Birds and Nature Vol. 9 No. 4 [April 1901]

The raven’s asleep in the thick of the oak,
His head close under his wing;
The lark’s come down to his home on the earth —
But the blackbird still will sing,
Making the heart of the dark wood thrill
With the notes that come from his golden bill,
That flow from his golden bill.

    – Walter Thornbury.

A GOLDEN EAGLE

In January, 1900, I had given me a Golden Eagle. He had been picked up in a stunned condition in the foot-hills, having received a shock from the electric wires, on which he had probably alighted for a moment or struck in his flight. There is an electric power-house in the Sierras opposite Fresno, from which pole lines carry the strong current down to be used for power and light in the valley, and this was by no means the first record of eagles and other large birds being stunned or killed by them.

The person who found him had brought him down with the idea of having him stuffed, but as he showed a good deal of life, I begged to keep him alive, and he was handed over to me. He was evidently a young bird of the previous season, though nearly full grown. From tip to tip of his wings he was over five feet, and his wonderful black talons measured one and one-half to two inches beyond the feathers. His legs were handsomely feathered down to the claws, and his proud head, with its strong beak, large, piercing eyes, and red and yellow-brown feathers, was a thing of beauty. The rest of his body was dark, almost black, with the exception of three or four white diamonds showing on the upper tail feathers.

I kept him in a big box open on one side. When I first brought him home and had put him into the box, a neighbor’s poodle came sniffing around for the meat I had brought for the eagle. He was on the back side of the box, and so could not see that there was anything in it, nor did he hear anything, but all at once the scent of the bird must have struck his nostrils, for with a squall of fear he disappeared from the yard and never afterward would venture near the cage.

During the time I kept the eagle, some two months, he never showed any desire to attack me, though his claws would have gone through my hand like a knife, nor did he display any fear of me. He never made any attempt to get out while anyone was in sight of him, nor did I catch him in any such attempt, but sometimes at night I would hear him, and every morning his wings, beak and feathers showed he never gave up the hope of getting free.

I never fed him to the full extent of his capacity, but gave him from a pound to a pound and a half of meat daily at noon, which he devoured in a very short time, sticking his claws through the toughest beef and tearing it like ribbons with his beak. It was wonderful to see how clean he could pick a bone with his clumsy-looking great beak. I never knew him to touch any kind of food but raw meat. When anything was handed in to him, no matter how high up, he never accepted it in his bill, but struck at it with a lightning-like movement of his claws, scarcely ever missing it.

One day he snapped in two one of the bars across his cage, pried off another and got out. I was telephoned that my eagle was out, and hurried home to find all the children in the neighborhood blockaded indoors. The eagle was perched on the grape-arbor easily surveying the lay of things. A cat had crawled into the wood-pile and under the doorsteps the venerable cock of the yard was congratulating himself on his safety, but feeling rather undignified. I procured a rope and took my first lessons in lassoing. The eagle had been so closely confined that he had not been able to gain the full use of his wings, and so could only run or flutter a few feet from the ground. I finally recaptured him and brought him back. He showed no fear and offered little resistance.

About the middle of March the weather became very hot, and it was really cruel to keep the bird penned up in such close quarters in such weather, so I took him out to the plains and set him free. He could not use his wings much, and it is very doubtful if he escaped the shotgun or rifle of some predatory small boy, but it was the best I could do for him. He was a beautiful specimen of a bird, and I only wish I could have kept him.

    Charles Elmer Jenney.

THE HARLEQUIN DUCK

(Histrionicus histrionicus.)

The Harlequin Duck is the sole representative of the genus to which it belongs. The generic and the specific names (Histrionicus), which unfortunately the strict rules of scientific naming require in the case of this bird to be the same, are from the Latin word meaning harlequin. This word, meaning a buffoon, is especially appropriate, for the arrangement of the colors on its head, neck and back give the bird a peculiar appearance, especially during the mating season. At this time, too, the drollery of their actions is very noticeable.

Harlequin is not the only name by which this bird is known. In the New England States and northward along the Atlantic coast it is frequently called the “Lord and Lady,” because of the white crescents and spots of its plumage and the proud bearing of the male. It is also called the Rock Duck, the Mountain Duck and the Squealer.

Its range covers the northern portion of North America, Europe and Asia. “It is not common wherever found. In many parts of the Old World it is only a rare or occasional visitor; this is the case in Great Britain, France and Germany.” In the United States, during the winter, it passes southward into Illinois, Missouri and California. It breeds only in the northern part of its range.

It is a mountain duck and “frequents swiftly running streams, where it delights to sport among the eddies below water falls or in the brawling rapids.” It is not only an adept in the art of swimming and diving, but it also flies swiftly and to a great height. During the winter it frequents northern sea coasts and exhibits the characteristics of other sea ducks, and is occasionally found far out at sea. It is known that the Harlequin will lead a solitary life, and it is sometimes observed in pairs or even alone on streams of remote and unfrequented localities.

The sexes vary greatly. While the male, which is the sex of the bird of our illustration, is brightly colored, the female is much more somber. The young resemble the adult female.

The food of the Harlequin consists almost entirely of the parts of aquatic plants and the smaller crustaceans and mollusks. The food is obtained by diving, frequently through several feet of water. Mr. Chapman tells us that the sea ducks in diving to obtain food, will “sometimes descend one hundred and fifty feet or more.”

Its nest, though usually placed on the ground, is sometimes built in the hollow of a tree or a hollow stump, though always near a body of water. The nest is usually a simple structure made of the stems of water plants, twigs and grass thickly lined with the downy feathers from the breast of the duck. The eggs are occasionally laid on the grass, and no effort is made to build a nest. The female thoroughly covers the eggs when she leaves the nest.

The number of eggs varies from six to eight, though ten have been recorded. They are of a “yellowish buff or greenish yellow” color.

This duck is considered an excellent food and is much sought for by the natives of those regions which it frequents.

AN ORCHARD BIRD-WAY

“A rodless Walton of the brooks,
A bloodless sportsman I;
I hunt for the thoughts that throng the woods,
The dreams that haunt the sky.”

    – Samuel Walter Foss.
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 —

“A bird’s bright gleam on me he bent,
A bird’s glance, fearless, yet discreet,”

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:

“The bird of life is singing on the bough,
His two eternal notes of ‘I and Thou’ —
Oh, hearken well, for soon the song sings through
And would we hear it, we must hear it now.”

    Alberta A. Field.

THE CANADA GROUSE

(Dendragapus canadensis.)

The Canada Grouse, also called the Spruce Partridge, frequents the evergreen forests and swamps and the shrubby areas of British America east of the Rocky Mountains, and in Alaska it is a resident of the Pacific coast. In its southern flights it seldom passes beyond the latitude of the northern portion of New England and Minnesota.

This bird is an interesting member of the bird family Tetraonidae, which also includes the birds variously called bob-white, quail and partridge, the ptarmigans and the prairie hen. The family includes about two hundred species, about one-half of which belong to the Old World. There are twenty-five distinct species of the subfamily of grouse. These are practically confined to the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere and are strictly speaking non-migratory. In fact, nearly all the birds of this family are resident throughout the year in the localities where they are found.

They are terrestrial in their habits, and when frightened they usually depend on hiding in places where their dull colors will least attract attention, but they will, occasionally, fly into trees when flushed.

The Canada Grouse, like all the related species, is a bird of rapid flight. The feathers of their small wings are stiff, causing a whirring sound during flight. The male during the mating season gives a great deal of attention to his appearance. He is quite black in general color and more or less barred with white underneath and above with gray or reddish brown. The female is not quite as large as the male, and is not as dark in color. Above the eye of the male there is a small area of bare skin, which is a bright vermilion color.

These gentle and retiring birds mate in the early spring and remain together through the breeding season. Captain Bendire states that he has good reason for believing that the mating may last for more than one season, as he has frequently found a pair, in the depth of winter, when no other individuals of the same species were near. The nest, consisting of loosely arranged blades of grass and a few stalks and twigs, is built by the hen on a slight elevation of ground, usually under the low branches of a spruce tree.

The number of eggs varies greatly. Mr. Ridgway says that they vary in number from nine to sixteen. The eggs also vary greatly in color from a pale, creamy buff through various shades to brownish buff, and are irregularly spotted with a deeper brown, though occasionally they are spotless.

During the spring and summer months the food of the Canada Grouse consists very largely of the berries of plants belonging to the Heath family, such as the blueberry, the huckleberry and the bearberry, as well as the tender buds of the spruce. In the winter it feeds almost entirely on these buds, and the needle-like leaves of the spruce, the fir or the tamarack trees. At times they seem to show a preference for certain trees, and will nearly strip the foliage from them.

As a food for man their flesh is far from satisfactory. It is dark-colored and strongly flavored with the odor of their natural food. However, certain Indian tribes are said to relish them and hunt them extensively.