Chapter XX: Midwinter Birds

WINTER COMRADES

Plume and go, ye summer folk
Fly from Winter’s killing stroke,
Bluebird, Sparrow, Thrush, and Swallow,
Wild Geese from the marshes follow,
Wood-dove from the lonesome hollow
Rise and follow South—all follow!

Now I greet ye, hardy tribes,
Snowy Owl, and night-black Crow,
Starling with your wild halloo;
Blue Jay screaming like the wind,
In the tree-tops gaunt and thinned;
You in summer called “Bob-white”
(Voice of far-off fields’ delight).
Now among the barnyard brood
Fearless, searching for your food;
Nuthatch, Snowbird, Chickadee,
Downy tapper on the tree;
And you twittering Goldfinch drove
(Masked in gray) that blithely rove
Where the herby pastures show
Tables set above the snow:
And ye other flocks that ramble,
Where the red hop trims the bramble,
Or the rowan-berry bright
And the scarlet haw invite—
Winter comrades, well betide ye,
Friendly trunk and hollow hide ye,
Hemlock branches interlace,
When the Northern Blast gives chase.

—Edith M. Thomas.

These were the hard days for birds and people both, days of sleet and ice, when the snow seemed to chill and bind the trees down, instead of winding lovely draperies about them as it did at first.

Toward the end of January the cedar-berries gave out, and the juicy blackberries of the honeysuckle, that clings to everything that will hold the vines, became watery and poor; most of the seed-stalks of weeds were beaten down, and it was “mighty poor picking for birds,” as Sarah Barnes expressed the matter.

The lunch-counter in Birdland received a fresh supply of food every morning, and yet, sometimes before dark, every grain had been eaten, and the generous lumps of suet picked to shreds. The feeding-stations for the game-birds all had visitors, and the boys, who kept them supplied, saw, in their walks, many winter birds that they never before knew came so near to the cultivated farmland.

Acting on the general idea of feeding and sheltering birds that now seemed to pervade the air of Fair Meadows township, many people scattered food on the roofs of their sheds, and made openings in their corn-stacks, or left a window of the hay-barn ajar, where birds might seek a shelter.

All through the month the resident winter birds were seen at intervals. Of course, there would be many days when no birds would appear, and it would seem as if they had all gone, but let the sun shine, and the least breath of wind blow from the southeast, and they would come out of the near-by shelter where they had been hiding.

The orchard lunch-counter was the one place where, at least, a single bird was always to be found, and, at times, as many as half a dozen different kinds would be seen feeding peaceably together.

Gray Lady kept a list of all the birds that the children reported, and sometimes it was quite a puzzle for her to name a bird, unknown to the discoverer, from the description that was brought of it. For to see the chief points of a bird at a glance is difficult enough in itself, but to put them into exact words seemed sometimes impossible.

When Dave, on his return from a sleigh-ride to the shore, said that he’d seen a “big round-headed Owl sitting on a stump in the salt meadows, and it looked as if it had sat out all night in a snow-squall,” Gray Lady knew at once that he had seen one of the Arctic or Snowy Owls that occasionally drift down from the North on a short visit, and that it was on the lookout for a meal of meadow-mice or other little gnawers.

But when Bobbie, who went to the same location, reported that he had seen “a flock of birds that were sort of Sparrows with a yellow breast, and a black mark on it, and long ears,” it took a little time and many questions before she found that the birds were visiting Horned Larks, with pinkish brown backs, a black crescent on the breast, and a black bar across the forehead, that, extending around the sides of the head, forms two little tufts, or feather horns. For the rest, the throat and neck were dull yellow, and the underparts white streaked with black. These birds were little known. They only made flying visits, and gave merely a call-note, keeping their beautiful song, during which they soar in the air like the Sky-lark, for their nesting-haunts in the far North.

Gray Lady’s ingenuity was taxed to its utmost, however, when one Saturday morning little Clary came to the playroom, her face aglow, and said that she had seen “a brown Blue Jay with a yellow tail and red wings; not just one, but a whole family.”

For a moment Gray Lady was quite at a loss how to proceed; yellow tail and red wings were surely startling; then she saw that there must be some point about the bird that reminded the child of a Jay other than its colour.

“How did this bird look like a Jay, Clary?” she asked.

“In the head,” came the prompt reply; “it had feathers on top that moved up and down, the way a Jay’s does, and it was dark in the nose.”

On thinking over the winter birds that had a crest of feathers that could be raised or lowered, she realized that the Cedar-bird had such a one, also a black beak, and a black eye-stripe that made it look “dark in the nose,” but yellow tail and red wings it certainly did not have, merely a narrow yellow band on the tail and small, waxen, coral-red tips to some of the wing quills. However, taking half a dozen coloured pictures from one of the portfolios that she kept at hand to settle disputed points, she spread them in front of the little girl, who, without a moment’s hesitation, picked out the Cedar-bird, or Cedar Waxwing, as it is properly called from its coral wings-tips.

These are the resident birds on the list that Gray Lady kept of those the children saw during that winter:—

Bob-white Ruffed Grouse Red-shouldered Hawk Meadowlark Long-eared Owl Screech Owl Downy Woodpecker Robin Bluebird Song Sparrow White-breasted Nuthatch Red-tailed Hawk Sharp-shinned Hawk Barred Owl Cedar Waxwing Hairy Woodpecker Flicker Blue Jay Crow American Goldfinch Chickadee Herring Gull

This is a list of the visiting birds, that nest in the far North and drift southward, either in search of food or driven on the course of the storm clouds; and before February came, with its longer afternoons, the children could name them all, either from sight or from the pictures in Gray Lady’s portfolio.

_Horned Lark._ (See above.)

_Snowflake._ A bird of the Sparrow tribe, winter plumage soft
brown and white, colour of dead leaves and snow, black feet and
bill. Comes in flocks to feed on weed seeds, especially of snowy
winters.

_Redpoll._ Of the Sparrow tribe and the size of the Chippy.
Dusky gray and brown, with long, pointed wings and short, forked
tail. _Head, neck, and rump washed with crimson!_ A canary-like
call-note.

_The Two Crossbills._ (See page 252.)

_Snowy Owl._ (See page 295.)

_Tree-sparrow._ (See page 249.)

_White-throated Sparrow._ The most beautiful of all our
Sparrows; a plump handsome bird. _White throat and crown
stripes._ Back striped with black, bay, and whitish. Rump light
olive-brown. Bay edgings to wings, and two white cross-bars;
underparts gray. _Yellow spot before eye._ Female, crown brown,
markings less distinct. Song, sweet and plaintive
“Pee-a-peabody, peabody, peabody!”

Abundant migrant; also a winter resident from September to May.

_Junco._ (See page 250.)

_Myrtle Warbler._ (See page 250.)

_Winter Wren._ (See page 247.)

_Golden-crowned Kinglet._ (See page 249.)

_Brown Creeper._ (See page 184.)

_Northern Shrike._ A roving winter resident with Hawklike
habits, Hawklike in flight: called “Butcher-bird,” from its
meat-eating habits.

Length: 9-10.50 inches.

Male and Female: Powerful head, neck, and blackish beak
with hooked point. Above bluish ash, lighter on the rump
and shoulders. Wide black bar on each side of the head
from the eye backward. Below, light gray with a brownish
cast, broken on breast and sides by waved lines of
darker gray. Wings and tail black, edged and tipped with
white. Large white spot on wings, white tips and edges
to outer quills of tail. Legs bluish black.

A call-note, and in its breeding-haunts a sweet,
warbling song.

In common with all winter birds, its movements are guided by the food supply, and if severe cold and heavy snows drive away the small birds, and bury the mice upon which it feeds, the Shrike must necessarily rove.

Grasshoppers, beetles, other large insects, and field-mice are staple articles of its food in seasons when they are obtainable; in fact, next to insects, mice constitute the staple article of its diet; and protection should be accorded it on this account, even though we know the Shrike chiefly as the killer of small birds. The victims are caught by two methods: sneaking,—after the fashion of Crows,—and dropping upon them suddenly from a height, like the small Hawks. In the former case the Shrikes frequent clumps of bushes, either in open meadows or gardens, lure the little birds by imitating their call-notes, and then seize them as soon as they come within range. They often kill many more birds than they can possibly eat at a meal, and hang them on the spikes of a thorn or on the hooks of a cat-brier in some convenient spot, until they are needed, in the same manner as a butcher hangs his meat; and from this trait the name “Butcher-bird” was given them.

* * * * *

During some of these wintry days of meeting, questions and answers about the birds seen filled the time, and then Gray Lady read to them from some of her many books what people living in other places had said and thought of these same familiar birds. Besides the stories, she told them many things about the building of a bird, its bones, its feathers, the reasons why of the various kinds of feet and bills, the grouping of race, tribe, and family that both divide the bird world and at the same time bind it together; for she very well knew that when spring came with its procession of songsters, the children would be so eager to listen, see, follow, and learn the names of the living birds that they would not have patience to listen to the dry details.

THE SNOWBIRD

When the leaves are shed
And the branches bare,
When the snows are deep
And the flowers asleep,
And the autumn dead;
And the skies are o’er us bent
Gray and gloomy since she went,
And the sifting snow is drifting
Through the air;

Then mid snowdrifts white,
Though the trees are bare,
Comes the Snowbird bold
In the winter’s cold.
Quick and round and bright,
Light he steps across the snow.
Cares he not for winds that blow,
Though the sifting snow be drifting
Through the air.

—Dora R. Goodale.

ON HEARING A WINTER WREN SING IN WINTER

When wintry winds through woodlands blow
And naked tree-tops shake and shiver;
While all the paths were bound in snow,
And thick ice chains the merry river,

One little feathered denizen,
A plump and nut-brown winter wren,
Sings of springtime even there—
“Tsip-twis-ch-e-e-e cheerily-cheerily-dare”—
Who could listen and despair?

Charmed with the sweetness of his strain,
My heart found cheer in winter’s bluster;
The leafless wood was fair again,
Its ice-gems sparkled with new lustre.
The tiny, trembling, tinkling throat
Poured forth despair’s sure antidote,
No leafy June hears sweeter note—
“Tsip-twis-ch-e-e-e cheerily-cheerily-dare”—
The essence of unspoken prayer.

—Lynn Tew Sprague, in _Bird-Lore_.

THE CHICKADEE

When piped a tiny voice hard by,
Gay and polite, a cheerful cry,
Chic-chickadee-dee! saucy note
Out of sound heart and merry throat,
As if it said, “Good day, good sir!
Fine afternoon, old passenger!
Happy to meet you in these places
Where January brings few faces.”

—R. W. Emerson.

* * * * *

These are a few of the many bits of verse and poems that Gray Lady read or recited to the children in these days, some of which they learned by heart. Once learned, she knew they would never be forgotten, but that years afterward, when they saw the birds that the lines described, the words and the days in the schoolhouse and playroom, and the faces of their companions, would all come back to them.

BIRD SONGS OF MEMORY

Oh, surpassing all expression by the rhythmic use of words,
Are the memories that gather of the singing of the birds:
When as a child I listened to the Whip-poor-will at dark,
And with the dawn awakened to the music of the Lark.

Then what a chorus wonderful when morning had begun,—
The very leaves, it seemed to me, were singing to the sun,
And calling on the world asleep to waken and behold
The king in glory coming forth along his path of gold.

The crimson-fronted Linnet sang above the river’s edge,
The Finches in the evergreens, the Thrasher in the hedge;
Each one as if a dozen songs were chorused in his own,
And all the world were listening to him and him alone.

In gladness sang the Bobolink upon ascending wing,
With cheery voice the bird of blue, the pioneer of spring,
The Oriole upon the elm, with martial note and clear,
While Martins twittered gayly by the cottage window near.

Among the orchard trees were heard the Robin and the Wren,
And the army of the Blackbirds along the marshy fen;
The songster in the meadow and the Quail upon the wheat,
And the warbler’s minor music made the symphony complete.

Beyond the tow’ring chimney’d walls that daily meet my eyes,
I hold a vision beautiful beneath the summer skies;
Within the city’s grim confines, above the roaring street,
The Happy Birds of Memory are singing clear and sweet.

—Garrett Newkirk.