Bird Neighbors (eBook)

 BLUE AND BLUISH BIRDS

   Bluebird Indigo Bunting Belted Kingfisher Blue Jay Blue Grosbeak Barn Swallow Cliff Swallow Mourning Dove Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Look also among Slate-colored Birds in preceding group, particularly among the Warblers there, or in the group of Birds conspicuously, Yellow and Orange.

 The Bluebird

 (Sialia sialis) Thrush family

 Called also: BLUE ROBIN

 {Illustration facing p. 95)

 Length—7 inches. About an inch longer than the English sparrow. Male—Upper parts, wings, and tail bright blue, with rusty wash in autumn. Throat, breast, and sides cinnamon-red. Underneath white. Female—Has duller blue feathers, washed with gray, and a paler breast than male. Range—North America, from Nova Scotia and Manitoba to Gulf of Mexico. Southward in winter from Middle States to Bermuda and West Indies. Migrations—March. November. Summer resident. A few sometimes remain throughout the winter.

With the first soft, plaintive warble of the bluebirds early in March, the sugar camps, waiting for their signal, take on a bustling activity; the farmer looks to his plough; orders are hurried off to the seedsmen; a fever to be out of doors seizes one: spring is here. Snowstorms may yet whiten fields and gardens, high winds may howl about the trees and chimneys, but the little blue heralds persistently proclaim from the orchard and garden that the spring procession has begun to move. Tru-al-ly, tru-al-ly, they sweetly assert to our incredulous ears.

The bluebird is not always a migrant, except in the more northern portions of the country. Some representatives there are always with us, but the great majority winter south and drop out of the spring procession on its way northward, the males a little ahead of their mates, which show housewifely instincts immediately after their arrival. A pair of these rather undemonstrative, matter-of-fact lovers go about looking for some deserted woodpecker's hole in the orchard, peering into cavities in the fence-rails, or into the bird-houses that, once set up in the old-fashioned gardens for their special benefit, are now appropriated too often by the ubiquitous sparrow. Wrens they can readily dispossess of an attractive tenement, and do. With a temper as heavenly as the color of their feathers, the bluebird's sense of justice is not always so adorable. But sparrows unnerve them into cowardice. The comparatively infrequent nesting of the bluebirds about our homes at the present time is one of the most deplorable results of unrestricted sparrow immigration. Formerly they were the commonest of bird neighbors.

Nest-building is not a favorite occupation with the bluebirds, that are conspicuously domestic none the less. Two, and even three, broods in a season fully occupy their time. As in most cases, the mother-bird does more than her share of the work. The male looks with wondering admiration at the housewifely activity, applauds her with song, feeds her as she sits brooding over the nestful of pale greenish-blue eggs, but his adoration of her virtues does not lead him into emulation.

  "Shifting his light load of song,

   From post to post along the cheerless fence,"

Lowell observed that he carried his duties quite as lightly.

When the young birds first emerge from the shell they are almost black; they come into their splendid heritage of color by degrees, lest their young heads might be turned. It is only as they spread their tiny wings for their first flight from the nest that we can see a few blue feathers.

With the first cool days of autumn the bluebirds collect in flocks, often associating with orioles and kingbirds in sheltered, sunny places where insects are still plentiful. Their steady, undulating flight now becomes erratic as they take food on the wing—a habit that they may have learned by association with the kingbirds, for they have also adopted the habit of perching upon some conspicuous lookout and then suddenly launching out into the air for a passing fly and returning to their perch. Long after their associates have gone southward, they linger like the last leaves on the tree. It is indeed "good-bye to summer" when the bluebirds withdraw their touch of brightness from the dreary November landscape.

The bluebirds from Canada and the northern portions of New England and New York migrate into Virginia and the Carolinas; the birds from the Middle States move down into the Gulf States to pass the winter. It was there that countless numbers were cut off by the severe winter of 1894-95, which was so severe in that section.

 Indigo Bunting

 (Passerina cyanea) Finch family

 Called also: INDIGO BIRD

 Length—5.5 to 6 inches. Smaller than the English sparrow, or the size of a canary. Male—In certain lights rich blue, deepest on head. In another light the blue feathers show verdigris tints. Wings, tail, and lower back with brownish wash, most prominent in autumn plumage. Quills of wings and tail deep blue, margined with light. Female—Plain sienna-brown above. Yellowish on breast and shading to white underneath, and indistinctly streaked. Wings and tail darkest, sometimes with slight tinge of blue in outer webs and on shoulders. Range—North America, from Hudson Bay to Panama. Most common in eastern part of United States. Winters in Central America and Mexico. Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.

The "glowing indigo" of this tropical-looking visitor that so delighted Thoreau in the Walden woods, often seems only the more intense by comparison with the blue sky, against which it stands out in relief as the bird perches singing in a tree-top. What has this gaily dressed, dapper little cavalier in common with his dingy sparrow cousins that haunt the ground and delight in dust-baths, leaving their feathers no whit more dingy than they were before, and in temper, as in plumage, suggesting more of earth than of heaven? Apparently he has nothing, and yet the small brown bird in the roadside thicket, which you have misnamed a sparrow, not noticing the glint of blue in her shoulders and tail, is his mate. Besides the structural resemblances, which are, of course, the only ones considered by ornithologists in classifying birds, the indigo buntings have several sparrow-like traits. They feed upon the ground, mainly upon seeds of grasses and herbs, with a few insects interspersed to give relish to the grain; they build grassy nests in low bushes or tall, rank grass; and their flight is short and labored. Borders of woods, roadside thickets, and even garden shrubbery, with open pasture lots for foraging grounds near by, are favorite haunts of these birds, that return again and again to some preferred spot. But however close to our homes they build theirs, our presence never ceases to be regarded by them with anything but suspicion, not to say alarm. Their metallic cheep, cheep, warns you to keep away from the little blue-white eggs, hidden away securely in the bushes; and the nervous tail twitchings and jerkings are pathetic to see. Happily for the safety of their nest, the brooding mother has no tell-tale feathers to attract the eye. Dense foliage no more conceals the male bird's brilliant coat than it can the tanager's or oriole's.

With no attempt at concealment, which he doubtless understands would be quite impossible, he chooses some high, conspicuous perch to which he mounts by easy stages, singing as he goes; and there begins a loud and rapid strain that promises much, but growing weaker and weaker, ends as if the bird were either out of breath or too weak to finish. Then suddenly he begins the same song over again, and keeps up this continuous performance for nearly half an hour. The noonday heat of an August day that silences nearly every other voice, seems to give to the indigo bird's only fresh animation and timbre.

 BELTED KINGFISHER

 (Upper Figure, Female; Lower Figure, Male)

 BLUE JAY

 The Belted Kingfisher

 (Ceryle alcyon) Kingfisher family

 Called also: THE HALCYON

 (Illustration facing p. 48)

 Length—12 to 13 inches. About one-fourth as large again as the robin. Male—Upper part grayish blue, with prominent crest on head reaching to the nape. A white spot in front of the eye. Bill longer than the head, which is large and heavy. Wings and the short tail minutely speckled and marked with broken bands of white. Chin, band around throat, and underneath white. Two bluish bands across the breast and a bluish wash on sides. Female—Female and immature specimens have rufous bands where the adult male's are blue. Plumage of both birds oily. Range—North America, except where the...