Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-06-03
COMING OF THE BIRDS
ROBINS, BLUE BIRDS AND SPAR
ROWS WARBLE IN THE TREES.
Orchards Filled With Goldfnches-In-
cessant Rapping of the Wood
pecker Now May Be Heard.

Written for The Star.
This spring my studies have been Of such
nature as to greatly curtail the usual
number of my walks afield, and as for the
spring migration of BIRDS l have been
obliged to make most of my notes from the
study window or the broad piazza. AS my
home is somewhat isolated, l nave not only
the common birds of the farmyard and or
chard, but many rare varieties OF migrants
stop in my trees, and l hear the call of
still wilder birds from the adjacent forest.
First of all came the robins, in twos and
threes, and then in focks of twenty-five or
more. piping in the fields and along the
wood edges. A day or two later the family
homesick notes of bluebirds dropped out of
gray sky. and they, too, added spots OF
brilliant color to the landscape, and a Sec
ond voice to lovers choir. The robins now
have a nest In the lilac bush, directly in
front OF our door. tall nest built in about
four days. and worked on nearly altogether
by the female. An interval of day
elapsed between the completion of the home
and the laying of the first greenish- blue
egg. Ten feet from the robin, mother
blue bird Is brooding her six eggs in box
of white birch bark at the end of the
piazza.
The Little Gray Bird.
In middle April we were Weakened in the
morning by the complaining call of a little
gray bird which sat upright on the twig,
and now and again darted off after an early
insect. His cry was Phoebe-be, Phoebe,
and after much investigation he and his
mate have built messy nest that sits on a
beam in the barn. Another builder which
frequents our outbuildings is the barn
swallow. A trim and skillful bird is he-,a
perfect flying machine, sailing in long
curves, wheeling, darling, freaking on his
iong, pointed wings, airy and graceful.
ms is one OF the few swallows which
hunt low; while others seek their food in
the upper air. the barn swallow skins over
the grass tops and catches the low-hvine,
insects. He is a cheerful neighbor. twit-
tering softly and confidingly on the roof
tops, or peeping sharply as he dashes in At
the wide barn door,
The barn swallow came too and hao,,
housekeeping In a bird box set high up on
a p9ie. we watched him gathering straw
In the road, and admired the steel-blue Of
his back, which contrasts sharply with tha
pure white of his under parts In the old
days. this bird nested in holes In trees
and some individuals still adhere to this
ancestral habit, but gradually, like the
barn and cliff swallow he is taking adj
vantage of the work of man. The cliff
swallows fasten their mud lfests to build
inGs but the tree swallow must have a
hole te hide in: hence his use of convent
ent bird houses
Swallows and Spring.
They say In England that when the swal
low arrives, spring has really come. Alas.
1t is not so with US! They came In latter
April. but our May has been full of cold
and cloudy days. of east winds and driving
mists and rain. 1t was on such a ,oId
gray morning, when the clouds hung low on
the mountains that we heard or. the IN
lands across the road a low, walling cry
as of the wind shrieking in the chimney
on winter night. 1t had none of the
qualities of. the human voice; IL seemed
more of whistle. and yet to me it sug
gested lost child wailing on a moor.
Later In the day we caught glimnse of
the creature which had made this eerie
sound. 1t was a long-legged, long-hiIled
bird of brown and white. and we knew him
for the Bertramian sandpiper Or upland
plover. Besides his voice. another pecIlliar
his wings just after he alights, extending
them together high above his back and
then slowly closing them. His markings
OF mingled brown and black and white
harmonic well with the dried grass Of fhe
fields which he frequents and afford a
good example of protective coloring, In
England, and indeed in many countries
plovers are considered birds of bad omen
Their wailing cries have made the folk
associate them with lost and wandering
souls. And as we hear the wall of this
of the day. or out of the darkness of the
night. 1t Is easy to understand how, among
the superstitious, his tribe have got their
evil name.
In contrast to this Is the cheerfulness of
the sparrows The chipping sparrow is the
most social, as his Latin name signifies
The song sparrow sings In our bushes; and