracts of mossy, spongy ground that is
carpeted with fern and moss, and overgrown with impenetrable thickets of
underbrush and tangles of creepers -- such a place is the favorite resort of
both the water thrushes. With a rubber boot missing, clothes torn, and temper
by no means unruffled, you finally stand over the Louisiana thrush's nest in
the roots of an upturned tree immediately over the water, or else in a mossy
root-belaced bank above a purling stream. A liquid-trilled warble, wild and
sweet, breaks the stillness, and, like Audubon, you feel amply rewarded for
your pains though you may not be prepared to agree with him in thinking the
song the equal of the European nightingale's.


NORTHERN WATER THRUSH (Seiurus noveboracensis) Wood Warbler
family

Called also: NEW YORK WATER THRUSH; AQUATIC WOOD WAGTAIL; AQUATIC
THRUSH

Length -- 5 to 6 inches. A trifle smaller than the English
sparrow.
Male and Female -- Uniform olive or grayish brown above. Pale
buff line over the eye. Underneath, white tinged with sulphur
yellow, and streaked like a thrush with very dark brown arrow
headed or oblong spots that are also seen underneath wings.
Range -- United States, westward to Rockies and northward through
British provinces. Winters from Gulf States southward.
Migrations -- Late April. October. Summer resident.

According to the books we have before us, a warbler; but who, to look at his
speckled throat and breast, would ever take him for anything but a diminutive
thrush; or, studying him from some distance through the opera-glasses as he
runs in and out of the little waves along the brook or river shore, would not
name him a baby sandpiper? The rather unsteady motion of his legs, balancing
of the tail, and sudden jerking of the head suggest an aquatic bird rather
than a bird of the woods. But to really know either man or beast, you must
follow him to his home, and if you have pluck enough to brave the swamp and
the almost impenetrable tangle of undergrowth where the water thrush chooses
to nest, there "In the swamp in secluded recesses, a shy and hidden bird is
warbling a song;" and this warbled song that Walt Whitman so adored gives you
your first clue to the proper classification of the bird. It has nothing in
common with the serene, hymn-like voices of the true thrushes; the bird has no
flute-like notes, but an emphatic smacking or chucking kind of warble. For a
few days only is this song heard about the gardens and roadsides of our
country places. Like the Louisiana water thrush, this bird never ventures near
the homes of men after the spring and autumn migrations, but, on the contrary,
goes as far away from them as possible, preferably to some mountain region,
beside a cool and dashing brook, where a party of adventurous young climbers
from a summer hotel or the lonely trout fisherman may startle it from its
mossy nest on the ground.


FLICKER (Colaptes auratus) Woodpecker family

Called also: GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKER; CLAPE; PIGEON WOODPECKER;
YELLOWHAMMER; HIGH HOLE OR HIGH-HOLDER; YARUP; WAKE-UP;
YELLOW-SHAFTED WOODPECKER

Length -- 12 to 13 inches. About one-fourth as large again as the
robin.
Male and Female -- Head and neck bluish gray, with a red crescent
across back of neck and a black crescent on breast. Male has
black cheek-patches, that are wanting in female. Golden brown
shading into brownish-gray, and barred with black above.
Underneath whitish, tinged with light chocolate and thickly
spotted with black. Wing linings, shafts of wing, and tail
quills bright yellow. Above tail white, conspicuous when the
bird flies.
Range -- United States, east of Rockies; Alaska and British
America, south of Hudson Bay. Occasional on Pacific slope.
Migrations -- Most commonly seen from April to October. Usually
Resident.

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