Leander S. Keyser

“ With his powerful muscles and wide stretch of wing the robin is admirably adapted to the life of a mountaineer. You find him from the plains to the timber-line, sometimes even in the deepest cañons and on the most precipitous mountain sides, always the same busy, noisy, cheery body. One day I saw a robin dart like a meteor from the top of a high ridge over the cliffs to the valley below, where he alighted on a cultivated field almost as lightly as a flake of snow. ”

“ It nestles amid cottonwood trees and green meadows in a wide valley or park, and is flanked on the east by the rolling and roaring Arkansas River, while to the west the plain slopes up gradually to the foothills of the three towering college peaks,—Harvard, Yale, and Princeton,—crowned all the year with snow. And here were birds in plenty. Before daybreak the avian concert began with the shrieking of the western wood-pewees—a vocal performance that they, in their innocence, seriously mistake for melody—and continued until night had again settled on the vale. ”

“ Our jaunt of 1901 included a trip to Boulder and a thrilling swing around the far-famed "Switzerland Trail" to Ward, perched on the mountain sides among the clouds hard by the timber-line. Almost everywhere we met with feathered comrades; in some places, especially about Boulder, many of them; but no new species were seen, and no habits observed that have not been sufficiently delineated in other parts of this book. If one could only observe all the birds all the time in all places, what a happy life the bird-lover would live! ”

“ Never in the wet, fresh meadows, whether of plain or park, only on the arid slopes and hillocks, will you find the desert horned larks, which are certainly true to their literary cognomen, if ever birds were. How they revel in the desert! How scrupulously they draw the line on the moist and emerald areas! Surely there are "many birds of many kinds," and one might appropriately add, "of many minds," as well; for, while the blackbirds and savanna sparrows eschew the desert, the horned larks show the same dislike for the meadow. ”

“ There is almost endless variety in the avi-faunal life of the Rockies. Some species breed far above timber-line in the thickets that invade the open valleys, or clamber far up the steep mountain sides. Others ascend still higher, building their nests on the bald summits of the loftiest peaks at an altitude of fourteen thousand feet and more, living all summer long in an atmosphere that is as rare as it is refreshing and pure. ”

“ I could not help wondering how many thousands of them—and millions, perhaps—had taken up free homesteads on the seemingly limitless plains of eastern Colorado.
Most of the young had already left the nest, and were flying about in the company of their elders, learning the fine art of making a living for themselves and evading the many dangers to which bird flesh is heir. The youngsters could readily be distinguished from their seniors by the absence of distinct black markings on throat, chest, and forehead, and the lighter cast of their entire plumage. ”

“ Here I also saw my first mountain bluebird, whose back and breast are wholly blue, there being no rufous at all in his plumage. He was feeding a youngster somewhere among the snags. A red-shafted flicker flew across the vale and called, "Zwick-ah! zwick-ah!" and then pealed out his loud call just like the eastern yellow-shafted high-holder. Why the Rocky Mountain region changes the lining of the flicker's wings from gold to crimson—who can tell? A robin—the western variety—sang his "Cheerily," a short distance up the hollow, right at the boundary of the timber-line. ”

“ On the ridges and mountain sides the kinglets and hermit thrushes were abundant, a robin was carolling, a Batchelder woodpecker chirped and pounded in his tumultuous way, Clark's crows and several magpies lilted about, while below the lakes in the copses the white-crowned sparrows and green-tailed towhees held lyrical carnival, their sway disputed only by the natty Wilson's warblers.
It was a pleasure to be alive and well in such a place, where one breathed invigoration at every draught of the fresh, untainted mountain air ”

“ The summit is so situated as to be exposed to the sun the greater part of the day; hence, although it is the highest point in the region, there is less snow upon it in summer than upon many of the surrounding elevations. Looking northwest from the signal station, the eye falls upon a wilderness of snow-clad peaks and ranges, some standing in serried ranks, others in picturesque disorder. It is truly an arctic scene, summer or winter. Yet it is the summer home of the brown-capped leucosticte and the white-tailed ptarmigan, which range in happy freedom over the upper story of our country. ”

“ Surely, I thought, there must be females in the neighborhood, for when male birds are singing so lustily about a place, their spouses are usually sitting quietly on nests somewhere in bush or tree or grass. I hunted long for a nest, trudging about over the meadow, examining many a grass-tuft and weed-clump, hoping to flush a female and discover her secret; but my quest was vain. It is strange how difficult it is to find nests in Colorado, either on the plains or in the mountains. The birds seem to be adepts in the fine arts of concealment and secret-keeping. ”

“ Much as this finch cherishes the society of man, he is quite wary and suspicious, and does not fancy being watched. As long as you go on your way without seeming to notice him, he also goes his way, coming into plain sight and chirping and singing; but just stop to watch him with your binocular, and see how quickly he will take alarm, dart away, and ensconce himself behind a clump of foliage, uttering a protest which seems to say, "Why doesn't that old fellow go about his own business?" ”

“ The summit of Gray's Peak is a favorable viewpoint from which to study the complexion, the idiosyncrasies, if you please, of individual mountains, each of which seems to have a personality of its own. Here is Gray's Peak itself, calm, smiling, good-natured as a summer morning; yonder is Torrey's, next-door neighbor, cruel, relentless, defiant, always threatening with cyclone or tornado, or forging the thunder-bolts of Vulcan. Some mountains appear grand and dignified, others look like spitfires. ”

“ A western chipping sparrow sat trilling on the top of a small pine, as unafraid as the chippie that rings his silvery peals about your dooryard in the East; nor could I distinguish any difference between the minstrelsy of this westerner and his well-known cousin of Ohio. He dexterously caught an insect on the wing, having learned that trick, perhaps, from his neighbor, the little western flycatcher, which also lived on the slope. ”

“ One cannot help falling into the speculative mood in view of the sharp contrasts between the birds of the East and those of the West. Why does the hardy and almost ubiquitous blue jay studiously avoid the western plains and mountains? Why do not the magpie and the long-crested jay come east? What is there that prevents the indigo-bird from taking up residence in Colorado, where his pretty western cousin, the lazuli finch, finds himself so much at home? Why is the yellow-shafted flicker of the East replaced in the West by the red-shafted flicker? ”

“ Among the birds that dwell on the steep mountain sides above the "Loop" hollow are the melodious green-tailed towhees, lisping their chansons of good-will to breeze and torrent, while in the copse of asps in the hollow itself the warbling vireo and the western flycatcher hold sway, the former rehearsing his recitative all the day long, and the latter chirping his protest at every human intrusion. ”

“ Between our viewpoint and the last-named mountain lies South Park, like a paradise of green immured by guardian walls of rock and snow, and far to the east, beyond the billowing ranges, white, gray, and green, stretch the limitless plains, vanishing in the hazy distance. In such surroundings one's breast throbs and swells with the thought of Nature's omnipotence. ”

“ In a crotch the gray cottage was set, containing three callow babies and one beautifully mottled egg.
In another fork of the same small tree a pair of kingbirds—the same species as our well-known eastern bee-martins—had built their nest, in the downy cup of which lay four eggs similarly decorated with brown spots. The birds now all circled overhead and joined in an earnest plea with me not to destroy their homes and little ones, and I hurriedly climbed down from the tree to relieve their agitation, stopping only a moment to examine the twine plaited into the felted nests of the kingbirds. ”

“ Early on a bright morning I was following one of the streets of the village, when, on reaching the suburbs, I was greeted by a blithe, dulcet trill which could come from no other vocalist than the song-sparrow. His tones and vocalization were precisely like those of Melospiza fasciata, to which I have so often listened in my native State of Ohio. It was a dulcet strain, and stirred memories half sad, half glad, of many a charming ramble about my eastern home when the song-sparrows were the chief choralists in the outdoor opera festival. ”

“ A mother hawk was feeding a couple of youngsters on the snarly branch of a dead pine. Almost on the summit a western nighthawk sprang up from my feet. On the bare ground, without [Pg 191] the faintest sign of a nest, lay her two speckled eggs, which she had been brooding. She swept around above the summit in immense zigzag spirals while I examined her roofless dwelling-place. It was interesting to one bird-lover, at least, to know that the nighthawk breeds in such places. Like their eastern congeners, the western nighthawks are fond of "booming." ”

“ Colorado furnishes another towhee, though why he should have been put into the Pipilo group by the ornithologists is more than I can tell at this moment. He has no analogue in the East. True, he is a bird of the bushes, running sometimes like a little deer from one clump to another; but if you should see him mount a boulder or a bush, and hear him sing his rich, theme-like, finely modulated song, you would aver that he is closer kin to the thrushes or thrashers than to the towhees. There is not the remotest suggestion of the towhee minstrelsy in his prolonged and well-articulated melody. ”

“ Had the couple not been seen together flitting about the nest, they would not have been regarded as mates, so differently were they habited.
Standing before the doorway of the nursery—it was not quite so high as my head—I could plainly hear the chirping of the youngsters within. Much as I coveted the sight of a brood of this rare species, I could not bring myself to break down the walls of their cottage and thus expose them to the claws and beaks of their foes. Even scientific curiosity must be restrained by considerations of mercy. ”

“ In a meadow not far from the hamlet of Arvada, between Denver and the mountains, I found a colony of buntings one morning, swinging in the air and furnishing their full quota of the matutinal concert, in which many [Pg 290] other birds had a leading part, among them being western meadow-larks, western robins, Bullock's orioles, American and Arkansas goldfinches, mountain song-sparrows, lazuli finches, spurred towhees, black-headed grosbeaks, summer warblers, western Maryland yellow-throats, and Townsend's solitaires. It has seldom been my fortune to listen to a finer pot-pourri of avian music. ”

“ What birds select such steep places for a habitat? Here lived in happy domesticity the lyrical green-tailed towhee, the bird of the liquid voice, the poet laureate of the steep, bushy mountain sides, just as the water-ousel is the poet of the cascades far down in the cañons and gulches; here also thrived the spurred towhees, one of which had tucked a nest beneath a bush cradling three speckled eggs. This was the second nest of this species I had found, albeit not the last. ”

“ An artist might well covet the privilege of painting this elegant bird as he scales the wall of a pine tree. Presently he glided to a snag not more than a rod from the chickadee's domicile, and then I noticed that the dead bole was perforated by a number of woodpecker holes, into one of which the sapsucker presently slipped with the tidbit he held in his bill. The doorway was almost too small for him, obliging him to turn slightly sidewise and make some effort to effect an entrance. Fortune had treated me as one of her favorites: I had discovered the nest of Williamson's sapsucker. ”

“ Having betaken himself to a lake, he does not at once plunge into its depths after the manner of a duck, but finding a perch on a snag or a fallen pine, he sits there a moment, and then, flying out thirty or forty yards, "he alights with a dainty glint on the surface, swims about, looks down, finally makes up his mind, and disappears with a sharp stroke of his wings." ”

“ Our burros were tethered for the day in a grassy hollow, our effects stowed away in the cabin aforesaid, which we had leased for a few days; then, with luncheon strapped over our shoulders and butterfly net and field-glass in hand, we started happily up the valley afoot toward the summit of our aspirations, Gray's Peak, rising fourteen thousand four hundred and forty-one feet above the level of the sea. In some scrubby pine bushes above timber-line several Audubon's warblers were flitting [Pg 238] and singing, living hard by the white fields of snow. ”

“ His wild melodies, often sounding like a blast from a bugle, are in perfect concord with the wild and rugged acclivities which he haunts, from which he can command many a prospect that pleases, whether he glances down into the valleys or up to the silver-capped mountain peaks. One cannot help feeling—at least, after one has left his rock-strewn dwelling-place—that a kind of glamour hangs about it and him. ”

“ A few days later it turned out to be one of the most beautiful feathered midgets of the Rockies, Macgillivray's warbler, which was seen in a number of places, usually on bushy slopes. He and his mate often set up a great to-do by chirping and flitting about, and I spent hours in trying to find their nests, but with no other result than to wear out my patience and rubber boots. I can recall no other Colorado bird, either large or small, except the mountain jay, that made so much ado about nothing, so far as I could discover. ”

“ It was an idyllic place, a veritable paradise for birds. Such a chorus as greeted me from the throats of I know not how many white-crowned sparrows,—several dozen, perhaps,—it would have done the heart of any lover of avian minstrelsy good to listen to. The whole valley seemed to be transfigured by their roundelays, which have about them such an air of poetry and old-world romance. During the morning I was so fortunate as to find a nest, the first of this species that I had ever discovered. Providence had never before cast my lot with [Pg 61] these birds in their breeding haunts. ”

“ It was scarcely possible that so roly-poly a bird as a grosbeak could perform so marvellous an exploit on the wing.
I never worked harder to earn my salary than I did to climb that steep and rugged mountain side; but at last I reached and penetrated the zone of pines, and finally, in an area covered with dead timber, standing and fallen, two feathered strangers sprang in sight, now flitting among the lower branches and now sweeping to the ground. ”