While this swallow is peculiarly American, it is often confounded with its European cousin Hirundo rustica in noted ornithologies.
Up in the rafters of the barn, or in the arch of an old bridge that spans a stream, these swallows build their bracket-like nests of clay or mud pellets intermixed with straw. Here the noisy little broods pick their way out of the white eggs curiously spotted with brown and lilac that were all too familiar in the marauding days of our childhood.
CLIFF SWALLOW (Petrochelidon lunifrons) Swallow family
Called also: EAVE SWALLOW; CRESCENT SWALLOW; ROCKY MOUNTAIN SWALLOW
Length -- 6 inches. A trifle smaller than the English sparrow. Apparently considerably larger because of its wide wingspread. Male and Female -- Steel-blue above, shading to blue-black on crown of head and on wings and tail. A brownish-gray ring around the neck. Beneath dusty white, with rufous tint. Crescent-like frontlet. Chin, throat, sides of head, and tail coverts rufous. Range -- North and South America. Winters in the tropics. Migrations -- Early April. Late September. Summer resident.
Not quite so brilliantly colored as the barn swallow, nor with tail so deeply forked, and consequently without so much grace in flying, and with a squeak rather than the really musical twitter of the gayer bird, the cliff swallow may be positively identified by the rufous feathers of its tail coverts, but more definitely by its crescent-shaped frontlet shining like a new moon; hence its specific Latin name from luna = moon, and frons = front.
Such great numbers of these swallows have been seen in the far West that the name of Rocky Mountain swallows is sometimes given to them; though however rare they may have been in 1824, when DeWitt Clinton thought he "discovered" them near Lake Champlain, they are now common enough in all parts of the United States.
In the West this swallow is wholly a cliff-dweller, but it has learned to modify its home in different localities. As usually seen, it is gourd-shaped, opened at the top, built entirely of mud pellets ("bricks without straw"), softly lined with feathers and wisps of grass, and attached by the larger part to a projecting cliff or eave.
Like all the swallows, this bird lives in colonies, and the clay-colored nests beneath the eaves of barns are often so close together that a group of them resembles nothing so much as a gigantic wasp's nest. It is said that when swallows pair they are mated for life; but, then, more is said about swallows than the most tireless bird-lover could substantiate. The tradition that swallows fly low when it is going to rain may be easily credited, because the air before a storm is usually too heavy with moisture for the winged insects, upon which the swallows feed, to fly high.
MOURNING DOVE (Zenaidura macroura) Pigeon family
Called also: CAROLINA DOVE; TURTLE DOVE
Length -- 12 to 13 inches. About one-half as large again as the robin. Male -- Grayish brown or fawn-color above, varying to bluish gray. Crown and upper part of head greenish blue, with green and golden metallic reflections on sides of neck. A black spot under each ear. Forehead and breast reddish buff; lighter underneath. (General impression of color, bluish fawn.) Bill black, with tumid, fleshy covering; feet red; two middle tail feathers longest; all others banded with black and tipped with ashy white. Wing coverts sparsely spotted with black. Flanks and underneath the wings bluish. Female -- Duller and without iridescent reflections on neck. Range -- North America, from Quebec to Panama, and westward to Arizona. Most common in temperate climate, east of Rocky Mountains. Migrations -- March. November. Common summer resident not Migratory south of Virginia.
The beautiful, soft-colored plumage of this incessant and rather melancholy love-maker is not on public exhibition. To see it we must trace the a-coo-o, coo-o, coo-oo, coo-o to its source in the thick foliage in some tree in an out-of-the-way corner of the farm, or to an evergreen near the edge of the woods. The slow, plaintive notes, more like a dirge than a love-song, penetrate to a surprising distance. They may not always be the same lovers we hear from April to the end of summer, but surely the sound seems to indicate that they are. The dove is a shy bird, attached to its gentle and refined mate with a devotion that has passed into a proverb, but caring little or nothing for the society of other feathered friends, and very little for its own kind, unless after the nesting season has passed. In this respect it differs widely from its cousins, the wild pigeons, flocks of which, numbering many millions, are recorded by Wilson and other early writers before the days when netting these birds became so fatally profitable.
What the dove finds to adore so ardently in the "shiftless housewife," as Mrs. Wright calls his lady-love, must pass the comprehension of the phoebe, that constructs such an exquisite home, or of a bustling, energetic Jenny wren, that "looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness." She is a flabby, spineless bundle of flesh and pretty feathers, gentle and refined in manners, but slack and incompetent in all she does. Her nest consists of few loose sticks. without rim or lining; and when her two babies emerge from the white eggs, that somehow do not fall through or roll out of the rickety lattice, their tender little naked bodies must suffer from many bruises. We are almost inclined to blame the inconsiderate mother for allowing her offspring to enter the world unclothed -- obviously not her fault, though she is capable of just such negligence. Fortunate are the baby doves when their lazy mother scatters her makeshift nest on top of one that a robin has deserted, as she frequently does. It is almost excusable to take her young birds and rear them in captivity, where they invariably thrive, mate, and live happily, unless death comes to one, when the other often refuses food and grieves its life away.
In the wild state, when the nesting season approaches, both birds make curious acrobatic flights above the tree-tops; then, after a short sail in midair, they return to their perch. This appears to be their only giddiness and frivolity, unless a dust-bath in the country road might be considered a dissipation.
In the autumn a few pairs of doves show slight gregarious tendencies, feeding amiably together in the grain fields and retiring to the same roost at sundown.
BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER (Polioptila coerulea) Gnatcatcher family
Called also: SYLVAN FLYCATCHER
Length -- 4.5 inches. About two inches smaller than the English sparrow. Male -- Grayish blue above, dull grayish white below. Grayish tips on wings. Tail with white outer quills changing gradually through black and white to all black on centre quills. Narrow black band over the forehead and eyes. Resembles in manner and form a miniature catbird. Female -- More grayish and less blue, and without the black on head. Range -- United States to Canadian border on the north, the Rockies on the west, and the Atlantic States, from Maine to Florida most common in the Middle States. A rare bird north of New Jersey. Winters in Mexico and beyond. Migrations -- May. September. Summer resident.
In thick woodlands, where a stream that lazily creeps through the mossy, oozy ground attracts myriads of insects to its humid neighborhood, this tiny hunter loves to hide in the denser foliage of the upper branches. He has the habit of nervously flitting about from twig to twig of his relatives, the kinglets, but unhappily he lacks their social, friendly instincts, and therefore is rarely seen. Formerly classed among the warblers, then among the flycatchers, while still as much a lover of flies, gnats, and mosquitoes as ever, his vocal powers have now won for him recognition among the singing birds. Some one has likened his voice to the squeak of a mouse, and Nuttall says it is "scarcely louder," which is all too true, for at a little distance it is quite inaudible. But in addition to the mouse-like call-note, the tiny bird has a rather feeble but exquisitely finished song, so faint it seems almost as it the bird were singing in its sleep.
If by accident you enter the neighborhood of its nest, you soon find out that this timid, soft-voiced little creature can be roused to rashness and make its presence disagreeable to ears and eyes alike as it angrily darts about your unoffending head, pecking at your face and uttering its shrill squeak close to your very ear-drums. All this excitement is in defence of a dainty, lichen-covered nest, whose presence you may not have even suspected before, and of four or five bluish-white, speckled eggs well beyond reach in the tree-tops.
During the migrations the bird seems not unwilling to show its delicate, trim little body, that has often been likened to a diminutive mocking-bird's, very near the homes of men. Its graceful postures, its song and constant motion, are sure to attract attention. In Central Park, New York City, the bird is not unknown.
BROWN, OLIVE OR GRAYISH BROWN, AND BROWN AND GRAY SPARROWY BIRDS
House Wren Yellow-billed Cuckoo Carolina Wren Bank Swallow and Winter Wren Rough-winged Swallow Long-billed Marsh Wren Cedar Bird Short-billed Marsh Wren Brown Creeper Brown Thrasher Pine Siskin Wilson's Thrush or Veery Smith's Painted Longspur Wood Thrush Lapland Longspur Hermit Thrush Chipping Sparrow Alice's Thrush English Sparrow Olive-backed Thrush Field Sparrow Louisiana Water Thrush Fox Sparrow Northern Water Thrush Grasshopper Sparrow Flicker Savannah Sparrow Meadowlark and Western Seaside Sparrow Meadowlark Sharp-tailed Sparrow Horned Lark and Prairie Song Sparrow Horned Lark Swamp Song Sparrow Pipit or Titlark Tree Sparrow Whippoorwill Vesper Sparrow Nighthawk White-crowned Sparrow Black-billed Cuckoo White-throated Sparrow
See also winter plumage of the Bobolink, Goldfinch, and Myrtle Warbler. See females of Red-winged Blackbird, Rusty Blackbird, the Grackles, Bobolink, Cowbird, the Redpolls, Purple Finch, Chewink, Bluebird, Indigo Bunting, Baltimore Oriole, Cardinal, and of the Evening, the Blue, and the Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. See also Purple Finch, the Redpolls, Mourning Dove, Mocking-bird, Robin.
BROWN, OLIVE OR GRAYISH BROWN, AND BROWN AND GRAY SPARROWY BIRDS
HOUSE WREN (Troglodytes aedon) Wren family
Length -- 4.5 to 5 inches. Actually about one-fourth smaller than the English sparrow; apparently only half as large because of its erect tail. Male and Female -- Upper parts cinnamon-brown. Deepest shade on head and neck; lightest above tail, which is more rufous. Back has obscure, dusky bars; wings and tail are finely barred. Underneath whitish, with grayish-brown wash and faint bands Most prominent on sides. Range -- North America, from Manitoba to the Gulf. Most common in the United States, from the Mississippi eastward. Winters south of the Carolinas. Migrations -- April October. Common summer resident.
Early some morning in April there will go off under your window that most delightful of all alarm-clocks -- the tiny, friendly house wren, just returned from a long visit south. Like some little mountain spring that, having been imprisoned by winter ice, now bubbles up in the spring sunshine, and goes rippling along over the pebbles, tumbling over itself in merry cascades, so this little wren's song bubbles, ripples, cascades in a miniature torrent of ecstasy.
Year after year these birds return to the same nesting places: a box set up against the house, a crevice in the barn, a niche under the eaves; but once home, always home to them. The nest is kept scrupulously clean; the house-cleaning, like the house-building and renovating, being accompanied by the cheeriest of songs, that makes the bird fairly tremble by its intensity. But however angelic the voice of the house wren, its temper can put to flight even the English sparrow. Need description go further.
Six to eight minutely speckled, flesh-colored eggs suffice to keep the nervous, irritable parents in a state bordering on frenzy whenever another bird comes near their habitation. With tail erect and head alert, the father mounts on guard, singing a perfect ecstasy of love to his silent little mate, that sits upon the nest if no danger threatens; but both rush with passionate malice upon the first intruder, for it must be admitted that Jenny wren is a sad shrew.
While the little family is being reared, or, indeed, at any time, no one is wise enough to estimate the millions of tiny insects from the garden that find their way into the tireless bills of these wrens.
It is often said that the house wren remains at the north all the year, which, though not a fact, is easily accounted for by the coming of the winter wrens just as the others migrate in the autumn, and by their return to Canada when Jenny wren makes up her feather-bed under the eaves in the spring.
CAROLINA WREN (Thryothorus ludovicianus) Wren family
Called also: MOCKING WREN
Length -- 6 inches. Just a trifle smaller than the English sparrow Male and Female -- Chestnut-brown above. A whitish streak, beginning at base of bill, passes through the eye to the nape of the neck. Throat whitish. Under parts light buff-brown Wings and tail finely barred with dark. Range -- United States, from Gulf to northern Illinois and Southern New England. Migrations -- A common resident except at northern boundary of range, where it is a summer visitor.
This largest of the wrens appears to be the embodiment of the entire family characteristics: it is exceedingly active, nervous, and easily excited, quick-tempered, full of curiosity, peeping into every hole and corner it passes, short of flight as it is of wing, inseparable from its mate till parted by death, and a gushing lyrical songster that only death itself can silence. It also has the wren-like preference for a nest that is roofed over, but not too near the homes of men.
Undergrowths near water, brush heaps, rocky bits of woodland, are favorite resorts. The Carolina wren decidedly objects to being stared at, and likes to dart out of sight in the midst of the underbrush in a twinkling while the opera-glasses are being focussed. To let off some of his superfluous vivacity, Nature has provided him with two safety-valves: one is his voice, another is his tail. With the latter he gesticulates in a manner so expressive that it seems to be a certain index to what is passing in his busy little brain -- drooping it, after the habit of the catbird, when he becomes limp with the emotion of his love-song, or holding it erect as, alert and inquisitive, he peers at the impudent intruder in the thicket below his perch.
