Birds and All Nature, Vol. III, No. 3, March 1898

Do you see that bare patch on my forehead! Well, that accounts for some people's calling me a "Bald-headed Coot." Maybe you will be called that some day, too.

I don't often come to dry land, but when I do I march along very gracefully. I can fly, too, though my wings do appear too short for my size. I just stretch my legs out behind my stumpy tail, spread my wings, and away I go.

I swim easily too, with a peculiar bobbing motion of my head and neck. You should just see a lot of us patter over the water, using our feet as much as our wings, when alarmed. And such a cackling as we do keep up! Why, you can hear us quite half a mile.

There is one thing about my face I should like to have changed and that is my nose – my bill I mean. It is an ivory-white and no matter how much I stick it in the mud it will stay white. It is a good mark, you see, for a man with a gun, and I am dreadfully afraid I shall be shot some day. I have seen a number of my mates popped over just on account of their white bills.

I visit you in April and leave you in November when the streams freeze over. I hope you will have pleasant weather next month, for I am making preparation to visit you then.

THE AMERICAN COOT

SCIENCE, in its classification and naming of birds, has rendered it quite easy for any one to recognize unmistakably anywhere any specimen we have pictured in our magazine. In some sections this interesting Duck is known as the Mud-hen, in others the Crow Duck, in still others as the Ivory-billed Mud-hen, but with the picture in hand or in mind, one need never call the bird by any other than its correct name, the American Coot. The European Coot resembles it, but its average size is slightly larger, its habits, however, being in all respects like those of its American relative. Davie says that this is the water fowl that the young sportsman persists in shooting as a game bird, but at a riper age he does not "hanker" after its flesh.

The habitat of the Coot is very extensive, covering the whole of North America, middle America, and the West Indies; north to Greenland and Alaska, south to Veragua and Trinidad.

The Coot is a summer resident in large marshes, and is not often rare in any marshy situation. It arrives the last of April and remains until the last of November. It nests at the same time as the Florida Gallinule (see Birds, Vol. I, p. 121,) but shows a greater preference for reed patches, in which its nests are usually located, often in from two to four feet of water. The nests are generally larger than those of Gallinules, and rarely composed of other material than the dry stalks of reeds and grasses. They are placed on the ground, just out of the water or on floating vegetation. Some times immense numbers of Coots breed together. The eggs are clay or creamy-white, uniformly and finely dotted all over with specks of dark brown and black. From six to twelve eggs have been found in a nest. As winter approaches and the marshes and shallow pools become covered with ice, these birds congregate in immense flocks on the rivers and small lakes, and remain until cold weather closes the streams.

Mr. Nelson says the Coot has a curious habit when approached by a boat in a stream, rising often before the boat is within gunshot, and flying directly by the boatman, generally so near that it may be easily brought down. The abundance of Ducks and other game birds has caused the members of this family to be but little molested, until within a few years, when amateur sportsmen, finding Ducks difficult to obtain, and "Mud-hens," as Coots and Gallinules are called, conveniently tame, have turned their batteries upon them and diminished their numbers about many marshes. In the more retired marshes, however, they still breed abundantly. These birds differ from the Gallinules in being social, going in flocks, and in preferring the open water. They sport and rest on musk-rat houses and bare places of land and dress their feathers there. During the breeding season they keep near their reedy cover, into which they quickly swim and hide, in case of danger. They swim and walk with a nodding motion of the head. They are not expert divers, but go to the bottom when closely pressed and unable to fly. The flesh of the Coot is dark and not good eating, and its feathers are not soft and downy; it is, therefore, not sought after by the pot hunter, nor considered a game bird by the sportsman, for which reasons, as well as the fact that the feathers cannot be used by the ladies for personal adornment, the birds are not shy and are easily approached.

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT BIRDS

SENSES of sight, smell, and hearing are remarkably acute in birds. This is especially true of sight. Some have three eye lids, the upper and lower and a membrane which can be drawn over the entire eye-ball, called the nictitating membrane, enabling them to look directly at the sun. Eagles, Hawks, and Owls are thus provided. The eyes of the Eagles and Hawks are provided also with a ring of bony plates, by means of which the eye adjusts itself like a telescope, taking in both near and far objects.

Birds, except nocturnal species, have no external ear, but hear well.

The young of nest building birds when born are blind, naked, and unable to walk. In the Hen, the Partridge, and the Ducks, the young are able to walk, swim, or pick up food, as soon as they break the shell. When moulting, at the close of the breeding season, Quails usually shed in pairs. The male generally assumes a duller hued coat than the female.

With most birds of prey the female is the larger.

Bird's songs are composed of love-notes and pleasure-notes. We speak of the scream of birds, their chirp, expressions of joy or fear, as in the human voice. Their songs can be set to music. See S. P. Cheney's "Wood Notes Wild," in which the songs of many of our common birds are thus reproduced. The odd and peculiar actions of birds, their dances, struts, and posturings are all expressions of their emotions.

The nesting habits of birds are varied. Gulls drop eggs on bare ground or rocks; the Baltimore Oriole and Tailor bird construct hanging nests of elaborate workmanship; the Woodpecker hews out a deep nest in a rotten limb; the Kingfisher digs one out of a sandy bank, while the Cuckoo takes possession of the nest of some other bird. Most birds select nesting places away from other species, but Swallows, English Sparrows, Grackles, and Crows live in communities.

There are between seven and eight thousand species of living birds. A few species have become extinct, specimens of which it is the intention of Birds to present in future numbers.

There are three centers of distribution in the United States: (1) the Atlantic states and Mississippi valley; (2) the Rocky Mountain plateau; (3) the Pacific coast.

Most of the birds breeding in the northern portions of the United States migrate south during the winter months. Those remaining are known as residents.

THE IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER

IN size, though hardly in beauty, this is indeed the prince of Woodpeckers, the largest of our North American species. Its length ranges from nineteen to twenty-one inches. There is one other Woodpecker, called the Imperial, which is larger, measuring twenty-three or twenty-four inches in length. This bird is found in Western Mexico, north along the Sierra Madre, and probably, according to Davie, has not yet been observed within the limits of the United States.

The Ivory-billed is now rare, and is apparently restricted to the extreme southern states, especially those bordering the Gulf of Mexico. It is of a wild and wary disposition, making its home in the dark, swampy woodlands. The dense cypress swamps of Florida are one of its favorite haunts.

The nest of the Ivory-bill is excavated in a tree, about forty feet from the ground, the cavity often being nearly two feet in depth. Three or more eggs are laid.

This bird does not remain long in one place, and during the day ranges over an extended territory. Its call is a high, rather nasal, yap-yap-yap, sounding in the distance like the note of a penny trumpet.

To use the language of Chapman, whose "Handbook" is a mine of ornithological knowledge, Woodpeckers are rather solitary birds, but are sometimes found associated in scattered companies during their migrations. Above all other birds, they are especially adapted to creep or climb. The peculiar structure of the foot, with its two toes directed forward and two backward, except in one genus, the Three-toed (which will appear in the April number of Birds), assists them in clinging to an upright surface, while the pointed, stiffened tail feathers serve as a prop when the bird is resting. The stout, chisel-like bill is used to cut away wood and expose the hiding places of grubs, etc., when the long, distensible tongue, with its horny, spear-like tip is thrust in, the food impaled and drawn out.

All Woodpeckers are of value to the farmer. It has been shown that two-thirds to three-fourths of their food, consists of insects, chiefly noxious. Wood-boring beetles, both adults and larvae, are conspicuous, and with them are associated many caterpillers, mostly species that burrow into trees. Next in importance are the ants that live in decaying wood, all of which are sought by Woodpeckers and eaten in great quantities. Many ants are particularly harmful to timber, for if they find a small spot of decay in the vacant burrow of some wood-borers, they enlarge the hole, and as their colony is always on the increase, continue to eat away the wood until the whole trunk is honeycombed. Moreover, these insects are not accessible to other birds, and could pursue their career of destruction unmolested were it not that the Woodpeckers, with beaks and tongues especially fitted for such work, dig out and devour them. It is thus evident that the Woodpeckers are great conservators of forests. To them, more than to any other agency, we owe the preservation of timber from hordes of destructive insects.

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker, living his almost solitary life in the vast and nearly impenetrable cypress swamps, at a height of forty and fifty feet from the ground, is rarely seen by man. The specimens we present in Birds are so nearly life-like that our readers need only imagine themselves in the dense forest of cypress to realize a very natural scene.

THE IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER

Yap! Yap! Yap!

As I am called the prince of Woodpeckers, I can, I suppose, shout just as loud as I like. Of course my cousin, the Red-bellied Woodpecker, will turn up his bill and say they only call me the prince because I am the largest of all the North American Woodpeckers. Well, I think that is reason enough, don't you? Some creatures who are not birds, have been called princes and kings for less than that – so I have heard.

Mr. Red-belly had a great deal to say about, and for himself, in Birds last month; he sent his picture, too. Pooh! he can't compare with me. I am said to be the most magnificent Woodpecker of the whole lot. My species is select, too, no matter if he does say the whole family of Woodpeckers are common. We are considered rare birds. You don't find us in all localities, no indeed! You will have to travel to the far, far south to catch a glimpse of one of us magnificent fellows. Should you ever go way down on the Suwanee river, and walk "real easy" through the cypress forests you might get a peep at one of us. But we are wild and shy, and like to travel long distances through the day; no stay-at-home bodies among us.

I'm not one of the three-toed Woodpeckers, either, that Mr. Red-belly was so anxious to tell you about. It's very strange how eager some people are to talk about other people's imperfections. I have four toes, two in front and two behind, so it isn't "sour grapes" that leads me to speak as I do. I'll admit my feet are peculiar, my toes assisting me in clinging to an upright surface, and my pointed stiff tail-feathers serving to prop me up when resting.

I think I am very fortunate, too, in having such a stout, chisel-like bill, and such a horny, spear-like tongue. With the first I cut away wood and explore the hiding place of grubs; with the latter I impale them and draw the food out. Dear, dear! How fearfully and wonderfully we are made, to be sure – birds as well as men.

Sing! No, wish I could. But then I have a love-song which my mate thinks is fine; 'tis a long, rolling call, which I beat with my bill.

THE SPARROW HAWK

Killy-killy-killy-killy!

That's my song and I don't sing it very low either. It is for that reason some people call me the Killy Hawk.

The boys who spend much time in the fields are very well acquainted with me. Many a time, I dare say, they have seen me patiently sitting, for an hour or more, on a lofty branch waiting for "something to turn up."

Something does generally turn up, and that is a mouse. "Ah," says she, peeking out from her nest, "there is nobody around, so I will go out for a walk," and out she comes, not noticing me way up in the tree, of course.

Then I dive from my perch and fly directly over her. A mouse can't keep still, somehow, and from point to point she runs, zigzagging this way and that way, giving me lots of trouble, for I have to zigzag, too. After awhile she stands still for a minute, and so do I, up in the air, my fan-like tail spread out very wide, my head lowered and – well, pretty soon it is all over with Mrs. Mouse. But mice are nuisances anyway, don't you think? Just because people have seen me do that little trick they call me the Mouse Hawk. I catch Sparrows, and other small birds, so they call me the Sparrow Hawk, too.

I don't care what they call me, to tell you the truth, just so they let me alone. It's not pleasant to have a stone thrown at you, or a gun pointed your way – if it is loaded, and they generally are loaded, I notice, with something that hurts.

My nest? Oh, I don't care for that sort of work, so I never build one. Any natural hole in a high tree, the deserted hole of a Woodpecker, or a Magpie's nest, is good enough for me. Just a few leaves in the bottom, and on them my mate lays five eggs, sometimes six, sometimes seven.

THE AMERICAN SPARROW HAWK

EVERY boy who has been in the fields is familiar with this beautiful little Hawk, which is numerous everywhere in North America. As Davie felicitously says: "Here it may be seen hovering almost motionless in mid air, then suddenly swooping down to the ground, arises again with perhaps a field-mouse in its talons." From this habit it receives the name of Mouse Hawk, although it also preys upon Sparrows and other small birds. It is found almost everywhere, though most abundant along streams where grow the high sycamores, whose natural cavities furnish suitable nesting places, but meadows and fields are its retreats when in search of food. It builds no nest, but deposits its eggs in the natural cavities of high trees, often in the deserted holes of Woodpeckers, or in crevices in rocks or nooks about buildings. In the West it frequently appropriates a deserted Magpie's nest. Eggs of this Hawk were taken from a crevice in a stone quarry in the Scioto river, where the birds nested for years. The Sparrow Hawk often takes possession of boxes intended for Pigeons, and it always proves to be a peaceable neighbor. The nests generally contain no lining, but in some cases a slight bed of leaves or grasses on a few chips are used. The eggs are four to six, buffy white, speckled, spotted, and blotched with light and dark brown.

This Hawk is not as active or destructive as others of the Falcon tribe. Its flight is usually short and irregular, darting here and there, often hovering in a suspended manner for several moments at a time. During the summer months, it occasionally kills small birds, but feeds chiefly upon mice, lizards, grasshoppers, crickets, and the like, as they are so much easier to capture than full grown birds, and to which they rarely turn their attention, until the cold weather drives the other forms of life, upon which they so largely feed, into their winter beds. The bird that suffers most outside of the Horned Larks and Longspurs, is the Tree Sparrow, as it prefers the hedges and small thickets upon the prairies, instead of the wooded lands, for its sheltered home; its food in all such cases being upon the open lands, and whenever there is snow upon the ground it drifts against the hedges and forces the little birds to seek the bare spots, quite a distance away, for the seeds on or fallen from the weeds. Here it is that the Hawk, says Goss, successfully performs its work, by darting from a perch and striking the Sparrow, either upon the ground or before it can reach its hiding place.

The woods are full of voices everywhere;
An hundred chipmunks' sharp, quick tones are there;
The cricket's chirp, the partridge drum,
The harsh-voiced crows which go and come,
In Nature's song agree.
The breeze that wanders through the firs,
The rustle of each leaf that stirs,