Читать книгу Birds and Nature Vol. 9 No. 4 [April 1901] - Various - Страница 7

An isolated orchard certainly comes very near being an inner sanctuary of bird life. For some reason or other, the gnarled old trees and matted June grass touch either the practical or artistic sense of bird nature very closely, and appeal strongly to many a bird heart, for therein do congregate all sorts and conditions of feathered life. Probably it is an exceptional feeding-ground, for the curled and misshapen leaves testify to the abundance of the hairy caterpillar and leaf-worm supply, which proves such delectable tidbit to the bird palate. When I see the birds feasting upon these unsavory looking morsels, I can but wonder at the unregenerate farmer who so loudly decries the bird as a fruit-destroyer, when a few hours’ observation will teach him that to one cherry stolen there are a hundred tree destroyers gobbled up, and a thousand weed seeds devoured. It is Wilson Flagg who so curtly says:

“The fact, not yet understood in America, that the birds which are the most mischievous as consumers of fruit are the most useful as destroyers of insects, is well known by all the farmers of Europe; and while we destroy the birds to save the fruit, and sometimes cut down the fruit trees to starve the birds, the Europeans more wisely plant them for their sustenance and accommodation.”

Our orchard is surrounded by a fence of weather-stained chestnut rails, whose punctured surface has been the scene of many a worm tragedy resulting in the survival of the fittest. We enter through a pair of lichen-covered bars, grey-tinted and sobered by age. How far less picturesque is our field and hedgerow when inclosed by that inhuman human invention, a barbed-wire fence, and trim swing gate. To be neat and up to date, is never to be picturesque, and seldom to be artistic. But our quiet entrance into the orchard has caused something of a disturbance among the inhabitants, if no great alarm. Fluttering hastily to a convenient tree top goes a dainty red-eyed vireo, who seems to me to have more of a grey than olive gleam to his shining back. As he alights upon the topmost bough —

but to show that he is in no way seriously alarmed he flings down to us some sweet notes of liquid song. It is Wilson Flagg, I believe, that has dubbed him the Preacher, but to me he seems more correctly termed the Lover, for I can but interpret his accentuated notes into “Sweet Spirit, Sweet – Sweet – Spirit,” a continuous cry, as it were, of loving eulogy to the devoted little wife who is so carefully hidden in her pocket nest in a distant thorn tree. But all of this time we understand his clever machinations, as he carefully leads us in an opposite direction by his song allurements. He flits from tree to tree with a naive turn and flutter, keeping upon us all the time, an eye alert and keen, until he deems us at a safe distance enough to be left to our own clumsy device, when, with a quick turn, he wheels backward to the starting-point, and we hear a triumphant praise call to the beloved “Sweet Spirit.” Near a corner of the old orchard where there are great bunches of Elder and Sumach, we hear vehemently stitching, a busy little Maryland yellow throat, doing up his summer song work with an energetic “Stitch-a-wiggle, Stitch-a-wiggle, Stitch-a-wiggle, stitch ’em,” the “stitch ’em” brought out with such emphatic force that it seems the last satisfactory utterance of a work accomplished. His pert vivacity has been most delightfully illustrated by Ernest Seton-Thompson, in Frank Chapman’s “Bird Life,” and I am sure the snap-shot caught him on his last accentuated “stitch ’em.” Dr. Abbot tells us that these busy little people usually build their nests in the skunk cabbage plants, indicating that they must have an abnormal odor sense, but perhaps they allow their sense of safety to overcome their sense of smell. However, this pair of yellow-throats have built instead, among some thickly matted Elders, just above the ground.

Another fact that favors our orchard in bird minds, is its close proximity to a thickly foliaged ravine which affords such delightful security to feathered people. It is also a charming background for our sunny orchard, filled in below, as it is, with tall, ghostly stalks of black cohosh gleaming white in the shadows.

Near by, upon a bit of high ground, quivers a group of prim American aspens, the pale green of their bark gleaming against the dark shadows of a hemlock hedge. As we look at them, not a leaf is in motion, when all of a sudden one little leaf begins to gesticulate frantically, throwing itself about with violent wildness, then another leaf catches the enthusiasm of the soft summer air, then another, and another until all of the trees are a mass of gesticulating, seething little serrated atoms, for all the world like a congregation of human beings, vociferating, demonstrating, or contradicting some poor little human leaf that has dared to be moved by some passing thought in advance of his fellow kind. Darting through the quivering foliage comes a gleam of fire, which resolves itself into a scarlet tanager who calls to us, “look-see,” demanding our attention to his bright beauty, remembering possibly that his brilliant coloring is but a thing of short duration, for too soon will come winter and plain clothes. Perched upon a fence rail, but somewhat out of place in this shady corner, sits a blatant meadow lark, about whose golden breast is hung a gleaming neck chain and locket of shining black feathers, of which, from the pert poise of his head, we deem him justly proud, and he is at least a conspicuous spot of color against the green of the hillside. He eyes us impertinently as he inconsistently but musically calls to us, “You-can’t-see-me, You-can’t-see-me,” in the face of the most contradictory evidence of his own conspicuousness, varying his song to “Erie-lake-Erie,” with every other breath. As a child I used to wonder who taught him the name of the great lake on whose borders he makes his summer home. But to other people, other interpretations, for to Neltje Blanchan he says “Spring-o’-the-year, spring-o’-the-year,” and to Frank Chapman his song is a bar of high, trilling notes. Sing on, you wary warbler, for we have not time to search out your carefully hidden nest among the timothy grasses of the distant meadow, for we know that it would be like looking for the pearl in the oyster, so carefully is it concealed among the dried grasses, but which snakes and field mice depredate so effectually. In the distant valley we hear the soft echo of the Italian liquids of the wood thrush’s “A-o-le-le, a-oa-o-le.” Shy little songster, who so sweetly trills to us long after his feathered kind have tucked their busy little bills away in soft wings. Across the orchard comes the romantic “Coo-coo-coo-coo,” sometimes interpreted into “I-thou-thou-thou,” of the purple plumaged mourning dove, starting out on a high minor and softly falling to a low contralto. There are no more delightful representatives of romantic bird love, than these birds illustrate. More frequently than in any other species you see the devoted pair going about together, on the telegraph wire, on the tree top, on the wing, always together, undulating their graceful necks with marked devotion. Many a bird lover has criticised Mr. Dove for his remarkable fondness for a lady who is a so decidedly slack housekeeper, and who is satisfied with so shiftless a nest in which to deposit the two white eggs, for the few carelessly thrown together sticks can prove anything but a bed of down to the tender bird babies. However, perhaps these romantic birds consider that “love is enough” as they follow Le Gallienne’s refrain of: