Birds and Nature Vol. 11 No. 1 [January 1902]

Birds and Nature Vol. 11 No. 1 [January 1902]
Various

Various

Birds and Nature Vol. 11 No. 1 [January 1902]

A SONG FOR THE NEW YEAR’S EVE

Stay yet, my friends, a moment stay —
Stay till the good old year,
So long companion of our way,
Shakes hands and leaves us here.
Oh stay, oh stay,
One little hour, and then away.

The year, whose hopes were high and strong,
Has now no hopes to wake;
Yet one hour more of jest and song
For his familiar sake.
Oh stay, oh stay,
One mirthful hour, and then away.

The kindly year, his liberal hands
Have lavished all his store.
And shall we turn from where he stands,
Because he gives no more?
Oh stay, oh stay,
One grateful hour, and then away.

Days brightly came and calmly went,
While yet he was our guest;
How cheerfully the week was spent!
How sweet the seventh day’s rest!
Oh stay, oh stay,
One golden hour, and then away.

Even while we sing he smiles his last,
And leaves our sphere behind.
The good old year is with the past;
Oh be the new as kind!
Oh stay, oh stay,
One parting strain, and then away.

    – William Cullen Bryant.

THE GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET

(Regulus satrapa.)

The autumn wanes, and kinglets go,
Sweet-voiced and knightly in their way,
And all the birds our summers know,
They flock and leave us day by day.

    – Frank H. Sweet, “Flocking of the Birds.”
In these pleasing words the poet speaks of the kinglets. Yet his words may hardly apply to the Golden-crowned Kinglet, except in the northernmost part of its range, for it winters from the northern border of the United States southward to the Gulf of Mexico. “Muffled in its thick coat of feathers, the diminutive Goldcrest braves our severest winters, living evidence that, given an abundance of food, temperature is a secondary factor in a bird’s existence.”

But little larger than a hummingbird, though unlike that mite of bird life, it seeks in the cooler air of northern climes a place for its nest. It also breeds throughout the length of the Rocky Mountains and in the Alleghanies as far south as North Carolina.

This tiny and “charming sylvan ornament,” both elegant in dress and graceful in movement, is one of the seven known species of kinglets, of which there are but three that frequent the New World. It is very active while searching for its food. Its colors are such that, as it moves from twig to twig hunting for insects among the leaves, it is frequently hard to locate though its voice may be heard among the tree tops.

Truly the name kinglet – little king – is not a misnomer, for the Golden-crown exhibits a decided character in every motion. It is fearless and though it will occasionally scold an intruder, wren-like, it does not visually resent the presence of man. Often in the forest or even in our city parks a Golden-crowned Kinglet will flash by one’s face and, dropping to the ground, seize an insect or worm that its bright eyes have detected in the grass, even at one’s feet.

Speaking of interesting phases of bird life, Mr. Keyser says, “On the same day my dancing dot in feathers, the Golden-crowned Kinglet, performed one of his favorite tricks, which is not often described in the books. You will remember that in the center of the yellow crown-patch of the males, there is a gleaming golden speck, visible only when you look at him closely. But when the little beau is in a particularly rollicksome mood, or wants to display his gem to his mate or kindred, he elevates and spreads out the feathers of his crest, and lo! a transformation. The whole crown becomes golden! That gleaming speck expands until it completely hides the yellow and black of the crown.” May we not say with Mr. and Mrs. Grinnell that Mr. Golden-crown lifts his hat to Mrs. Golden-crown? We may learn patience and to be satisfied with nature as we find it, if we will study the life of the Golden-crown. It is always happy, always cheerful. Seemingly it flies from bough to bough as contentedly in the rain as in the sunshine and in cold as well as in warm weather. In many respects this kinglet resembles the warblers, but it is much tamer. While seeking its food it exhibits some of the characteristics of the flycatchers.

Mr. Brewster describes its song as beginning “with a succession of five or six fine, shrill, high-pitched, somewhat faltering notes, and ending with a short, rapid, rather explosive warble. The opening notes are given in a rising key, but the song falls rapidly at the end. The whole may be expressed as follows: Tzee, tzee, tzee, tzee, ti, ti, ter, ti-ti-ti-ti.” Its call note is simply ti-ti uttered in a fine and well modulated voice that is scarcely audible.

The Golden-crown selects cone-bearing trees for its nest. This is usually a pensil structure and is hung from the branches at from four to fifty or more feet from the ground. It is globular in form with the entrance near the top. Mosses and dead leaves are used in its construction and it is lined with soft and fine fibers of bark and feathers.

Someone has said of a Golden-crowned Kinglet: “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 center piece.”

THE TALKING PINE TREE

It was a chilly winter Saturday. Though the winds were cold, the sunshine was bright and warm. After dinner Jacob put on his overcoat and new red mittens and went, as he often did, with his father, who was sexton of Evergreen cemetery. While his father was busy Jacob amused himself.

He had never before noticed how bare the great trees looked. Their limbs reached out like hundreds of crooked arms between him and the blue sky. As he looked around here and there he could see a tree wearing a dark green coat. Most of them were small, but some were tall and pointed. A pretty good sized, umbrella-shaped one grew near where his father was digging a grave.

Full of boyish life and spirits he ran to it playfully shouting: “I am a squirrel hunting a nut and will climb up among your branches.” But he tried in vain. The lowest limbs were so high above his head that he could not reach them.

“Never mind,” said he, “I will hunt a nut on the ground.”

Dropping on all fours he began to crawl around. Soon his hand came down upon something hard under the dead leaves which covered the ground. Now he thought he had really found a nut. It was roundish, with blunt spines and woody, and like no nut which he knew. Hunting a loose brick he cracked it upon a stone. Two or three little round things with gauzy wings dropped out.

This roused his curiosity. He now searched round and round for others. He spied a small branch which had broken off and dropped to the ground. As he snatched it up an end whirled round, striking his face. “How you stick!” cried he. He pulled off a mitten to feel what was so sharp. He noticed that the branch was bare, black and full of scars except at the end of each branchlet, where bunches of green sharp needles about as large as his mother’s darning needles were growing.

“Why, old tree,” said he, “where are your leaves?”

Now the tree heard every word which Jacob said but it could not make Jacob hear its answers.

At the tip of each branchlet was a pink bud, and near some of these was a little, tender thing about the shape of, though smaller, than the English sparrow’s egg. These he could pinch into pieces. But lower down on the branchlets, among the queer needles, were others not so large nor so dry as the odd fruit which he had found on the ground. They were not so easily destroyed. He picked them off and put them in his pockets.

“You’re a funny tree! Why do you not have nuts which hungry boys can eat?”

Jumping to his feet he looked up into the branches. They were all bare except for the needles growing on the branchlets. The tree was dotted with the odd nuts.

“What kind of a tree are you? You are not at all like our pretty oak or maple trees. Your branches grow nearly straight out. I should not like to live in a graveyard and look at tombstones all the time.”

He hunted around for clods and dead branches which, in his efforts to throw over its crown, he threw into and through the tree.