With the Birds on Boston Common

IT is often said that there are no longer any birds on the Common ; that the “English sparrows” have driven them all away. I make no apology for the sparrows, but they have not yet obtained exclusive possession of our grounds; for during the last five years I have myself seen there thousands of our native birds, representing at least sixty-five species. Of course the principal part of these were visitors for a few days only, during the spring and autumn migrations. As a rule, all such travelers come and go in the night. The bluebirds, I think, form an exception. I have frequently watched them rise into the air, and disappear almost immediately after I became aware of their presence. I have once or twice seen robins do the same, and also a chance golden-winged woodpecker or two. But the great majority of birds will not take their departure in the day-time, no matter how much they may be disturbed. I have never witnessed an arrival except once. I was in the Public Garden one morning, when I heard loud calls in the air overhead, and, looking up, saw a flock of robins just at that moment descending into the Garden. They perched in the trees for a few minutes, and then, with much screaming, mounted into the air again, and were off. That most of our small birds travel by night is now so well established that it does not require to be argued ; but, if any one wishes to satisfy himself of the fact at first hand, he may easily do so by one season’s observations on the Common, or, I suppose, in any similar inclosure. In the spring and fall it is nothing unusual, on going out in the morning, to find scores, or even hundreds, of birds, not one of which was present on the afternoon before. And, on the other hand, I have over and over again noticed that birds who were there in the afternoon were not there on the following morning. It may be mentioned also that on cloudy nights, during the height of the migration, you may sometimes hear the calls of the little wanderers as they fly over the city.

As a general thing our visitors remain two or three days ; at least, I have observed that to be true in many cases where the numbers, or size, or rarity of the birds made it possible to be reasonably sure when the arrival and departure occurred. It is one of the chief compensations connected with observations made in a small inclosed area like the Common that, as I have already said, if you startle a bird he does not fly off into trackless woods or across wide fields, as he might do in the open country, but is sure to be found again not many rods away ; and thus you are able to watch the same individual for several days, and, so to speak, become acquainted with him. I remember with interest several such acquaintanceships. One was with a yellow-bellied woodpecker, the first I had ever seen. He made his appearance one morning in October, along with a company of chickadees and other birds, and, when I first saw him, was on a maple-tree near the Ether monument. I watched him for some time, and at noon, happening to be in the same place again, found him still there. And there he remained four days. I went to see him several times daily, and almost invariably discovered him either on the maple, or on a tulip-tree, a few yards distant. Without doubt, the sweetness of maple sap was known to Sphyrapicus varius long before our human ancestors discovered it, and I conclude that this particular bird must have been a connoisseur; at any rate, he seemed to know that this tree was of a sort not to be met with every day. He was extremely industrious, as woodpeckers are accustomed to be, and paid no attention to the children who were playing about, or to the men who sat under his tree, with the back of their seat resting against the trunk. As for the children’s noise, it is likely that he enjoyed it; for he is a noisy fellow himself, and famous as a drummer. An aged clergyman in Washington told me that sometimes he could hardly read his Bible on Sunday morning, because of the racket which this woodpecker made drumming on the tin roof overhead.

Another of my acquaintances was a bird of quite a different sort, a female Maryland yellow-throat. She was a most exquisite, dainty bit of bird flesh, and was in the Garden all by herself on the 6th of October, long after the rest of her species had departed for the sunny South. She was perfectly contented, and allowed me to watch her closely, although she scolded mildly now and then when I became too inquisitive. How I did admire her bravery and peace of mind, feeding so quietly, with that long, lonesome journey before her, and the cold weather coming on ! No wonder, I said to myself, that the Great Teacher pointed his lesson of trust with the injunction, “ Behold the fowls of the air ”!

A passenger even more belated than this warbler was a chipping sparrow that was hopping about on the edge of the Beacon Street Mall on the 6th of December, seven or eight weeks after all chippers were supposed to be south of Mason and Dixon’s line. Some accident had detained him, doubtless, but he showed no signs of worry or haste, as I walked around him, to make quite sure that he was not a tree sparrow in disguise.

There is not much to attract birds to the Common in the winter. I said to one of the gardeners that I thought it a pity some of the plants, especially the zinnias and marigolds, were not left to go to seed, as they would be sure to attract flocks of winter birds, who are quick to discover such feeding-places after the deep snows come. He said it would be of no use; there were no birds on the Common, and there would n’t be any so long as the English sparrows were here to drive them away. It would be of use, notwithstanding; and certainly it would be a pleasure to many people to see flocks of goldfinches, red poll linnets, tree sparrows, and possibly of the beautiful snow buntings, feeding in the Garden in midwinter. Even as things are, the winter is pretty sure to bring us a few butcher-birds. They come for sparrows, and are now regarded as public benefactors, although formerly our wise municipal authorities used to shoot them. They travel singly, as a rule, and sometimes the same bird will be here for several weeks together. Then you will have no trouble in finding here and there, in the hawthorn-trees, the headless bodies of sparrows spitted upon thorns. In appearance the shrike resembles the mockingbird. Indeed, a policeman whom I found staring at one would not believe but that he was a mocking-bird. Don’t you see he is ? And he’s been singing, too.” I did not doubt the singing, for the shrike will often twitter by the half hour in the very coldest weather. But further discussion concerning the bird’s identity was soon rendered needless ; for, while we were talking, along came a sparrow, and alighted in a hawthorn bush, right under the shrike’s perch. The latter was all attention instantly, and, after waiting till the sparrow had moved a little out of the thick of the bush, down he pounced. He missed his aim, or the sparrow was too quick for him, and although he made a second swoop, and followed that by a hot chase, he soon came back without his prey. This little exertion, however, seemed to have provoked his appetite; for, instead of resuming his perch, he went into the hawthorn bush, and began to feed upon the carcass of a bird which, it seemed, he had already laid up in store. He was soon frightened away for a few moments by the approach of a third man, and the policeman improved the opportunity to visit the bush and take away his breakfast. When the fellow came back, and found his table empty, he did not manifest the slightest disappointment (the shrike never does ; he is a fatalist, I think). In order to see what he would do, the policeman threw the body to him. It lodged on the outside of the bush, but instantly the shrike came for it; and as he did so, he spread his beautifully bordered tail and screamed loudly. Whether he meant to express delight, or anger, or contempt, I could not judge; but he seized the body, carried it back to its old place, drove it again upon the thorn, and proceeded to devour it more voraciously than ever, scattering the feathers about in a lively way as he tore it to pieces. The third man, who had never before seen such a thing, stepped up within reach of the bush, and eyed the performance at his leisure, the shrike not deigning to notice him in the least. A few mornings later the same bird gave me another and more amusing exhibition of his nonchalance. He was singing from the top of our one small larch-tree, and I had stopped to look and listen, when a milkman entered at the Commonwealth Avenue gate, both hands loaded with cans, and, without noticing the shrike, walked straight under the tree. Just then, however, he heard the notes overhead, and, looking up, saw the bird. As if not knowing what to make of the creature’s assurance, he stared at him for a moment, and then, putting down his cans, he seized the trunk with both hands, and gave it a good shake. But the bird only took a fresh hold ; and when the man let go, and stepped back to look up, there he sat as unconcernedly as though nothing had happened. Not to be so easily beaten, the man grasped the trunk again, and shook it harder than before ; and this time the shrike seemed to think the joke had been carried far enough, for he took wing, and flew to another part of the Garden. The bravado of the butcher-bird is great, but it is not unlimited. I saw him, one day, shuffling along a branch in a very nervous, unshrikely fashion, and was puzzled to account for his unusual demeanor till I caught sight of a low-flying hawk sweeping over the tree. Every creature, no matter how brave, has some other creature to be afraid of; otherwise, how would the world get on ?

The advent of spring is announced usually during the first week of March, sometimes by the robins, sometimes by the bluebirds. By the middle of the month the song sparrows begin to arrive, and for a month after this they furnish delightful music daily. I have heard them caroling with all cheerfulness in the midst of a driving snowstorm. The dear little optimists ! They never doubt that the sun is on their side. Of necessity they go elsewhere to spend the summer, for they build their nests on the ground, and a lawn which is mowed every two or three days would be quite out of the question. A public park is not a favorable place for the study of bird music. Most of the visitors are busy feeding during their brief stay, and besides they are kept in a state of excitement by the frequent approach of passers-by. Nevertheless, I once heard a bobolink sing in our Garden, and once a brown thrush, although neither was sufficiently at home to do himself justice. The “ Peabody ” song of the white-throated sparrows is to be heard occasionally during both migrations. To my ears it is one of the wildest of all bird notes ; it is one of the last that you hear at night in the White Mountain woods, as well as one of the last to die away beneath you as you climb the higher peaks. On the Crawford bridle path, for instance, I remember that the song of this bird and that of the gray-cheeked thrush¹ were heard all along the ridge from Mount Clinton to Mount Washington. The finest bird concert I ever attended in Boston was given on Monument Hill by a great chorus of fox-colored sparrows, one morning in April. A high wind had been blowing during the night, and the moment I entered the Common I discovered that there had been an extraordinary arrival of birds, of various species. The parade ground was full of snow-birds, while the hill was covered with fox-sparrows, — hundreds of them, I thought, and many of them in full song. It was a royal concert, but I am sorry to say the audience was small. It is unfortunate, in some aspects of the case, that birds have never learned that a matinée ought to begin at two o’clock in the afternoon.

These sparrows please me by their lordly treatment of their European cousins. One in particular, who was holding his ground against three of the Britishers, moved me almost to the point of giving him three cheers.

Birds like the robin, the warbling vireo, the red-eyed vireo, the chipper, the goldfinch, and the Baltimore oriole, who pass the summer with us, of course sing freely. Of late years, a few crowblackbirds have taken to building their nests in one corner of our domain ; and they attract their full share of attention, as they strut about the lawns in their glossy clerical suits. One of the gardeners told me that they sometimes kill the sparrows. I hope they do. The crowblackbird’s attempts at song are ludicrous in the extreme, as every note is cracked, and is accompanied by a ridiculous caudal gesture. But he is ranked with the oscine birds, and seems to know it; and, after all, it is only the common fault of singers not to be able to detect their own want of tunefulness.

I was once crossing the Common, in the middle of the day, when I was suddenly arrested by the call of a cuckoo. At the same instant two men passed me, and I heard one say to the other, “ Hear that cuckoo! Do you know what it means? No ? Well, I know what it means: it means that it’s going to rain.” It did rain, although not for several days, I believe. But probably the cuckoo has adopted the modern method of predicting the weather some time in advance. Once since then I have heard this bird’s note on the Common, but I have never been fortunate enough to see him there. He is not easily seen anywhere ; for he makes a practice of robbing the nests of smaller birds, and is always skulking about from one tree to another, as though he were afraid of being discovered, as no doubt he is. What Wordsworth wrote of the European cuckoo is equally applicable to him : —

A pretty regular visitor twice a year is the brown creeper. He is so small and silent, and withal his color is so like that of the bark to which he clings, that I suspect he is seldom noticed even by persons who pass within a few feet of him. But he is not too small to be hectored by the sparrows, and I have sometimes been amused at the encounter. The sparrow catches sight of the creeper, and at once bears down upon him, when the creeper darts round the trunk, and alights again a little further up. The sparrow is after him ; but, as he comes dashing round the trunk, he always seems to expect to find the creeper perched upon some twig, as any other bird would be, and it is only after a little reconnoitring that he again discovers him clinging to the vertical bole. Then he makes another onset, and the same manœuvre is repeated, till the creeper becomes disgusted, and takes to another tree.

The olive-backed thrushes and the hermits may be looked for every spring and autumn, and I have known forty or fifty of the former to be here at the same time. The hermits most often travel singly or in pairs, but I have more than once seen a small flock. Both species preserve absolute silence while here; I have watched hundreds of them, and have never heard so much as an alarm note. They are far from being pugnacious, but they have a large sense of personal dignity, and sometimes, when the sparrows pester them beyond endurance, they assume the offensive with much spirit. There are none of our feathered guests whom I am gladder to see; the sight of them inevitably fills me with remembrances of happy vacation seasons among the hills of New Hampshire. If only they would sing on the Common as they do in those northern woods ! The whole city would come out to hear them.

During every migration large numbers of warblers visit us. I have noted the golden-crowned thrush, the smallbilled water-thrush, the black and white creeper, the Maryland yellow-throat, the blue yellow-back, the black - throated green, the black-throated blue, the yellow-rump, the summer yellow-bird, the black-poll, and the Canada flycatcher. No doubt the list is far from complete, as, of course, I have not used a gun. The two kinglets give us a call occasionally, and in the late summer and early autumn the humming-birds spend several weeks about our flower beds. I saw one of these making his morning toilet in a very pretty fashion, leaning forward, and brushing first one cheek and then the other against the wet rose leaf on which he was perched. The only swallows on my list are the barn swallows and the white-breasted. The former, as they go hawking about the crowded streets, must often send the thoughts of rich city merchants back to the big barns of their grandfathers, far off in out-of-the-way country places. Of course we have the chimney swifts, also, but they are not swallows.

Speaking of the swallows reminds me of a hawk that came to Boston, one morning, fully determined not to go away without a taste of the famous imported sparrows. It is nothing unusual for hawks to be seen flying over the city, but I had never before seen one actually make the Public Garden his hunting-ground. This bird perched for a while on the Arlington Street fence, within a few feet of a passing carriage ; next he was on the ground, peering into a bed of rhododendrons ; then for a long time he sat still in a tree, while numbers of men passed back and forth underneath ; between whiles he sailed about, on the watch for his prey. On one of these last occasions a little company of swallows came along, and one of them immediately went out of his way to swoop down upon the hawk, and deal him a dab. Then, as he rejoined his companions, I heard him give a little chuckle, as though he said, “ There! did you see me peck at him ? You don’t think I am afraid of such a fellow as that, do you ? ” To speak in Thoreau’s manner, I rejoiced in the incident as one more illustration of the ascendency of spirit over matter.

But this gossip must have an end, else I would gladly speak of others of my guests : the Wilson thrush, the catbird, the mocking-bird, the two nuthatches, the yellow-throated vireo, the chewink, the bay-winged bunting, the swamp sparrow, the field sparrow, and the savannah sparrow, the purple finch, the red-poll linnet, the waxwing, the least flycatcher, the kingbird and the phœbe, the night-hawk, the kingfisher, and the sandpipers. Especially I could say much about my dear friends the chickadees, who sometimes make the whole autumn cheerful with their presence.

I cannot forbear, however, to mention my one unhappy owl. When I first discovered him, he was perched well up in an elm, while a crowd of perhaps forty men and boys were pelting him with sticks and stones. The sky was clouded, but the creature seemed to be entirely helpless, and sat still while the missiles flew past him on all sides, except that, when he was hit, which to be sure was pretty often, he would move to another perch. Once he was struck so hard that he came tumbling toward the ground, and I began to think it was all over with him ; but when about halfway down he recovered himself, and by painful flappings succeeded in alighting just out of the reach of the crowd. At once there were loud calls : “ Don’t kill him ! Don’t kill him ! ” and while the scamps were debating what to do next, he regained his breath, and flew up into the tree again, as high as before. Then the stoning began anew. Poor bird of wisdom! I pitied him, and wished him well out of the hands of his tormentors, though it was comical to see him turn his head and stare, with his big, vacant eyes, after a stone which had just whizzed by his ear. I left the crowd still pelting him, and must do them the justice to say that some of them were excellent marksmen. An old negro, who stood near me, was bewailing the law against shooting; else, he said, he would go home and get his gun. He described, with appropriate gestures, how very easily he could fetch the bird down. Perhaps he afterwards plucked up courage and carried out his idea, for the next morning the newspapers reported that an owl was shot, the day before, on the Common.

Bradford Torrey.