Bird Neighbors [54]
"the commonest bird in the Park (Central Park, New York), not even excepting the robin," during the last week of May on a certain year; but usually, it must be owned, we have to be on the lookout to find it, or it will pass unnoticed in the great companies of more conspicuous birds travelling at the same time. White-throated sparrows often keep it company on the long journeys northward, and they may frequently be seen together, hopping sociably about the garden, the thrush calling out a rather harsh note -- puk! puk! -- quite different from the liquid, mellow calls of the other thrushes, to resent either the sparrows' bad manners or the inquisitiveness of a human disturber of its peace. But this gregarious habit and neighborly visit end even before acquaintance fairly begins, and the thrushes are off for their nesting grounds in the pine woods of New England or Labrador if they are travelling up the east coast, or to Alaska, British Columbia, or Manitoba if west of the Mississippi. There they stay all summer, often travelling southward with the sparrows in the autumn, as in the spring.
Why they should prefer coniferous trees, unless to utilize the needles for a nest, is not understood. Low trees and bushes are favorite building sites with them as with others of the family, though these thrushes disdain a mud lining to their nests. Those who have heard the olive-backed thrush singing an even-song to its brooding mate compare it with the veery's, but it has a break in it and is less simple and pleasing than the latter's.
LOUISIANA WATER THRUSH (Seiurus motacilla) Wood Warbler family
Length -- 6 to 6.28 inches. Just a trifle smaller than the English sparrow. Male and Female -- Grayish olive-brown upper parts, with conspicuous white line over the eye and reaching almost to the nape. Underneath white, tinged with pale buff. Throat and line through the middle, plain. Other parts streaked with very dark brown, rather faintly on the breast, giving them the speckled breast of the thrushes. Heavy, dark bill. Range -- United States, westward to the plains; northward to southern New England. Winters in the tropics. Migrations -- Late April. October. Summer resident.
This bird, that so delighted Audubon with its high-trilled song as he tramped with indefatigable zeal through the hammocks of the Gulf States, seems to be almost the counterpart of the Northern water thrush, just as the loggerhead is the Southern counterpart of the Northern shrike. Very many Eastern birds have their duplicates in Western species, as we all know, and it is most interesting to trace the slight external variations that different climates and diet have produced on the same bird, and thus differentiated the species. In winter the Northern water thrush visits the cradle of its kind, the swamps of Louisiana and Florida, and, no doubt, by daily contact with its congeners there, keeps close to their cherished traditions, from which it never deviates farther than Nature compels, though it penetrate to the arctic regions during its summer journeys.
With a more southerly range, the Louisiana water thrush does not venture beyond the White Mountains and to the shores of the Great Lakes in summer, but even at the North the same woods often contain both birds, and there is opportunity to note just how much they differ. The Southern bird is slightly the larger, possibly an inch; it is more gray, and it lacks a few of the streaks, notably on the throat, that plentifully speckle its Northern counterpart; but the habits of both of these birds appear to be identical. Only for a few days in the spring or autumn migrations do they pass near enough to our homes for us to study them, and then we must ever be on the alert to steal a glance at them through the opera-glasses, for birds more shy than they do not visit the garden shrubbery at any season. Only let them suspect they are being stared at, and they are under cover in a twinkling.
Where mountain streams dash through tracts of mossy, spongy ground that is carpeted with fern and moss, and
Why they should prefer coniferous trees, unless to utilize the needles for a nest, is not understood. Low trees and bushes are favorite building sites with them as with others of the family, though these thrushes disdain a mud lining to their nests. Those who have heard the olive-backed thrush singing an even-song to its brooding mate compare it with the veery's, but it has a break in it and is less simple and pleasing than the latter's.
LOUISIANA WATER THRUSH (Seiurus motacilla) Wood Warbler family
Length -- 6 to 6.28 inches. Just a trifle smaller than the English sparrow. Male and Female -- Grayish olive-brown upper parts, with conspicuous white line over the eye and reaching almost to the nape. Underneath white, tinged with pale buff. Throat and line through the middle, plain. Other parts streaked with very dark brown, rather faintly on the breast, giving them the speckled breast of the thrushes. Heavy, dark bill. Range -- United States, westward to the plains; northward to southern New England. Winters in the tropics. Migrations -- Late April. October. Summer resident.
This bird, that so delighted Audubon with its high-trilled song as he tramped with indefatigable zeal through the hammocks of the Gulf States, seems to be almost the counterpart of the Northern water thrush, just as the loggerhead is the Southern counterpart of the Northern shrike. Very many Eastern birds have their duplicates in Western species, as we all know, and it is most interesting to trace the slight external variations that different climates and diet have produced on the same bird, and thus differentiated the species. In winter the Northern water thrush visits the cradle of its kind, the swamps of Louisiana and Florida, and, no doubt, by daily contact with its congeners there, keeps close to their cherished traditions, from which it never deviates farther than Nature compels, though it penetrate to the arctic regions during its summer journeys.
With a more southerly range, the Louisiana water thrush does not venture beyond the White Mountains and to the shores of the Great Lakes in summer, but even at the North the same woods often contain both birds, and there is opportunity to note just how much they differ. The Southern bird is slightly the larger, possibly an inch; it is more gray, and it lacks a few of the streaks, notably on the throat, that plentifully speckle its Northern counterpart; but the habits of both of these birds appear to be identical. Only for a few days in the spring or autumn migrations do they pass near enough to our homes for us to study them, and then we must ever be on the alert to steal a glance at them through the opera-glasses, for birds more shy than they do not visit the garden shrubbery at any season. Only let them suspect they are being stared at, and they are under cover in a twinkling.
Where mountain streams dash through tracts of mossy, spongy ground that is carpeted with fern and moss, and