Myrtle warblers are tiny mites that liven up the trees and shrubs in the spring migration. Traveling in small flocks, they seem to be constantly in motion, flitting from branch to branch searching for small insects and their eggs. Like flycatchers, they snap up larger bugs on the wing. To a quiet observer, they seem trusting birds, often singing at close range.
Some winter as far north as the New England coast, wherever bayberry thickets offer fruit and shelter, and others move on to the southern states. From these wintering grounds they migrate to nesting grounds in the evergreen forest of the northern states and Canada. In their fall flight south, they seem subdued, the bright yellow on the crown and flanks having disappeared, and the lemon colored rump the only remaining brilliant.
NIGHTHAWK
(Chordeiles minor)
Often seen on dull days as well as dawn or dusk, the long slender wings of nighthawks exaggerate their size. They are 10 inches long, but seem bigger.
At rest, they perch lengthwise on branches, crossarms, or logs, or on the ground. In the air, their flight is a series of fluttering spurts, followed by long glides. Before aviators broke the sound barrier, nighthawks had their own ‘sonic boom,’ created by diving vertically from considerable height and flaring sharply upward near the ground.
Flying insects, from mosquitoes to beetles and moths, are their only food. Nighthawks build no nest, the two young being raised on the bare ground, or flat roofs.
Nighthawks nest in all states except Hawaii and winter in South America.
PIGEON
(Columba livia)
The common pigeon found in all U.S. cities is a descendant of the wild European rock dove that was introduced domestically in this country early in our history. Living and breeding in cities and suburbs, it is a permanent year-round resident and often is so populous as to be a nuisance, fouling building ledges, park benches, statues, and occasionally people.
Feeding the pigeons in city parks is an old custom, particularly for the young and old. This bird is probably the one most familiar and recognizable to the urban dwellers and may be their closest contact with the world of birds.
PURPLE MARTIN
(Progne subis)
These birds breed throughout the United States and southern Canada, and down to central Mexico. They winter in South America.
This is the largest (8 inches long) of the swallow tribe. It formerly built its nest in cavities of trees and still does in wild districts, but having learned to live close to humans, it soon adopted domestic habits. The best way to have martins around is to erect apartment houses for them at suitable nesting sites—and protect that housing from use by other birds. The nest boxes should be about 15 feet from the ground and made inaccessible to cats. A colony of martins makes great inroads upon the insect population, as the birds not only feed upon insects but rear their young on the same diet.
RED-EYED VIREO
(Vireo olivaceus)
The red eye of this small olive-green and white bird, although giving it a name, is of little help in identifying it. Abundant in eastern forests in its breeding season, it winters in South America. This bird is seen in deciduous trees in city parks during migration.
Its call is a monotonous series of short, abrupt phrases similar to a robin’s. It is repeated as often as 40 times a minute, all through the day. It is lucky for suburban sleepers that the vireo doesn’t sing at night.
RED-HEADED WOODPECKER
(Melanerpes erythrocephalus)
At 9 inches or so in length, this is a medium-sized woodpecker which occurs in the eastern states.
The red-head isn’t really common even in its announced range, although it’s easy to spot when it is working the neighborhood. It likes open, deciduous woods, parklike spaces, and is fond of cities where old trees line the streets. Like all its clan, its diet of harmful grubs, beetles, and other insects makes it a desirable bird, and the small amounts of fruit and acorns it eats are never missed.
RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD
(Agelaius phoeniceus)
About 9½ inches long, the red-wing breeds in most of North America; it winters in the southern half of United States and down clear to Costa Rica.
The prairies of the upper Mississippi Valley, with their numerous sloughs and ponds, furnish ideal nesting places for red-wings, and this region has become the great breeding ground for the species, pouring forth the vast flocks that sometimes play havoc with grainfields. Red-wings are gregarious, living in flocks and breeding in communities. Their food is about one-fourth insects and three-fourths vegetable.
ROBIN
(Turdus migratorius)
Probably the best known of the United States birds, and widely believed a harbinger of spring, adults are 10 inches long. They breed in the United States and Canada, and winter in most of the United States, ranging south to Guatemala.
One of the most cherished of our native birds, the robin is an omnivorous feeder. While its food includes many worms and insects, it is especially fond of fruit, particularly cherries, mulberries, and strawberries. Like the bluebird, it is a thrush.
Highly adaptable, it is friendly and trusting in cities and towns, and wild and distrustful of man when living in wilderness areas.
RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD
(Archilochus colubris)
A widely seen hummingbird east of the Great Plains, the ruby-throats are exquisite bits, capable of incredible flight, moving in any direction on wings vibrating faster than sight or able to hover motionless while spectators are breathless. They are plentiful—one just shouldn’t use the word “common” about this lovely pulse of bright energy.
They sup on nectar from garden flowers or blossoming “weeds” and are attracted to yards or gardens by tubes of sugar water properly hung. And they eat insects. Several other varieties of hummingbirds live in the West and all are tiny—smallest of American birds—and beat their wings so rapidly that the feathers produce a hum. All hover while feeding, mostly by dipping their long beaks in flowers, and all of them are incredibly pugnacious for so tiny a creature. Most migrate long distances, incredible as that seems.
SONG SPARROW
(Melospiza melodia)
This is the most widely distributed of all our native sparrows, appearing in one form or another from Florida to Alaska and range in color from pale to dark brown.
They love water and are most numerous where streams, ponds, or marshes offer dense cover, but yards with shrubs and vines will attract them.
Their space requirements are small. A pair will live and nest in 1½ acres or less. They nest on or near the ground, both parents help raise the young, and they raise up to four broods a year. Cowbirds often lay eggs in their nests, and are considered with dogs, cats, and rats as their greatest enemies.
There are many sparrows with spotted breasts, but the heavy dot in the center of the chest and the streaks on breast and flanks distinguish this bird from others.
SPARROW HAWK
(Falco sparverius)
Length about 10 inches; one of the best known and handsomest, as well as smallest, of North American hawks. Breeds throughout the United States, Canada, and northern Mexico; winters in the United States and south to Guatemala.
The sparrow hawk, a true falcon, lives in the more open areas and builds its nest in hollow trees. It is often found where telephone and power poles afford it convenient perching and feeding places, and may be seen hovering high over its intended prey. Its food consists of insects, small mammals, birds, spiders, and reptiles. Grasshoppers, crickets, terrestrial beetles, and caterpillars make up considerably more than half its subsistence, while field mice, house mice, and shrews cover fully 25 percent of its annual supply.
STARLING
(Sturnus vulgaris)
There are few people in the United States who have not seen starlings, even though the viewers might not know the label. Introduced into this country in the 1880’s, they took hold rapidly and became permanent residents everywhere in the Nation, plus southern Canada and northern Mexico. They live in city parks and crevices of buildings, using large communal roosts in winter; you can hear the tribe gathering on cold nights along the face of many a downtown office building.
Frequently characterized as pests, they are certainly abundant. Their own call is a jittery squeak, but they imitate many birds, and sunlight brings out a shimmer of colors in their plumage. They eat almost anything, but that includes a lot of insects like Japanese beetles. Don’t scoff at starlings; they’re aggressive, quarrelsome, and determined, and they are surely here to stay.
TOWHEE
(Pipilo erythrophthalmus)
The bird remotely resembles the robin, although smaller and more slender. It frequents bushy places and is often detected by noisy rummaging among dead leaves.
It breeds in open brushy places, barrens, slashings, and forest edges from Canada to the gulf coast, and often ventures into landscaped yards.
Its call is a loud chewink, and the southern birds have a proper southern drawl, a slurred shrink.
TUFTED TITMOUSE
(Parus bicolor)
This sparrow-sized, active mite is often heard before it is seen. Its spring call of peter, peter, peter is a clear whistle, audible at some distance.
Insects are a large part of its food, but it takes seeds and nuts from a station quite readily, and is quick to scold if your feeder is empty. It also responds to “squeaking,” the technique bird watchers use to attract many species.
Preferring wooded areas, it appears in small groups in winter. It nests in cavities and bird boxes, and being non-migratory, often uses these same shelters for winter roosts.
The tufted titmouse is restricted to the eastern half of the country, but it has close relatives in the west.
TURKEY VULTURE
(Cathartes aura)
“What a lovely child of God it is, soarin’ up there,” said Fr. Hogan in the novel “Children of Hunger.” And he added, “Of course, down on the ground it’s a buzzard. Lots of things in the world seem to be like that.”
Thus, a fictional view of the turkey vulture and the less widespread black vulture. The turkey vulture summers up into Canada and permanently ranges the southern United States. It is a common sight along roadsides and sometimes above cities. These common carrion eaters are natural scavengers, and highly useful ones, but they are a little hard to admire except at a distance. A large bird, often more than 30 inches long and with great wingspread, they don’t need to be fed. Our driving habits and our careless disposal of garbage generally provide plenty of food for them.
WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH
(Sitta carolinensis)
With a length of 6 inches, this resident of the United States, southern Canada and Mexico might readily be mistaken by a casual observer for a small woodpecker. But its call—an oft-repeated “yank”—is very unwoodpecker-like. Also unlike either woodpeckers or creepers, it climbs downward head first as easily as upward, seeming to defy the laws of gravity. “Nuthatch” was suggested by its habit of wedging nuts in crevices of bark so as to break them open by blows from a sharp, strong bill. The white-breast gets its living from the trunks and branches of trees, over which it walks from daylight to dark. Insects and spiders constitute about half of its food. More than half of its vegetable food consists of acorns and other nuts or large seeds. It’s a bird of the wooded suburbs, and will feed at sheltered stations offering suet, sunflower seeds, or nuts.
WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW
(Zonotrichia leucophrys)
From tail-tip to beak, this perky flyer is 7 inches long and looks like the white-throated sparrow, but the latter has a yellow spot beside its eyes. White-crown breeds in the high country of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and the Pacific coast; it winters in the southern half of the United States and in northern Mexico.
This beautiful sparrow is numerous in the West, but rather rare elsewhere, so watch for it carefully if you’re in the East, for it is shy and retiring there. But the white-crown is bolder and more conspicuous in the Far West, often frequenting gardens, parks, and yards. Like most sparrows, it is a seed eater by preference—it appears readily at sheltered feeding stations. Insects comprise less than 10 percent of its diet.
WOOD PEWEE
(Contopus sp.)
The bird of this painting ranges from the east coast through the Mississippi Valley, where its range meets that of the western wood pewee. They are hard to tell apart visually, although the songs are quite different. Both species also look like eastern phoebes, so spotting this bird with assurance requires some study. The names of all these birds are based upon their calls, and all are flycatchers.
The pewees like groves of mixed trees, and at twilight the eastern species sings a plaintive whistled song that is longer and more varied than its daylight song. You are much more likely to see or hear these birds in outer suburbia housing areas than in the inner city or on shopping center parking lots, since they require tall trees and cannot be heard above traffic noises.
WOOD THRUSH
(Hylocichla mustelina)
This bird is at least fairly common in suburban groves all over the eastern United States. Adults are a bit over 7 inches long and their song is like a flute phrase followed by a soft trill, heard usually at dawn or dusk.
There are a number of other common thrushes. The hermit has a wide range, summering up into mid-Canada and wintering in the southern United States and Mexico. Veery, Swainson’s, and gray-cheeked thrushes are also widespread. The wood thrush is the largest and probably the most citified, at least in terms of living in woody areas near cities. It is also the only one with a heavily spotted breast.
The nest is similar to a robin’s, but without so much mud, and is usually twenty-five feet or less from the ground in a tree or shrub.
YELLOWTHROAT
(Geothlypis trichas)
This is a gay little warbler that is abundant, at least in summer, across the United States and most of Canada wherever there are moist shrubby areas. It’s a permanent resident in southernmost United States and northern Mexico—and north up the Pacific coast to San Francisco. The yellowthroat lives in shrubs in moist areas, showing its distinctive markings to passersby. The female doesn’t have a black mask, but otherwise looks much like the male.
These warblers nest on or near the ground in moist areas and eat mainly insects, including plant lice; don’t look for them in the tops of tall trees. Adults are about 5 inches long. There are, of course, a lot of warblers over the continent, but the yellowthroat is widely distributed and widely admired. Keep your wet areas if you want to keep yellowthroats around.
YELLOW WARBLER
(Dendroica petechia)
Although similar to the goldfinch, this warbler lacks the black wings and tail. Its cheerful, bright call can be heard by urban dwellers from willows, small trees, and shrubs growing on wet grounds and in residential areas that contain an open growth of small ornamental trees.
A tropic winterer, he breeds from the tree limit in Canada to the southern states. When plagued by cowbirds laying eggs in its nest, this warbler builds a second nest on top of the first, completely covering the cowbird’s eggs, and any of its own in the bottom layer.
Transcriber’s Notes
- Publication information provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.
- Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.
- In the text versions only, delimited italicized text with _underscores_.