Читать книгу Outings At Odd Times - Abbott Charles Conrad - Страница 3

It is a common impression, I find, that when the Northern song-birds come in autumn from Canada to the Middle and Southern States, they leave their music behind them, and during their sojourn here they only chirp and twitter at best, and far oftener are moody and silent. This absurdity is not readily explained, unless it be that lovers of birds are persistently indoors from November until May. I do not pretend to say that a keen, cold, frosty morning is rendered the more charming by reason of the best efforts of the winter wren, purple finch, or white-crowned sparrow, but that not one of them is necessarily mute because the mercury is down to zero. Indeed, temperature alone seems to have almost nothing to do with the movements or habits generally of our birds, either the resident or migratory species. All depends upon the food-supply, and a feast in winter is followed by a merry heart as surely as a successful wooing in May results in ecstatic song. I think this is borne out by the fact that during the present season – as yet winter only in name – there has been really less activity and disposition on the part of all our birds to sing than when we have had snow and ice in abundance. I worked my way recently through a tangled, trackless bit of swamp, and, while climbing over the prostrate trunk of a huge tree, startled a winter wren as it crept from beneath a smaller log near by. It seemed as astonished that I should have ventured so far from the open meadow as I was to see any bird less mopish than an owl. The wren stood contemplating me for at least one minute – a long time for a wren to remain in one spot – and then gave vent to its astonishment by, not a chirp, but a short series of sweet notes, that well repaid me for my recent labors. Then, darting into the thicket, the wren was gone, but I was not left alone. At the same moment, a troop of tree-sparrows settled upon the clustered water-birches, and their united voices rose to the dignity of a bird’s song. Such it evidently was intended to be, for the chattering of birds, when they merely chirp or twitter – which is but their conversation – is never so softly modulated, but pitched in a hundred different keys. This became noticeable directly afterward, for the birds scattered among the undergrowth, and the short, quick utterances that I soon continually heard bore no resemblance to the two or three notes, which, before they had separated, they uttered in concert.

And as I returned home, while crossing a wide meadow where the rank grasses afforded excellent cover, I found many small brown birds that ran through them as aimlessly as frightened mice; they were titlarks, as it proved. None sang until I was near at hand, when one after the other rose a short distance from the ground, flew a few feet, and uttered, while on the wing, a sharp, but bell-like note that was truly musical. Another and another started up, at almost every step, but only to alight again directly. At times there were four or five in sight at once, and then their united voices sounded sweetly in the still air. Quickening my steps, the flock finally rose in a body, and, so fitful and irregular was their progress, had there been a stiff breeze at the time they might have been mistaken for drifting autumn leaves. I need not pursue this feature of winter bird life further, so far as the migratory species are concerned; but a word with reference to those birds which are here throughout the year – the resident species. The robin, Carolina wren, song-sparrow, and thistle-bird sing, I am sure, with unabated ardor, in spite of the cold. A miserably damp, foggy, or even windy day has a depressing effect, and at such a time I usually find the woods, meadows, and the river shore quite silent, unless, indeed, there be crows in abundance. During the last week in January, 1889, when much of the time there was a chilly northwest wind and often a clouded sky, the song-sparrows thronged the willow hedges, and sang their May-day melodies. I heard them soon after sunrise, at midday, and once after the sun had gone down and it was fast growing dark.

There is yet another feature of bird music which is characteristic of winter – the singing of passing flocks when high in the air. Day after day, of late, soon after sunrise, a merry company of bluebirds fly over the house, and each one sings as he passes by. Toward sunset they return to the cedar and pine woods across the river, and then, too, they may be heard. Their movements are as regular as those of the crows that roost somewhere in the same neighborhood. I have often failed to see them, they flew at so great an elevation, but their song is not to be confounded with that of any other bird; nor are they like the chats – ventriloquists. Somewhere in the upper regions they were floating along, and their music, drifting earthward, brightens the winter landscape until we think of early spring. But the bluebirds are not always so unsociable. There is a rick of cornstalks not far away, about which I find a pair almost daily, and did not the pestiferous house-sparrows worry them so much, I am sure they would sing more frequently. They appear to realize that their songs may be heard, and so bring down upon them an attack; so, if they warble at all, it is very softly, as though not quite discouraged, and hopeful of better times. They have held their little fort, however, since early autumn, and I am in hopes will outwit their enemies when nesting time arrives.

No, it is not true that the country is desolate, even in midwinter. I heard a bluebird sing during the great storm of March, 1888, and since then have been hopeful, although for more than one mile, during my recent outings, comparative silence reigned. And now, what of to-day, the last one of the month? I heard the crested tit whistling in the far-off woods before the sun had risen, and not less musical was the distant cawing of the myriad crows that were just leaving their roost. Overhead, in the tops of the tall pines, were nuthatches and chicadees, and shortly after a host of pine finches. They were all fretting, as I fancied, because the wide reaches of meadow near by were still shut from view, but it was not harsh scolding, after all; and as the day brightened, their voices cleared, until later, when the birds had scattered among the hedges, they all sang sweetly; for at such a time the ear is not critical, and even the plaint of the nuthatch is not out of tune. On and on I walked, expecting in the wilder woods and about the marshy meadows to find birds and birds – many that sang and others that would interest by virtue of their ways. I confidently looked for the host of winter finches and the overstaying herons, but I saw none, heard none. By noon the whole country was sadly silent, and not even a crow passed by. Yet the day was perfect; save a little cooler, it was typical Indian-summer weather. Plant life responded to the inviting sunshine, and I gathered violets and spring beauty. Even the saxifrage shone through the brown leaves, its white buds almost unfolded. It is in vain to conjecture what had become of the birds of the early morning. Let it suffice to say that I was greatly disappointed, and had I not been astir so very early would have been the more sorely puzzled. As it was, the birds had not utterly forsaken us, and proved in their own way and in their own time that midwinter minstrelsy is not a myth.