Birds and Nature Vol. 11 No. 2 [February 1902]

Since I was torn away from you I have been in several places. I am now a fine oyster – a “beauty,” I heard some one say. I am at present in a great building called a college. Another of those wise men who look at you through glasses and whom they call “professor” is making plans to analyze several of us raised in different places. People want to know, it is said, of what value we are as food. It breaks my heart to think of what we must come to.

Farewell,

    Your Child.

While Mrs. Oyster again wiped her eyes Book said, “It is too late for me to tell you much about this Prof. Atwater. I will only tell that he says that one quart of oysters contains about as much nutriment as one quart of milk. As food, oysters form flesh and make heat and force in the human body. You can at any time consult the books farther.”

“Finally,” said Mrs. Oyster, “I was taken away from my sea home and lived in a place where the water was nearly fresh for a little while. After ‘floating’ here for a couple of days I was sent to the market and sold as an extra fine oyster. They called me a ‘blue point.’”

Just then Aunt Jennie shook Willis and asked him why he had not gone to bed. He rubbed his eyes and looked around, surprised to see his oyster lying quietly in its dish, with no snail nor book in sight.

The next morning he told Joseph and his aunt about his dream. “After this,” said he, “when I wish to know things which I cannot notice and understand, I will ask the books. They know so much. Mrs. Oyster did not get to tell me about her cousins who make pearls. I mean to consult some books about them this very day.”

    Loveday Almira Nelson.

THE CALIFORNIAN THRASHER

(Harporhynchus redivivus.)

One of the finest songsters among birds is the California Thrasher. Though confined to the coast regions of California, it is quite abundant and seems to bear to that locality the same relation that the brown thrush, or thrasher, does to the thickets further east. The song of this Western Thrasher is exquisitely sweet, and by some it is considered far superior to that of any of the numerous songsters that frequent the woods and brush of the Pacific coast. These lines, written by Mr. Wasson regarding the song of the brown thrasher, apply equally well to the bird of our illustration:

O, hark to the brown thrush! Hear how he sings!
Now he pours the dear pain of his gladness!
What a gush! And from out what golden springs!
What a rage of how sweet madness!

It is in the morning and in the evening that this Thrasher pours forth its song from some prominent and exposed perch. Then, as it were, with all care dismissed from its mind, all the energy of its being is thrown into a hymn of nature. By some this song is considered richer than that of the mockingbirds, though the Thrasher has but one air.

As a rule the California Thrasher frequents wooded thickets, though it is often found in shrubby fields and hedges, and the dense thickets bordering streams are especially attractive, for here it finds the quiet that its nature seems to crave. Unusually shy and distrustful of man, it generally avoids his habitations, and, like the brown thrasher, resents intrusion with a peculiar and complaining note. Yet the female is inclined to remain on her nest and allow close inspection.

Because of its short wings the movements of this Thrasher are rather heavy. Its flights are short and usually from bush to bush, while constantly opening and shutting its tail. Its life is not confined to trees and shrubs, for it moves easily on the ground, hopping rapidly with accompanying jerks of its tail. It is said that it will scratch in the layer of old leaves under trees, like a domestic fowl when hunting for its food. It prefers insect food and seldom eats fruit of any kind, except when food of its choice is scarce.

Its favorite haunts seem to be the regions of scrubby oak and greasewood brush of the deep mountain gorges. Here it builds its home, which “is a coarse, widely constructed platform of sticks, coarse grass and mosses, with but a very slight depression. Occasionally, however, nests of this bird are more carefully and elaborately made. It is always well hid in the low scrub bushes.”

Both the sexes assist in the care of the eggs, though the male, as befits the father of a family, usually stands guard over the nest, giving a quiet note of warning on the approach of danger. Both sexes are said to be adepts at misleading an intruder, for they will fly away from the nest to the ground or to some thicket at a distance from their home, and there by plaintive notes soon attract the intruder, especially if he is a nest hunter. In this, as well as in all its habits, it so resembles the brown thrasher that it may be considered its representative on the Pacific Coast.

WINTER’S SECRET

This beautiful day when the sun so bright
Is giving my garment most beautiful hues,
I’ll just look over the birds in sight —
The living gems on my cloak of white —
And the most precious I will choose.

I’ll sit in my tent of brilliant blue
And look through its lacings of willow gold,
That shows a flashing of cardinal hue.
Yes, that’s my redbird – I see him. Don’t you?
He’s here if my breath is cold.

There’s darker spots close by redbird’s flash;
They look like shadows compared to him.
Now they dip in the brook where its waters plash
O’er the willow’s roots with a rippling clash,
And drink from my ice cups so thin.

I think they are snowbirds. Hello, little mutes!
Just answer me now till I’m sure it is you.
You look with your rusty brownish suits,
As you flirt and dance o’er the frozen roots,
Like the tasseled cords of my shoe.

Haw! haw! from the treetop laughs out crow.
“Don’t you know I am out with the very best?
I love the sun, and I flap to and fro,
The one black-wing not afraid of the snow,
Though you sometimes call me a pest.”

And Mr. Field Finch with chestnut hood,
As he swings and sways on his weed perch brown,
Calls in tones that you will not use when you’re good,
“Can’t you see a body? See! I’m here near the wood
Where the berries and seeds rattle down.”

I’ll now call Robin. Where are you, dear?
I know I saw you this early morn,
A crimson breast in the pine tree here.
Come, Robin, come! I’m sure you are near;
Yes, yonder you sit in that thorn.

Oh my cloak is so gay and its gems never rest,
But flutter and shine, ’neath the rays of the sun;
So I’ll draw it close to my rugged breast,
And never will say which one I love best —
For I love them all – every one.

    – Mary Noland.

A QUEER PARTNERSHIP

A fine afternoon of that lovely spring month, May, found me ready for an afternoon collecting among the birds. Leaving home, I made my way to the river bank, and slowly strolled along its banks, finding much to amuse and interest me among the birds and flowers, seeing many old friends and a few new ones. After going about half a mile, I came to a well wooded place on one of the banks where the tall pines found safe homes for the crows, and a few families were raised here every year. A little way back, partly up the hill, was a dead basswood stump or tree, which contained the home of a golden-winged woodpecker or flicker, which I had found a few days before by seeing the bird leaving the nesting hole. As the hole was between 30 and 40 feet from the ground, I put on my climbers and was soon in a position to investigate; so, seating myself on a large limb that branched out just below the nest, I inserted my hand, and got quite a start on catching hold of some soft, downy creature, which I thought must be a squirrel, but imagine my surprise to find that I had secured an adult screech owl from out of the woodpecker’s nest. The owl, which had lain quietly enough in my hands, put an end to my thoughts by suddenly coming to life, and very active life at that, and putting its claws into my hand, prepared to give itself a good startoff. But I had hold of its legs, and as I did not like the way it was holding on, I put it back into the hole, from which in the meantime I had taken an egg, which on examining proved to be the woodpecker’s and not an owl egg. Though the eggs are both white, the woodpecker’s is larger than it is broad and more of a glossy texture, while the owl’s is nearly round and also much larger.

Now was the puzzle, what was the owl doing in the woodpecker’s nest, which was claimed by the latter, as it had deposited an egg in it, and also was seen leaving the nest a day or two before. The only conclusion that I could arrive at was that the owl had taken possession for the day and so turned the woodpecker out.

So far I had not been able to find an owl’s nest, but as I could see by the loss of feathers that the owl had been setting I proceeded to try and find the nest, and decided to try the tree further up; so, leaving the owl in the flicker’s home, I continued my climb to the top of the stub, and found the top rotted away, leaving quite a hollow eighteen inches deep with a small hole through a rotten place in the bark, through which I could see something white, so, carefully putting in my hands, I was delighted to find four young owls which were about ten days old, ugly little things, covered with a dirty white down, with the feathers just commencing to show and with their yellow beaks and large eyes. They did not look a very interesting pet, but still I secured two and left two for the mother owl. I descended the tree and put my treasure safely away in my collecting bag.

I would like to know how the owl and flicker arranged the boarding matter, for I did not get time to go back for a week, when from the woodpecker’s nest I took six eggs and found the two owlets nearly ready to fly, but I saw neither of the old birds. So whether the owl continued to stay with the flicker or not, or whether it had just gone for the day, I shall never know; but still it was interesting to find the two nests on the one tree within three feet of each other, one containing eggs and the other young birds.