In Bird Land :: III. WINTER FROLICS.

III. WINTER FROLICS.

Had Mr. Lowell never written anything but “A Good Word for Winter,” he would still have deserved a place in the front rank of American writers. What a genuine appreciation of Nature, even in her sterner and more unfriendly moods, breathes in every line of his manfully written monograph! Blessed be the man whose love for Nature is so leal and deeply rooted that he can say, “Even though she slay me, yet will I trust in her!” When the storm howls dismally, and the icy gusts strike you rudely in the face; when the cold rain or sleet pelts you spitefully; when, in short, Nature seems to frown and scold and bluster,—the loyal lover of her feels no waning of affection, but knows that beneath all her bluster and apparent harshness she carries a tender, maternal heart in her bosom that responds to his wooing. No, Thomson is in error when he says that winter is the “inverted year.” Winter, as well as summer, is the year right end up, standing squarely on its feet; or, if it does sometimes turn a somersault, it quickly wheels about again into an upright position. Nor is Cotton’s dictum correct that winter is “our mortal enemy.” It has been much misunderstood, and therefore much abused, for there are persons who will ever and anon malign that which is above their comprehension.

It is just possible that the weather may sometimes become too cold in the winter for open-air exercise; but the winter of 1890-1891, with its occasional snow-storms, its alternating days of rain and clear sunshine, was an almost ideal one for the rambler. There were times when the woods were clad in robes more beautiful than the green of spring or the brown of autumn; when I was compelled to exclaim with a Scottish poet,—

“Now is the time

To visit Nature in her grand attire.”

I mean those days when every twig and branch was “ridged inch-deep with pearl,” making the woodland a perfect network of marble shafts and columns.

As to the feathered tenants of the woods, they were almost as light-hearted and gay as in the season of sunshine and flowers, save that they were not so prolific of song. Quite a number of interesting species were the constant companions of my winter loiterings, and several of them occasionally regaled me with snatches of melody. Among our winter songsters is the hardy Carolina wren. On December and January days when the weather was quite cold, his vigorous bugle echoed through the woods, Chil-le-lu, chil-le-lu, or, Che-wish-year, che-wish-year, giving one the feeling that at least one brave little heart was not discouraged on account of the dismal moaning of the wintry storm. He is every inch a hero, and I wonder Emerson did not celebrate his praise as well as that of the black-capped chickadee, in verse. The wren is somewhat more of a recluse than most of my winter intimates. He has not been quite as sociable as I should have liked. Whether it was modesty or selfishness that made him a sort of eremite could not be determined. Most of his contemporaries, such as the chickadees, kinglets, nuthatches, and woodpeckers, prefer to go in straggling flocks; so that, as soon as I see one bird or hear his call, I feel sure that he is simply the sentinel of a bevy of feathered tilters and coasters at my elbow. No, they do not believe in monasteries or nunneries; they do not believe that it is good for a bird to be alone, whatever may be said of man or woman. Listen to that kinglet, the malapert, hanging head-downward on a spray and making his disclaimer: “No, sir, we birds are sociable beings, as men are, and like to hold commerce with one another. What good would it do to sing so sweetly or tilt so gracefully were there no auditors or spectators to admire our performances?” And all his plumed comrades cry, “Aye! aye!” by way of emphatic endorsement.

The division of these tenants of the woods into communities or colonies is a matter of unique interest to the ornithologist. For instance, there seemed to be at least two of these groups, one dwelling chiefly in the eastern part of the woodland not far from a farm-house, and the other occupying the western part. Sometimes, too, another community was found in the partly cleared section at the northern extremity of one arm of the timber belt. These several groups reminded one of the nomadic tribes of Oriental countries, who rove from one locality to another within certain loosely defined boundaries. True, it is merely a matter of speculation; but I have often wondered if feuds and jealousies ever arise among these various feathered tribes, as is so conspicuously the case in the human world. I doubt it very much, for my woodland birds dwell together in comparative harmony, and are not half so quarrelsome and envious as many communities of men and women. Bird nature is evidently not so depraved as human nature. Perhaps, as the birds had no direct hand in the first transgression, the curse did not fall so blightingly upon them.

My western bird colony were somewhat erratic in their movements. During December and the first week in January I found them almost invariably in a secluded part of the woods about half-way between the northern and southern extremities; but when, about the middle or possibly the twentieth of January, I visited the haunt, not a bird of any description could be found. Had all of them gone to other climes? I felt a pang as the thought came. But there was no occasion for solicitude. Near the southern terminus of the woods, although still in a dense portion of them, the colony had taken up a temporary abode. Here they remained for over a week, and then, on the twenty-ninth of the month, which was a rainy day, they shifted back to their old tryst, while scarcely a bird was to be found in the locality they had just left. Thus by caprice, or on account of the exigencies of food, they oscillated from place to place.

There were some birds here all winter that were not found during the previous winter—that of 1889-1890. The golden-crowned kinglet was one. Every day, rain or shine, warm or cold, he flitted about so cheerfully and with so innocent an air that I often spoke to him as if he were a real person; and he appreciated my words of praise, too, without doubt, for he would come scurrying near, disporting his head so that I could catch the gleam of his amber coronal, with its golden patch for a centre-piece. Then there was that quaint little genius, the brown creeper, hugging the trunks of the trees and saplings, and tracing the gullies of the bark as he sought for such food as he relished. See him turn his cunning head from side to side to peer under a loose scale!

Among my most pleasant winter companions were the black-capped chickadees or tomtits. Not for anything would I cast a reflection upon these engaging birds, but candor compels me to say that they seem to be somewhat fickle; that is, I cannot always tell where to find them, or if they will let themselves be found at all. Early in the spring of last year they made their appearance in these woods, remaining a week or more, and then were not seen until about the middle of August. Again they disappeared, returning in October, and then hied away once more and did not come back until January. Besides, at one time they associated with the eastern colony of birds and at another with the western. Like some “featherless bipeds,”—Lowell’s expression,—they seemed to be of a roving disposition. A winter ago they occasionally stirred the elves and brownies of the woodland into transports by their sweet, sad minor whistle, but this winter they were provokingly chary of their musical performances.

For ever-presentness, however, both summer and winter, the crested titmice and white-breasted nuthatches bear off the palm. Many droll tricks they perform. One day in January a titmouse scurried from the ground into a sapling; he held a large grain of corn between his mandibles, and, after flitting about a few moments, hopped to a dead branch that lay across the twigs, and deftly pushed the grain into the end of the bough. I stepped closer, when he tried to secure the hidden morsel; but my presence frightened him away, and I climbed the sapling, drew the broken branch toward me, and peered into the splintered end; yes, there was the grain of corn wedged firmly into a crevice. The provident little fellow! He had secreted the morsel for a stormy day when it would be impossible to procure food on the ground. If Solomon had watched these thrifty, industrious birds, as they pursue their untiring quest for food, he doubtless would have written in his Proverbs: “Go to the titmouse, thou sluggard; consider his ways, and be wise.”

Associated with the titmice, kinglets, and nuthatches were the downy woodpeckers, which belong to the artisan family of the bird community, being hammerers, drillers, and chisellers all combined. They pursue their chosen calling most sedulously. “What’s the use of having a vocation if you don’t follow it?” you may almost hear them say as they cant their heads to one side and peep under the bark for a tidbit, or hammer vigorously at a crevice in which a worm is embedded. The hairy woodpeckers, which are somewhat larger, are more erratic in their movements, none having been seen from the autumn until the latter part of January. At this date I heard their loud, nervous Chi-i-i-r-r, as they dashed from tree to tree apparently in great excitement.

I cannot forbear contrasting this winter with the previous one. In the winter of 1889-1890 the song-sparrows never left us at all, but sang on almost every pleasant day when I went to the woods or marsh; but this winter, which was somewhat colder, they went to other climes, and left the fringes of the pools and the thickets in the swamp tenantless, songless, and desolate. In 1889-1890 the cardinal grossbeaks whistled every month, making the woods ring even in January; this winter not a single note was heard from their resonant throats. I had just begun to fear that the pair which had greeted me so frequently the previous winter had been slaughtered by some caterer to the shameful fashions of the day, when, on the twenty-eighth of January, I was gladdened by the sight of them in company with several of their relatives or acquaintances and a bevy of tree-sparrows. Where had the grossbeaks been since November? And if they had gone south, why did they return from their visit so early in the season? Or perhaps a still more pertinent inquiry would be, Why had they gone away at all? It is difficult, however, to explain grossbeak caprice or ratiocination.

What do the birds do when it rains? No doubt, when the rain pours in torrents, they find plenty of coverts in the thick bushes or in the cavities of trees; but when the rain falls gently, and I make my way to their haunts, as I often do, they flit about as industriously as ever in their quest for food, only stopping now and then to shake the pearly drops from their water-proof cloaks. In such humid weather the wood-choppers in the forest—the human ones—stop their work and seek shelter. Not so these feathered workers, who gayly continue their playful toil, and exclaim exultingly, “Isn’t this a jolly rain?”

In another chapter mention has been made of the provident habits of certain birds, especially the titmice and nuthatches, in laying by a winter store. As if to confirm what has been said, one winter day a nuthatch went scudding up and down the trunk of a large oak-tree at the border of the woods. Presently he cried, Yank! yank! as if to announce a discovery. Then he pecked and pried with all his might, until at length he drew a grain of corn out of a crevice of the bark, placed it in a shallow pocket on the other side of the tree, and began to pick it to pieces, swallowing the fragments as he broke them off. When this grain had been disposed of, he found another, and then another, until his hunger seemed to be appeased, when he darted off into the woods.

Other pedestrians and observers may differ from me both in temperament and habits, but to my mind nothing could be more delightful than a ramble in a snow-storm. Let the wind blow a gale from the west, driving the cold pellets blindingly into your face, and trying to rob you of your overcoat and cap; yet, if you have the spirit of the genuine rambler, your blood will tingle with delight, as well as with a sense of masterly overcoming, as you plod along; while you feel that every fierce gust that strikes you is only one of Nature’s love-taps,—a little rough, it is true, but for that very reason all the more expressive of affection. Stalking forth into the teeth of a winter storm develops the hardy traits of character, and puts the ingredients from which heroes are made into the pulsing veins. Many a time, as I have pushed my way triumphantly through the pelting wind, I have answered with a shout of joy Emerson’s vigorous challenge,—

“Come see the north wind’s masonry.

Out of an unseen quarry, evermore

Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer

Carves his white bastions with projected roof

Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.”

My winter saunterings have never been solitary, although often taken in haunts “far from human neighborhood.” The birds have afforded me all the companionship I have really craved. One is never lonely when one can see the flutter of a wing or hear the calls of the blithe commoners of the wildwood. When your soul is fretted by the daily round of strifes and jealousies in the human world, you can hie to the woods, and learn a lesson of conciliation from the example of the loving fellowship that exists in the bird community. I have often been shamed by this constant display of amity among many feathered folk, when I thought of the childish bickerings of men in church and state.

But moralizing aside, I must describe the behavior of my little winter friends, the tree-sparrows. They are the hardiest birds that spend the winter in my neighborhood, disdaining to seek shelter in the thick woods during the most violent snow-storm. Even the snowbirds, whose very name is a synonym for toughness, are glad to seek a covert in some secluded forest nook; but the tree-sparrows choose the clearing at the border of the woodland, where the wind howls loudest and blows the snow in wild eddies. Here they revel in the storm, flitting from twig to twig, hopping on the snow-covered ground as if it were a carpet of down, and picking seeds from grass-stems and weed-stalks. All the while they keep up a cheerful chirping, as if to express their appreciation of the pleasant winter weather.

Strangest of all is their wading about in the snow. It makes me shiver to see their little bare feet sinking into the icy crystals, and I feel disposed to offer them my warm rubber boots; only I know they would decline the proposal with scorn. “I am no tenderfoot!” one of them seems to say, with cunning literalness. Their dainty tracks in the snow are suggestive, and give to the thoughtful observer more than one clew to bird cerebration. Let us follow one of these winding pathways. Here a bird alighted, his feet sinking deep into the cold down; then he hopped along to this tuft of grass, where he picked a few mouthfuls of seeds, standing up to his body in the snow; then an impulse seized him to seek another feeding-place; so he went plunging through the drifts, leaving, at regular intervals, the prints of his two tiny feet side by side, while his toes traced a slender connecting line on the white surface between the deeper indentations. But here is another path. What impulse seized this bird to turn back like a rabbit on his track? For it is evident that this is sometimes done. Then here are only two or three footprints, showing that the bird alighted suddenly, and as suddenly yielded to an impulse to fly up again. What thought struck him just at that moment that made him so quickly change his mind?

At one point I traced a path which bore evidence of having been used a number of times for a long distance, as it wound here and there in an extremely sinuous course among the bushes and briers. Probably it was a sparrow-trail, if not a thoroughfare, and had been used by many birds. In more than one place were small hollows in the snow, just large enough for a bird’s body to wallow in. Usually they were at the terminus of one of these thoroughfares. Might the birds have tarried there to take a snow-bath? I have seen birds taking pool-baths, shower-baths, dew-baths, and dust-baths. Who will say they never take a snow-bath?

Next to the tree-sparrows, the juncos delight to hold carnival in the snow; but their behavior in this element is somewhat different: they are not so fond of hopping about in it, and do not plait such a network of tracks among the bushes. They will fly from a perch directly to the ground near a weed-stalk or other cluster of dainties, and stand quietly in the snow up to their little bodies while they take their luncheon. Sometimes their white breasts rest on the surface of the snow, or in a slight depression of it, when they look as if they were sitting in a nest of crystals.

The eighth of January was a cold day; in a little opening in the midst of the woods was a covey of snowbirds, and, incredible as it may seem, several of them stood in the selfsame tracks in the snow, so long that my own feet actually got frost-bitten while I watched them, although I wore three pairs of socks—this is an honest confession—and a pair of warm rubber boots. More than that, they thrust their beaks into the snow and ate of it quite greedily. What wonderful reserves of caloric must be wrapped up in their small bodies to enable them to keep themselves comfortable in winter with never a mouthful of warm victuals or drink! That the birds should thrive and be happy in the spring and summer is no matter of surprise; but it remains for the lover of out-door life in the winter to prove that many of them are just as cheerful and content when the mercury has taken a jaunt to some point far below zero.

The student of Nature cannot always be in the same mood. Indeed, Nature herself is, at times, as whimsical, apparently, as the human heart. There are times when she seems quite stolid, keeping her precious secrets all to herself, as if her lips had been hermetically sealed. With all your coaxing and hoaxing and flattery, you cannot win from her a response. Emerson, in one of his poems, speaks about the forms of Nature dulling the edge of the mind with their monotony; and this sometimes seems to be the case. Yet I must protest at once that it is not generally true. There are days when Nature fairly bubbles over with good cheer, and grows talkative and even confidential, responding to every touch of the rambler as a well-strung harp responds to the touch of a skilful player. It is difficult to account for her changeable moods, but obviously they are not always to be traced only to the mind of the observer.

During the winter of 1891-1892 many a tramp was taken to the homes of the birds; and let me whisper that there were days when even they seemed to be dull and commonplace. That is a frank concession for a bird-lover to make, but it is the truth. Sometimes these feathered actors have behaved in the most ordinary way, failing to perform a single trick that I had not seen a score of times before, and I have actually gone home without making a single entry in my note-book. But it has not always been so. There, for example, was the twenty-second of January; what an eventful day it was! The morning of the twenty-first had been very cold, the mercury having sunk, probably in a fit of despair, to fourteen degrees below zero. During the day, however, the weather grew considerably warmer; and when the twenty-second came, bright and clear, though still cold, one could take a jaunt with some comfort. The sun shone from a cloudless sky, and having put on my warm rubber boots, I waded out through the deep snow to the woods. The severe weather had not discouraged the jolly juncos and tree-sparrows, or driven them to a warmer climate. They delight in cold weather; it seems to make them all the merrier. They were flitting about in the bushes and trees, chirping gayly, or, like myself, were wading in the snow, although they had no woollen stockings for their little feet, much less warm rubber boots. What hardy creatures they are! For long distances I could trace their dainty tracks in the snow, winding in and out among the bushes and weeds, and making many a graceful curve, loop, angle, and labyrinth. By following these little paths, as has been said before, you may trace the thoughts of a bird,—that is, you may for the time become a bird mind-reader, interpreting every impulse that seized the throbbing little brain and breast.

While watching these birds in the woods, I observed a new freak of bird deportment. The juncos would fly up into the dogwood-trees, pick off a berry, nibble it greedily a moment with their little white mandibles, and then fling it to the ground. My eye was especially fixed on one little epicure. Presently he found a berry that was juicy and quite to his taste, and what did he do but seize it in his beak and dash down into the snow, where he stood leg-deep in the icy crystals until he had eaten his blood-red tidbit! He was in no hurry, but slowly picked the berry to pieces, flinging it again and again into the snow, devouring the soft red pulp and throwing the rind and seed away. He must have stood for fully five minutes in the same tracks; at all events, it seemed a long while to me, standing stock-still in the snow, watching him eat his cold luncheon, while my feet were becoming chilled. I should have pitied his little feet had he not seemed so utterly indifferent to the cold. Afterward I saw a number of juncos, as well as tree-sparrows, taking their dinner in a similar way,—that is, on the snow, which seemed to serve them for a table-cloth. Having eaten the pulp of the berries, they left the pits and scarlet rinds lying on top of the snow. Crumbs they were, scattered about by these precious children of the woods! In this respect the snowbirds and tree-sparrows differ from the crested titmice, which reject the pulp of the dogwood berries entirely, but bore out the kernel of the pit and eat it with a relish. And as to the gluttonous robins, bluebirds, woodpeckers, and waxwings, they swallow these berries whole. Every citizen of Birdville to his own taste, so I say.

In the corn-field adjoining the woods I witnessed another little scene that filled me with delight. At some distance I perceived a snowbird eating seeds from the raceme of a tall weed, which bent over in a graceful arc beneath its dainty burden. Apparently he was enjoying his repast all to himself. I climbed the fence, and cautiously went nearer to get a better view of the little diner-out. What kind of discovery do you suppose I made? I could scarcely believe my eyes. There, beneath the weed, hopping about on the snow, were a tree-sparrow and a junco, picking up the seeds that their little companion above was shaking down. It was such a pretty little comedy that I laughed aloud for pure delight. It seemed for all the world like a boy in an apple-tree shaking down the mellow fruit for his playmates, who were gathering it from the ground as it fell. It was a pity to disturb the birds at their festivities, and I felt like a bully for doing so; but in the interest of science, you see, I had to drive them away to see what kind of table they had spread. Beneath the weed the snow was etched with dainty bird-tracks, and thickly strewn with black seeds from the raceme of the weed-stalk.

Farther on in the woods, another cunning little junco proved himself no lay figure. It seemed, in fact, to be a junco day. When I first espied him, he was standing in the snow beneath a slender weed-stem eating seeds from his white table-cloth. But the curious feature about his behavior was that, whenever his supply of seeds on the snow had been picked up, he would dart up to the weed-stem (which was too slender to afford him a comfortable perch), give it a vigorous shake, which would bring down a quantity of seeds, and then he would flit below and resume his meal. This he did several times. I should not have believed a junco gifted with so much sense had not my own eyes witnessed this cunning performance. Had some other observer told the story, I should have laughed at it a little slyly and more than half unbelievingly; but, of course, one cannot gainsay the evidence of one’s own eyesight.

Nothing in all my winter rambles has surprised me more than the evident delight some species of birds take in the snow. It is a sort of luxury to them, wading-ground and feasting-ground all in one. How they keep their little bare feet from becoming chilblained is a mystery. The evening of the twentieth of January was bitterly cold, the wind blowing in fierce, howling gusts from the northwest. Yet when, at about five o’clock, I stalked out to the pond in the rear of my house, the tree-sparrows and song-sparrows were fairly revelling, not to say wallowing, in the snow among the weeds. The wind was so biting that I soon hurried back to the house, and left them to their midwinter carousal.

Quite a respectable colony of flickers found a home during the winter in my favorite woodland. Unlike the other birds mentioned, they do not wade about in the snow. No; to their minds, a bare tree-wall is the desideratum for a tramping-ground; and if they need more exercise than promenading affords them, they can take to wing and go bounding from one part of the woods to another. A flicker is a staid bird when he doesn’t happen to be in a playful mood. You would have laughed at one in December which was clinging to a branch high up in a tree with his head right in front of a woodpecker hole, over which he seemed to be standing guard. There he clung, as if that hollow contained the most precious treasure, and would not desert his post, although I leaped about on the ground, shouted loudly, and even flung my cap in the air like a wild man, to frighten him away. How comical he looked in his rÔle of sentinel! He never smiled or even winked, but left such trifling to the human scatter-brain below, who was so ill-mannered as to laugh at a well-behaved woodpecker. Perhaps he had a winter store of food stowed away in that cavity, and thought he had to guard it well, now that a real brigand had come prowling about the premises.

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