More than three hundred kinds of these
dear feathered friends and visitors live in California.
Along the sea-shore, in the great valleys and the
mountain-forests and meadows, even in the dry, hot
desert, the birds, our shy and merry neighbors, are
at home. In many parts of the state they find
sunshine and green trees the year round, and food
always at hand. Yet sparrows, robins, and woodpeckers
will stay in the snowed-in groves of the Sierras all
winter, contentedly chirping or singing in spite of
the bitter cold.
If you know these wanderers of wood
and field, these birds of sea and shore, and their
interesting habits, you will wish to protect them
from stone or gun, and their nests from the egg collector.
You will listen to the lark and linnet, and be glad
that the happy songster trilling such sweet notes
is free to fly where he wishes, and is not pining
in a cage. And you, little girl, will not encourage
the destruction of these pretty creatures by wearing
a sea-gull or part of some dead bird on your hat.
To become better acquainted with birds,
let us call them before us by classes, beginning with
our sea-birds and those round the bays and on the
coast. Some of these not only swim but dive in
the salt waters, and to this class of divers belong
the grebe, loon, murre, and puffin. They dive
at the flash of a gun, and after what seems a long
time, come up far away from the spot the hunter aimed
at. These birds usually nest on bare, rocky cliffs
near the ocean, or on islands like the Farallones,
and their large green eggs hatch out nestlings that
are ugly and awkward and helpless on land. But
they ride the great ocean-breakers, or dive into their
clear depths easily and gracefully; and as they live
upon fish or small sea-creatures, the divers only
seek land to roost at night and to raise their young.
Next come the gulls, who belong to
a class known as “long-winged swimmers.”
They have strong wings and fly great distances, and
with their webbed feet swim well, too. Most of
the sea-gulls are white with a gray coat on their
backs, but they look snowy-white as they fly.
You may see them walking about the wharves, or perching
on roofs and piles watching for food, and seeming
very tame as they pick up bits of bread or the refuse
floating in the water. They follow steamers for
miles, scarcely moving their wings as they float in
the air; and if you throw a cracker from the deck,
some gull will make a swift swoop and snatch it before
the cracker reaches the water.
Far out on the Pacific the albatross
sails proudly on his broad wings, and cares nothing
for high winds or storms. He rests and sleeps
on the billows at night with his little companions,
the stormy pétrels. He is the largest and
strongest of our birds of flight, the very king of
the sea. The stormy pétrels are not much
larger than a swallow. Sailors call them.
“Mother Carey’s chickens,” and are
sure a storm is coming up when pétrels follow
the ship. The albatross, petrel, and a gull-like
bird called a shearwater belong to the “tube-nosed
swimmers,” on account of their curious long beaks.
Along the coast, and wading in the
shallow waters around the bays, are some strange birds
known as pelicans and shags. They are good fishers,
and drive the darting, finny fellows before them as
they wade in the water till they can see and gobble
them up. Most waders have under their beaks a
skin-pocket deep enough to hold a fish while carrying
it to their nestlings, or making ready to swallow it.
All of these sea-birds raise their young as far from
the shore and from hunters as possible. Great
flocks of them roost on islands fifteen or twenty
miles out in the ocean, and fly into the bays every
morning.
Wild ducks, geese, the herons, mud-hens,
sandpipers, and curlews are marsh and shore birds
that feed and wade in the shallow salt water, and
nest on the banks or, like the heron, in trees near
the bay. The heron is a frog-catcher, and he
will stand very still on his long legs and patiently
wait till the frog, thinking him gone, swims near.
Then one dart of the long bill captures froggy, and
the heron waits for another. You know the red-head,
green mallard, canvas-back, and small teal ducks,
no doubt, and have seen the flocks of wild geese flying
and calling in the sky, or standing like patches of
snow as they feed in the marshes or grain-fields.
Down on the mud-flats at low tide
you see birds called rails, and also “kill-dee”
plovers. The shoveller ducks are there, too fishing
up with broad, flat beaks little crabs and such creatures
as are in the mud, straining out mud and water, but
swallowing the rest. All these birds are “waders”
and delight in mud and cold salt water. They are
usually quiet, or make only strange, shrill cries.
In the sunny fields and woods we shall
find many of the land-birds, and first comes a family
whose habits are so like those of chickens that they
are called “scratchers.” These birds
depend for food upon seeds and bugs or worms they
scratch out of the ground. Up in the Sierra sugar-pines
and fir-woods lives the largest of these “scratchers,”
the brown grouse. He is a shy creature, rising
out of his feeding-ground with a great whirring of
wings and out of sight before the hunter can fire
at him. His peculiar cry, or “drumming,”
as it is called, sounds through the woods like tapping
hard on a hollow log. His equally shy neighbor
is the mountain-quail, while through the farming lands
and all along the hillsides the valley quail
are plenty. Perhaps you have seen a happy family
of these speckled brown birds. Papa quail has
a black crest on his head, and he calls “Look
right here” from the wrong side of the road to
fool you, while Mamma and her little, cunning chicks
scatter like flying brown leaves in the brush.
After the danger is past, you hear her low call to
bring them round her again. In the desert and
sage-brush part of the state the sage-hen, another
“scratcher,” runs swiftly through the thickets,
but many are caught and brought in by the Indians.
Our birds of prey are eagles, vultures,
hawks, owls, and the turkey-buzzards, those big black
scavengers that hang in the air. In circles high
above woods and fields some of these birds of prey
sweep on broad wings, searching with keen sight for
their food in some dead animal far below. The
California condor, a great black vulture-like bird,
is almost extinct, and is only found in the highest
mountains. It is very large of wing, and strong
enough, it is said, to carry off a sheep. Both
golden and bald eagles nest in tall trees in the wildest
parts of the state. The chicken-hawk, whose swift
sailing over the poultry-yard calls out loud squawking
from the frightened hens, you have often seen, and
the wise-looking brown owls, too. A small burrowing
owl lives in the squirrel holes, and you may catch
him easily in the daytime, when he cannot see.
The road-runner is of the cuckoo family
of birds. It seldom flies, but runs swiftly along
the roads, or in the desert, and is said to kill rattlesnakes
by placing a ring of thorny cactus leaves around the
snake as it lies asleep. The rattler is then pecked
to death, since it cannot get out of its prickly cage.
This fowl is like a slender brown hen in size.
In the redwoods you hear the tap,
tap, of the “carpenter” woodpecker, with
his black coat and gay red cap. He drills holes
in the bark of a tree with his strong beak and then
fits an acorn neatly into each safe little storehouse.
It is thought that worms and grubs fatten while living
in these acorns, so that the woodpecker always has
a meal ready in the winter when the ground is wet,
or the squirrels have carried off the acorns under
the trees.
Humming-birds, or “hummers,”
as the boys call them, are plenty in city and country
and so fearless that they will take a bath in the spray
of the garden-hose, or dart their long bills in the
fuchsias almost within your reach. The bill
shields a double tongue, which gets not only honey,
but small insects from the flower or off the leaves.
The humming-bird’s tiny nest is a soft, round
basket, not much bigger than half a walnut-shell,
and holding two eggs, which are like small-white beans.
Bits of moss and gray cobwebs are woven in this nest
till it looks like the branch itself; and here the
little mother in her plain brown dress hatches out
and feeds the baby “hummers.” Her
husband has glistening ruby feathers at his throat
and green spots on his head and back that glow in
the sun like jewels.
The highest class of birds is the
“perchers,” and many friends of yours
belong to this. There are two families, however,
of perchers, those that call and the song-birds.
Calling over and over their peculiar note, the pewees,
flycatchers, and king-birds, fly through the forests.
The crow and blue jay belong to the singers, you will
be surprised to hear. And what a crowd of these
song-birds there are trilling and warbling in the
sunshine! Have you ever watched the meadow-lark
singing as he sits on guard on the fence, while the
rest of his brown-coated yellow-vested flock run along
the field picking up seeds and insects?
Then there are the linnets, or “redheads,”
who sing their sweet, merry tunes all summer, and
if they do take a cherry or two the farmer should
not grumble. They destroy many bugs and caterpillars
and eat weed-seeds that might trouble the fruit-grower
more than the missing cherries. The yellow warbler,
sometimes called the wild canary, flits through bush
and tree and trills its gay notes in town and country.
Song-sparrows, thrushes, and bluebirds warble far and
near, while the red-winged blackbird makes music in
wet, swampy places. The robin, who comes to city
gardens in the winter, has a summer home in the mountains
or redwoods. There, too, the saucy jay screams
and chatters, and flashes his blue wings as he flies,
scolding all the time.
In Southern California, among the
orange groves or in gardens, the mocking-bird trills
in sweet, liquid notes his wonderful song. He
mimics, too, many sounds he hears, and sometimes when
caged will whistle tunes or say words. The mocker
can crow or cackle like the chickens, or mew like
the cat. Then he will whistle clear and loud
till dogs or boys answer his call. When they find
themselves fooled, it is said, he mimics a laugh.
From April to July the birds are busy,
nesting, feeding their families, or teaching them
to fly. Many eggs never hatch, and some are destroyed
by wild animals. Boys often rob a whole nest to
have one little blown egg in their collections.
Then again the mother is killed and her brood starves
to death. When the parent birds are teaching the
nestlings to fly, cats also catch the little ones.
So you see the poor feathered things have many enemies.
Let us try to protect the birds, and
to let them live happy lives in freedom. Each
one will thank you, either with sweet songs or with
being a beautiful thing to see on land or ocean.