Bird Neighbors [45]
of head and on wings and tail. A brownish-gray ring around the neck. Beneath dusty white, with rufous tint. Crescent-like frontlet. Chin, throat, sides of head, and tail coverts rufous. Range -- North and South America. Winters in the tropics. Migrations -- Early April. Late September. Summer resident.
Not quite so brilliantly colored as the barn swallow, nor with tail so deeply forked, and consequently without so much grace in flying, and with a squeak rather than the really musical twitter of the gayer bird, the cliff swallow may be positively identified by the rufous feathers of its tail coverts, but more definitely by its crescent-shaped frontlet shining like a new moon; hence its specific Latin name from luna = moon, and frons = front.
Such great numbers of these swallows have been seen in the far West that the name of Rocky Mountain swallows is sometimes given to them; though however rare they may have been in 1824, when DeWitt Clinton thought he "discovered" them near Lake Champlain, they are now common enough in all parts of the United States.
In the West this swallow is wholly a cliff-dweller, but it has learned to modify its home in different localities. As usually seen, it is gourd-shaped, opened at the top, built entirely of mud pellets ("bricks without straw"), softly lined with feathers and wisps of grass, and attached by the larger part to a projecting cliff or eave.
Like all the swallows, this bird lives in colonies, and the clay-colored nests beneath the eaves of barns are often so close together that a group of them resembles nothing so much as a gigantic wasp's nest. It is said that when swallows pair they are mated for life; but, then, more is said about swallows than the most tireless bird-lover could substantiate. The tradition that swallows fly low when it is going to rain may be easily credited, because the air before a storm is usually too heavy with moisture for the winged insects, upon which the swallows feed, to fly high.
MOURNING DOVE (Zenaidura macroura) Pigeon family
Called also: CAROLINA DOVE; TURTLE DOVE
Length -- 12 to 13 inches. About one-half as large again as the robin. Male -- Grayish brown or fawn-color above, varying to bluish gray. Crown and upper part of head greenish blue, with green and golden metallic reflections on sides of neck. A black spot under each ear. Forehead and breast reddish buff; lighter underneath. (General impression of color, bluish fawn.) Bill black, with tumid, fleshy covering; feet red; two middle tail feathers longest; all others banded with black and tipped with ashy white. Wing coverts sparsely spotted with black. Flanks and underneath the wings bluish. Female -- Duller and without iridescent reflections on neck. Range -- North America, from Quebec to Panama, and westward to Arizona. Most common in temperate climate, east of Rocky Mountains. Migrations -- March. November. Common summer resident not Migratory south of Virginia.
The beautiful, soft-colored plumage of this incessant and rather melancholy love-maker is not on public exhibition. To see it we must trace the a-coo-o, coo-o, coo-oo, coo-o to its source in the thick foliage in some tree in an out-of-the-way corner of the farm, or to an evergreen near the edge of the woods. The slow, plaintive notes, more like a dirge than a love-song, penetrate to a surprising distance. They may not always be the same lovers we hear from April to the end of summer, but surely the sound seems to indicate that they are. The dove is a shy bird, attached to its gentle and refined mate with a devotion that has passed into a proverb, but caring little or nothing for the society of other feathered friends, and very little for its own kind, unless after the nesting season has passed. In this respect it differs widely from its cousins, the wild pigeons, flocks of which, numbering many millions, are recorded by Wilson and other early writers before the days when netting these birds became so fatally profitable.
What the dove finds to adore so ardently in the "shiftless
Not quite so brilliantly colored as the barn swallow, nor with tail so deeply forked, and consequently without so much grace in flying, and with a squeak rather than the really musical twitter of the gayer bird, the cliff swallow may be positively identified by the rufous feathers of its tail coverts, but more definitely by its crescent-shaped frontlet shining like a new moon; hence its specific Latin name from luna = moon, and frons = front.
Such great numbers of these swallows have been seen in the far West that the name of Rocky Mountain swallows is sometimes given to them; though however rare they may have been in 1824, when DeWitt Clinton thought he "discovered" them near Lake Champlain, they are now common enough in all parts of the United States.
In the West this swallow is wholly a cliff-dweller, but it has learned to modify its home in different localities. As usually seen, it is gourd-shaped, opened at the top, built entirely of mud pellets ("bricks without straw"), softly lined with feathers and wisps of grass, and attached by the larger part to a projecting cliff or eave.
Like all the swallows, this bird lives in colonies, and the clay-colored nests beneath the eaves of barns are often so close together that a group of them resembles nothing so much as a gigantic wasp's nest. It is said that when swallows pair they are mated for life; but, then, more is said about swallows than the most tireless bird-lover could substantiate. The tradition that swallows fly low when it is going to rain may be easily credited, because the air before a storm is usually too heavy with moisture for the winged insects, upon which the swallows feed, to fly high.
MOURNING DOVE (Zenaidura macroura) Pigeon family
Called also: CAROLINA DOVE; TURTLE DOVE
Length -- 12 to 13 inches. About one-half as large again as the robin. Male -- Grayish brown or fawn-color above, varying to bluish gray. Crown and upper part of head greenish blue, with green and golden metallic reflections on sides of neck. A black spot under each ear. Forehead and breast reddish buff; lighter underneath. (General impression of color, bluish fawn.) Bill black, with tumid, fleshy covering; feet red; two middle tail feathers longest; all others banded with black and tipped with ashy white. Wing coverts sparsely spotted with black. Flanks and underneath the wings bluish. Female -- Duller and without iridescent reflections on neck. Range -- North America, from Quebec to Panama, and westward to Arizona. Most common in temperate climate, east of Rocky Mountains. Migrations -- March. November. Common summer resident not Migratory south of Virginia.
The beautiful, soft-colored plumage of this incessant and rather melancholy love-maker is not on public exhibition. To see it we must trace the a-coo-o, coo-o, coo-oo, coo-o to its source in the thick foliage in some tree in an out-of-the-way corner of the farm, or to an evergreen near the edge of the woods. The slow, plaintive notes, more like a dirge than a love-song, penetrate to a surprising distance. They may not always be the same lovers we hear from April to the end of summer, but surely the sound seems to indicate that they are. The dove is a shy bird, attached to its gentle and refined mate with a devotion that has passed into a proverb, but caring little or nothing for the society of other feathered friends, and very little for its own kind, unless after the nesting season has passed. In this respect it differs widely from its cousins, the wild pigeons, flocks of which, numbering many millions, are recorded by Wilson and other early writers before the days when netting these birds became so fatally profitable.
What the dove finds to adore so ardently in the "shiftless