Bird Neighbors [82]
its first shadows.
Woodlands, through which small streams meander lazily, inviting swarms of insects to their boggy shores, make ideal hunting grounds for the Acadian flycatcher. It chooses a low rather than a high, conspicuous perch, that other members of its family invariably select; and from such a lookout it may be seen launching into the air after the passing gnat -- darting downward, then suddenly mounting upward in its aerial hunt, the vigorous clicks of the beak as it closes over its tiny victims testifying to the bird's unerring aim and its hearty appetite.
While perching, a constant tail-twitching is kept up; and a faint, fretful "Tshee-kee, tshee-kee" escapes the bird when inactively waiting for a dinner to heave in sight.
In the Middle Atlantic States its peeping sound and the clicking of its particolored bill are infrequently heard in the village streets in the autumn, when the shy and solitary birds are enticed from the deep woods by a prospect of a more plentiful diet of insects, attracted by the fruit in orchards and gardens.
Never far from the ground, on two or more parallel branches, the shallow, unsubstantial nest is laid. Some one has cleverly described it as "a tuft of hay caught by the limb from a load driven under it," but this description omits all mention of the quantities of blossoms that must be gathered to line the cradle for the tiny, cream white eggs spotted with brown.
YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER (Empidonax flaviventris) Flycatcher family
Length -- 5 to 5.6 inches. About an inch smaller than the English sparrow. Male -- Rather dark, but true olive-green above. Throat and breast yellowish olive, shading into pale yellow underneath, including wing linings and under tail coverts. Wings have yellowish bars. Whitish ring around eye. Upper part of bill black, under part whitish or flesh-colored. Female -- Smaller, with brighter yellow under parts and more decidedly yellow wing-bars. Range -- North America, from Labrador to Panama, and westward from the Atlantic to the plains. Winters in Central America. Migrations -- May. September. Summer resident. More commonly a migrant only.
This is the most yellow of the small flycatchers and the only Eastern species with a yellow instead of a white throat. Without hearing its call-note, "pse-ek-pse-ek," which it abruptly sneezes rather than utters, it is quite impossible, as it darts among the trees, to tell it from the Acadian flycatcher, with which even Audubon confounded it. Both these little birds choose the same sort of retreats -- well-timbered woods near a stream that attracts myriads of insects to its spongy shores -- and both are rather shy and solitary. The yellow-bellied species has a far more northerly range, however, than its Southern relative or even the small green-crested flycatcher. It is rare in the Middle States, not common even in New England, except in the migrations, but from the Canada border northward its soft, plaintive whistle, which is its love-song, may be heard in every forest where it nests. All the flycatchers seem to make a noise with so much struggle, such convulsive jerkings of head and tail, and flutterings of the wings that, considering the scanty success of their musical attempts, it is surprising they try to lift their voices at all when the effort almost literally lifts them off their feet.
While this little flycatcher is no less erratic than its Acadian cousin, its nest is never slovenly. One couple had their home in a wild-grape bower in Pennsylvania; a Virginia creeper in New Jersey supported another cradle that was fully twenty feet above the ground; but in Labrador, where the bird has its chosen breeding grounds, the bulky nest is said to be invariably placed either in the moss by the brookside or in some old stump, should the locality be too swampy.
BLACK-THROATED GREEN WARBLER (Dendroica virens) Wood Warbler family
Length -- 5 inches. Over an inch smaller than the English sparrow. Male -- Back and crown of head bright yellowish olive-green. Forehead, band
Woodlands, through which small streams meander lazily, inviting swarms of insects to their boggy shores, make ideal hunting grounds for the Acadian flycatcher. It chooses a low rather than a high, conspicuous perch, that other members of its family invariably select; and from such a lookout it may be seen launching into the air after the passing gnat -- darting downward, then suddenly mounting upward in its aerial hunt, the vigorous clicks of the beak as it closes over its tiny victims testifying to the bird's unerring aim and its hearty appetite.
While perching, a constant tail-twitching is kept up; and a faint, fretful "Tshee-kee, tshee-kee" escapes the bird when inactively waiting for a dinner to heave in sight.
In the Middle Atlantic States its peeping sound and the clicking of its particolored bill are infrequently heard in the village streets in the autumn, when the shy and solitary birds are enticed from the deep woods by a prospect of a more plentiful diet of insects, attracted by the fruit in orchards and gardens.
Never far from the ground, on two or more parallel branches, the shallow, unsubstantial nest is laid. Some one has cleverly described it as "a tuft of hay caught by the limb from a load driven under it," but this description omits all mention of the quantities of blossoms that must be gathered to line the cradle for the tiny, cream white eggs spotted with brown.
YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER (Empidonax flaviventris) Flycatcher family
Length -- 5 to 5.6 inches. About an inch smaller than the English sparrow. Male -- Rather dark, but true olive-green above. Throat and breast yellowish olive, shading into pale yellow underneath, including wing linings and under tail coverts. Wings have yellowish bars. Whitish ring around eye. Upper part of bill black, under part whitish or flesh-colored. Female -- Smaller, with brighter yellow under parts and more decidedly yellow wing-bars. Range -- North America, from Labrador to Panama, and westward from the Atlantic to the plains. Winters in Central America. Migrations -- May. September. Summer resident. More commonly a migrant only.
This is the most yellow of the small flycatchers and the only Eastern species with a yellow instead of a white throat. Without hearing its call-note, "pse-ek-pse-ek," which it abruptly sneezes rather than utters, it is quite impossible, as it darts among the trees, to tell it from the Acadian flycatcher, with which even Audubon confounded it. Both these little birds choose the same sort of retreats -- well-timbered woods near a stream that attracts myriads of insects to its spongy shores -- and both are rather shy and solitary. The yellow-bellied species has a far more northerly range, however, than its Southern relative or even the small green-crested flycatcher. It is rare in the Middle States, not common even in New England, except in the migrations, but from the Canada border northward its soft, plaintive whistle, which is its love-song, may be heard in every forest where it nests. All the flycatchers seem to make a noise with so much struggle, such convulsive jerkings of head and tail, and flutterings of the wings that, considering the scanty success of their musical attempts, it is surprising they try to lift their voices at all when the effort almost literally lifts them off their feet.
While this little flycatcher is no less erratic than its Acadian cousin, its nest is never slovenly. One couple had their home in a wild-grape bower in Pennsylvania; a Virginia creeper in New Jersey supported another cradle that was fully twenty feet above the ground; but in Labrador, where the bird has its chosen breeding grounds, the bulky nest is said to be invariably placed either in the moss by the brookside or in some old stump, should the locality be too swampy.
BLACK-THROATED GREEN WARBLER (Dendroica virens) Wood Warbler family
Length -- 5 inches. Over an inch smaller than the English sparrow. Male -- Back and crown of head bright yellowish olive-green. Forehead, band