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Medium - Large Wild Blue Birds
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| Length | 7 inches |
| Male | Upper parts, wings, and tail bright blue, with rusty wash in autumn. Throat, breast, and sides cinnamon-red. Underneath white. |
| Female | Has duller blue feathers, washed with gray, and a paler breast than male. |
| Range | North America, from Nova Scotia. and Manitoba to Gulf of Mexico. Southward in winter from Middle States to Bermuda and West Indies. |
| Migrations | March. November. Summer resident. |
With the first soft, plaintive warble of the bluebirds early in March, the sugar camps, waiting for their signal, take on a bustling activity; the farmer looks to his plough; orders are hurried off to the seed retailers; a fever to be out of doors seizes one. Spring is here.
Snowstorms may yet whiten fields and gardens, high winds may howl about the trees and chimneys, but the little blue
birds persistently proclaim from the orchard and garden that the spring procession has begun to
move. "Tru-al-ly, tru-al-ly", they sweetly sing.
The bluebird is not always a migrant, except in the more northern portions of
the country. Some representatives there are always with us, but the great
majority of Eastern Bluebirds winter south and drop out of the spring procession on its way
northward, the males a little ahead of their mates, which show housewifely
instincts immediately after their arrival
A pair of these rather undemonstrative Eastern Bluebird mates go about looking for some deserted woodpecker's hole in the orchard, peering into cavities in the fence-rails, or into the bird-houses that, once set up in the old-fashioned gardens for their special benefit, are now appropriated too often by the ubiquitous sparrow.
Bluebirds can readily dispossess wrens of an attractive bird house, and do. With a temper as heavenly as the color of their
feathers, the bluebird's sense of justice is not always so adorable. On
the other hand, sparrows unnerve them into cowardice. The comparatively infrequent nesting of
the bluebirds about our homes at the present time is one of the most deplorable results of unrestricted sparrow
immigration. Blue birds were once the commonest of bird neighbors, but
no more.
Nest-building is not a favorite occupation with the bluebirds, that are conspicuously domestic none the less. Two, and even three, broods in a season
fully occupy their time. As in most cases, the mother bluebird does more than her
share of the work. The male looks with wondering admiration at the housewifely
activity, applauds her with song, feeds her as she sits brooding over the
nest full of pale greenish-blue eggs, but his adoration of her virtues does not
lead him into emulation.
When young Eastern Bluebirds first emerge from the shell they are almost black; they come into their splendid heritage of color by degrees, lest their young heads might be turned. It is only as they spread their tiny wings for their first flight from the nest that we can see a few blue feathers.
With the first cool days of autumn the bluebirds collect in flocks, often associating with orioles and kingbirds in sheltered, sunny places where insects are still plentiful. Their steady, undulating flight now becomes erratic as they take food on the wing -- a habit that they may have learned by association with the kingbirds, for they have also adopted the habit of perching upon some conspicuous lookout and then suddenly launching out into the air for a passing fly and returning to their perch. Long after their associates have gone southward, they linger like the last leaves on the tree. It is indeed "good-bye to summer" when the bluebirds withdraw their touch of brightness from the dreary November landscape.
Eastern bluebirds from Canada and the northern portions of New England and New York migrate into Virginia and the Carolinas, while bluebirds from the Middle States move down into the Gulf States to pass the winter. It was there that countless numbers were cut off by the severe winter of 1894-95, which was so severe in that section.
BLUE JAY
(Cyanocitta cristata) Crow and Jay family
| Length | 11 to 12 inches |
| Male | Blue above. Black band around the neck, joining some black feathers on the back. Under parts dusky white. Wing coverts and tail bright blue, striped transversely with black. Tail much rounded. Many feathers edged and tipped with white. Head finely crested; bill, tongue, and legs black. |
| Female | Same as male. |
| Range | Eastern coast of North America to the plains, and from northern Canada to Florida and eastern Texas. |
| Migrations | Permanent resident. Although seen in flocks moving southward or northward, they are merely seeking happier hunting grounds, not migrating. |
No bird of finer color or presence sojourns with us the year round than the Blue Jay. In a peculiar sense his is a "beauty covering a multitude of sins."
Among close students of bird traits, we find none so poor as to do him reverence. Dishonest, cruel, inquisitive, murderous, voracious, villainous, are some of the epithets applied to this bird of exquisite plumage. Emerson, however, has said in his defense he does "more good than harm," alluding, no doubt, to his habit of burying nuts and hard seeds in the ground, so that many a waste place is clothed with trees and shrubs, thanks to his propensity and industry.
The Blue Jay is mischievous as a small boy, destructive as a monkey, deft at hiding as a squirrel. He is unsociable and un-amiable, disliking the society of other birds. His harsh screams, shrieks, and most aggressive and unmusical calls seem often intended maliciously to drown the songs of the sweet-voiced singers.
From April to September, the breeding and molting season, Blue Jays are almost silent, only sallying forth from the woods to pillage and devour the young and eggs of their more peaceful neighbors. In a bulky nest, usually placed in a tree-crotch high above our heads, from four to six eggs, olive-gray with brown spots, are laid and most carefully tended.
Notwithstanding the unlovely characteristics of the blue jay, we could ill spare the flash of color, like a bit of blue sky dropped from above, which is so rare a tint even in our land, that we number not more than three or four true blue birds, and in England, it is said, there is none.
BELTED KINGFISHER
(Ceryle alcyon) Kingfisher family
AKA: THE HALCYON
| Length | 12 to 13 inches |
| Male | Upper part grayish blue, with prominent crest on head reaching to the nape. A white spot in front of the eye. Bill longer than the head, which is large and heavy. Wings and the short tail minutely speckled and marked with broken bands of white. Chin, band around throat, and underneath white. Two bluish bands across the breast and a bluish wash on sides. Plumage of both birds oily. |
| Female | Female and immature specimens have rufous bands where
the adult male's are blue. Plumage of both birds oily. |
| Range | North America, except where the Texan Kingfisher
replaces it in a limited area in the Southwest. Common from Labrador to Florida, east and west. Winters chiefly from Virginia southward to South America. |
| Migrations | March. December. Common summer resident. Usually a winter resident also. |
If the Belted Kingfisher is not so neighborly as we could wish, or as he used to be, it is not because he has grown less friendly, but because the streams near our homes are fished out.
Fish he must and will have, and to get them nowadays it is too often necessary to follow the stream back through secluded woods to the quiet waters of its source: a clear, cool pond or lake whose scaly inmates have not yet learned wisdom at the point of the sportsman's fly.
In such quiet haunts the Kingfisher is easily the most conspicuous object in sight, where he perches on some dead or projecting branch over the water, intently watching for a dinner that is all unsuspectingly swimming below. Suddenly the bird drops -- dives; there is a splash, a struggle, and then the "lone fisherman" returns triumphant to his perch, holding a shining fish in his beak. If the fish is small it is swallowed at once, but if it is large and bony it must first be killed against the branch. A few sharp knocks, and the struggles of the fish are over, but the Kingfisher's have only begun. How he gags and writhes, swallows his dinner, and then, regretting his haste, brings it up again to try another wider avenue down his throat.
The many abortive efforts he makes to land his dinner safely below in his stomach, his grim contortions as the fish bones scratch his throat-lining on their way down and up again, force a smile in spite of the bird's evident distress. It is small wonder he supplements his fish diet with various kinds of the larger insects, shrimps, and fresh-water mollusks.
Flying well over the tree-tops or along the waterways. The Belted Kingfisher makes the woodland echo with his noisy rattle, that breaks the stillness like a watchman's at midnight. It is, perhaps, the most familiar sound heard along the banks of the inland rivers. No love or cradle song does he know. Instead of softening and growing sweet, as the voices of most birds do in the nesting season, the endearments uttered by a pair of mated kingfishers are the most strident, rattled shrieks ever heard by lovers it sounds as if they were perpetually quarrelling, yet they are really particularly devoted.
The nest of these birds, like the bank swallow's, is excavated in the face of a high bank, preferably one that rises from a stream; and at about six feet from the entrance of the tunnel six or eight clear, shining white eggs are placed on a curious nest. All the fish bones and scales that, being indigestible, are disgorged in pellets by the parents, are carefully carried to the end of the tunnel to form a prickly cradle for the unhappy fledglings.
Very rarely a nest is made in the hollow trunk of a tree; but wherever the home is, the Belted Kingfishers become strongly attached to it, returning again and again to the spot that has cost them so much labor to excavate. Some observers have accused them of appropriating the holes of the water-rats.
In ancient times of myths and fables, Kingfishers or Halcyons were said to build a floating nest on the sea, and to possess some mysterious power that calmed the troubled waves while the eggs were hatching and the young birds were being reared, hence the term "halcyon days," meaning days of fair weather.
MOURNING DOVE
(Zenaidura macroura) Pigeon family
AKA: CAROLINA DOVE; TURTLE DOVE
| Length | 12 to 13 inches |
| 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 Mourning Dove's 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 mourning 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 housewife," as Mrs. Wright calls his lady-love, must pass the comprehension of the phoebe, that constructs such an exquisite home, or of a bustling, energetic Jenny wren, that "looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness."
She is a flabby, spineless bundle of flesh and pretty feathers, gentle and refined in manners, but slack and incompetent in all she does. Her nest consists of few loose sticks. without rim or lining; and when her two babies emerge from the white eggs, that somehow do not fall through or roll out of the rickety lattice, their tender little naked bodies must suffer from many bruises. We are almost inclined to blame the inconsiderate mother for allowing her offspring to enter the world unclothed -- obviously not her fault, though she is capable of just such negligence. Fortunate are the baby doves when their lazy mother scatters her makeshift nest on top of one that a robin has deserted, as she frequently does. It is almost excusable to take her young birds and rear them in captivity, where they invariably thrive, mate, and live happily, unless death comes to one, when the other often refuses food and grieves its life away.
In the wild state, when the nesting season approaches, both mourning dove mates make curious acrobatic flights above the tree-tops; then, after a short sail in midair, they return to their perch. This appears to be their only giddiness and frivolity, unless a dust-bath in the country road might be considered a dissipation.
In the autumn a few pairs of these doves show slight gregarious tendencies, feeding
amiably together in the grain fields and retiring to the same roost at sundown.
See also...
Small to Medium Size Blue Birds
Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher
Indigo Bunting
Cliff Swallow
Barn Swallow
Blue Grosbeak
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Large Blue Bird
