BIRDS AND SEASONS

 

BIRDS AND SEASONS

Story

Before a leaf unfolds or a flower spreads its petals, even before the buds swell, and while yet there is snow on the ground, the birds tell us that spring is at hand. The Song Sparrow sings "Spring, spring, spring, sunny days are here"; the Meadowlark blows his fife, the Downy rattles his drum, and company after company of Grackles in glistening black coats, and of Red-wings with scarlet epaulets, go trooping by. For the succeeding three months, in orderly array, the feathered army files by, each member of it at his appointed time whether he comes from the adjoining State or from below the equator. Besides the Blackbirds, March brings the Robin and Bluebird, Woodcock, Phœbe, Meadowlark, Cowbird, Kingfisher, Mourning Dove, Fox, Swamp, White-throated and Field Sparrows. Near New York City the New Year of the birds has now passed its infancy and in April each day adds perceptibly to its strength. 'Pussy' willows "creep out along each bough,"

 skunk cabbage rears its head in low, wet woods, and in sun-warmed places early wild flowers peep from beneath the sodden leaves. With swelling ranks the migratory army moves more steadily northward. Species which arrived late in March become more numerous, and to them are soon added the Vesper, Savannah, and Chipping Sparrows, and other seed-eaters; and when, with increasing warmth, insects appear, the pioneer Phœbe is followed by other insect-eating birds, like the Swallows, Pipit, Hermit Thrush,

 Myrtle and Palm Warblers, Louisiana Water-thrush and Ruby-crowned Kinglet. The true bird student will now pass every available moment afield, eagerly watching for the return of old friends and more eagerly still for possible new ones. But enjoyment of this yearly miracle should not be left only to the initiated. We need not be ornithologists to be thrilled when the Robin's song in March awakes long silent echoes, or the 

Thrasher's solo rings loud and clear on an April morning. The Catbird singing from near his last year's home in the thickening shrubbery, the House Wren whose music bubbles over between bustling visits to an oft-used bird-box, the Chimney Swift twittering cheerily from an evening sky, may be heard without even the effort of listening and each one, with a hundred others, brings us a message if we will but accept it. And I make no fanciful statement when I say that it is a message we can ill afford to lose.

          "RED-WINGS WITH SCARLET EPAULETS GO TROOPIN BY"

With May come the Thrushes—Wood Thrush, Veery, Olive-back and Gray-cheek, the last two-en route to the north—the Orioles, Cuckoos, Vireos, and the Bobolink who began his four thousand mile journey from northern Argentina in March. But May is preeminently the Month of Warblers, "most beautiful, most abundant, and least known" of our birds. To the eight species which have already arrived, there may be added over twenty more, represented by a number of individuals beyond our power to estimate. We may hear the Robin, Thrasher, and Wren, without listening, but we will see few Warblers without looking; and this, in a measure, accounts for the fascination which attends their study. After May 15 there is an evident thinning in the ranks of the migrating army, and by June 1 we shall see only a few stragglers. The Transient Visitors will have gone to their more northern homes and our bird population will then consist only of the ever present Permanent Residents and the Summer Residents which the great northward march of the birds has brought us from the South. Although June may be called the Month of Nests, nest-building begins long before the migration ends. Some Owls and Hawks lay in March, and the Bluebird, White-breasted Nuthatch and Robin have eggs by April 20, while most of our birds go to housekeeping during the latter half of May. Nevertheless, it is in June that their domestic life is at its height; and to the student of birds' habits this is by far the most interesting month in the year.

                                  

TREE SWALLOWS . . .

 RESTING IN ROWS ON WAYSID

       WIRES         

Birds that raise two or even three broods will still be occupied with household affairs in July, but one-brooded birds, having launched their families, will seek retirement to undergo the trying ordeal of molt, whereby they will get a complete new costume. Often this will be quite unlike the one in which they arrived from the South—as the student will discover, sometimes to his confusion! In August, the Month of Molt, the seclusion sought by many of our summer birds induces the belief that they have left us, but toward the latter part of the month they reappear. The first week in August virtually marks the end of the song season. The Wood Pewee and Red-eyed Vireo remain in voice throughout the month, but the great chorus which has made May, June and most of July vocal, we shall not hear before another spring—so short is the time when we are blessed by the songs of birds. Meanwhile the feathered army has begun its retreat to winter quarters. As early as July 15, Tree Swallows will arrive and by the end of the month will be seen resting in rows on wayside telegraph wires, or en route to their roosts in the marshes. In the now heavily leaved forests the returning Warblers and Flycatchers will not be so easily observed as they were in May, but in September they become too abundant to be overlooked. The southward movement grows in strength until late September, when the greater part of the insect-eating birds have left us, and it is terminated by the frosts, and consequent falling leaves, of October. But just as in the spring some of the northbound migrants drop from the ranks to spend the summer with us, so in the fall some of the southbound travelers will remain with us for the winter. The Junco, which we are wont to think of as only a winter bird, arrives the latter part of September to remain until April, and with him come the Golden-crowned Kinglet, Brown Creeper and Winter Wren—all to stay until spring. October will bring the Horned Lark, Pine Finch, Snow Bunting, Tree Sparrow and Northern Shrike and these birds with the ones just mentioned, and the ever faithful Permanent Residents, give us a goodly winter company. But the possibilities do not end here; there may be Redpolls, American and also White-winged Crossbills, perhaps Pine Grosbeaks, and, best of all, Evening Grosbeaks, who of recent years have been coming to us more or less regularly from no man knows where. So from one year's end to the other, there is not a month, a week or day which has not interests of its own. The bird student may pass his life in one place, but he can never say "I have finished" for the morrow may bring some new bird or new fact. How immeasurably this association with the birds adds to the joy of life! What new meanings their comings and goings give to the changing seasons; the very air is made eloquent by their calls and songs.

By Waqas Ashraf