Medium Size, Wild, Brown Birds

Brown, Olive or Gray Birds 6" to 8.5"

SMITH'S LONGSPUR
(Calcarius pictus) Finch family
AKA: SMITH'S PAINTED LONGSPUR

Confined to a narrower range than the Lapland Longspur, the Smith's Longspur, quite commonly found on the open prairie districts of the middle west in winter is so very like its cousin that the same description of their habits might very well answer for both.

Indeed, both these Longspurs are often seen in the same flock. Larks and the ubiquitous sparrows, too, intermingle with them with the familiarity that only the starvation rations of midwinter, and not true sociability, can effect. Looking out upon such a heterogeneous flock of brown birds as they are feeding together on the frozen ground, only the trained field ornithologist would find it easy to point out Smith's Longspurs.

Certain peculiarities are noticeable, however. Longspurs squat while resting; then, when flushed, they run quickly and lightly, and "rise with a sharp click, repeated several times in quick succession, and move with an easy, undulating motion for a short distance, when they alight very suddenly, seeming to fall perpendicularly several feet to the ground."

Another peculiarity of their flight is their habit of flying about in circles, to and fro, keeping up a constant chirping or call. It is only in the mating season, when we rarely hear them, that the Longspurs have the angelic manner of singing as they fly, like the Skylark.

The colors of the males, among the several Longspurs, may differ widely, but the indistinctly marked females are so like each other that only their mates, perhaps, could tell them apart.

LAPLAND LONGSPUR
(Calcarius lapponicus) Finch family
AKA: LAPLAND SNOWBIRD; LAPLAND LARK BUNTING

The Lapland Longspur is an arctic bird. Although considered somewhat rare with us, when seen at all in midwinter is in such large flocks that, before its visit in the neighborhood is ended it becomes delightfully familiar as it nimbly runs over the frozen ground, picking up grain that has blown about from the barn, when the seeds of the field are buried under snow.

This lack of fear through sharp hunger is as pathetic as it is charming. Possibly the Lapland Longspur is not so rare a bird as we think! It iss often mistaken for some of the sparrows, the shore larks, and the Snow Buntings, that it not only resembles, but whose company it frequently keeps.

At all seasons of the year the Lapland Longspur is ground bird that you may readily identify by its tracks through the snow, showing the mark of the long hind claw or spur. In summer we know little or nothing about it, for, with the coming of the flowers, it is off to the far north, where it depresses its nest in a bed of moss upon the ground, and lines it with fur shed from the coat of the arctic fox.

AMERICAN PIPIT
(Anthus pensilvanicus) Wagtail family
AKA: TITLARK; BROWN OR RED LARK

The color of the Pipit or Titlark varies slightly with age and sex. Under parts range from white to a pale rosy brown or reddish tinge. At any season, and under all circumstances, the American Pipit is a distinctly brown bird, resembling the water thrushes not just for his plumage, but also in the comical tail wagging and jerking that alone are enough to properly identify it.

The books may tell us the bird is a wagtail, it certainly possesses two strong characteristics of true larks: it is a walker, delighting in walking or running, never hopping over the ground, and it has the angelic habit of singing as it flies.

During the migrations Pipits are abundant in salt marshes or open stretches of country inland.

When flushed, all the flock rise together with uncertain flight, hovering and wheeling about the place, calling down "dee-dee, dee-dee" above your head until you have passed on your way, then promptly returning to the spot from where they were disturbed.

Along the roadsides and pastures, where two or three birds are frequently seen together, they are too often mistaken for Vesper Sparrows because of their similar size and coloring, but their easy, graceful walk distinguishes them at once from the hopping sparrow.

They often run to get ahead of some one in the lane, but rarely fly if they can help it, and when they do it is barely higher than a fence-rail.

Early in summer they are off for the mountains in the north. Labrador is their chosen nesting ground, and they are said to place their grassy nest, lined with lichens or moss, flat upon the ground -- still another lark trait.

Their eggs are chocolate-brown scratched with black.

FOX SPARROW
(Passerella ilica) Finch family
AKA: FOX-COLORED SPARROW; FERRUGINOUS FINCH

There will be little difficulty in naming this largest, most plump and reddish of all the sparrows, whose fox-colored feathers are responsible for the name.

The male Fox Sparrow is incomparably the finest singer of its gifted family. His faint "tseep" call-note gives no indication of his vocal powers that some bleak morning in early March suddenly send a thrill of pleasure through you. It is the most welcome "glad surprise" of all the Spring days.

Without a preliminary twitter or throat-clearing of any sort, the full, rich, luscious tones are poured forth with spontaneous abandon. Such a song at such a time is enough to summon anybody with a musical ear out of doors under the leaden skies to where the delicious notes issue from the leafless shrubbery by the roadside. Watch the singing Fox Sparrow until the song ends, when he will quite likely descend among the dead leaves on the ground and scratch among them like any barn-yard fowl, but somehow contriving to use both feet at once in the operation, as no chicken ever could. He seems to take special delight in damp thickets, where the insects with which he varies his seed diet are plentiful.

Usually Fox Sparrows keep in small, loose flocks for they are not gregarious. They may sometimes be seen traveling in company with their white-throated cousins. Fox Sparrows are among the last birds to leave us in the late Autumn or early Winter.

Some say that they are indisposed to sing unless in a flock. Indeed, they are little inclined to absolute solitude at any time, for even in the nesting season quite a colony of grassy nurseries may be found in the same meadow, and small companies haunt the roadside shrubbery during the migrations.

WHITE-THROATED SPARROW
(Zonotrichia albicollis) Finch family
AKA: PEABODY BIRD; CANADA SPARROW

"I-I, Pea-body, Pea-body, Pea-body," are the syllables of the White Throated Sparrow's song heard by the good New Englanders, who have a tradition that you must either be a Peabody or a nobody there.

While just over the British border the bird is distinctly understood to say, "Swee-e-e-t Can-a-da, Can-a-da, Can-a da."

"All day, whittle-ing, whittle-ing, whittle-ing," the Maine people declare he sings; and Hamilton Gibson told of a perplexed farmer, Peverly by name, who, as he stood in the field undecided as to what crop to plant, clearly heard the bird advise, "Sow wheat, Pev-er-ly, Pev-er-ly, Pev-er-ly."

Such range of opinion, which is really slight compared with the verbal record of many birds' songs, only goes to show how little the sweetness of birds' music, like the perfume of a rose, depends upon a name.

In a family not distinguished for good looks, the White Throated Sparrow is conspicuously handsome, especially after the spring molt. In midwinter the feathers grow dingy and the markings indistinct; but as the season advances, his colors are sure to brighten perceptibly, and before he takes the northward journey in April, any little lady sparrow might feel proud of the attentions of so fine-looking and sweet-voiced a lover. The black, white, and yellow markings on his head are now clear and beautiful. His figure is plump and aristocratic.

These sparrows are particularly sociable travelers, and cordially welcome many stragglers to their flocks -- not during the migrations only, but even under harsh winter conditions.

That's when they're seen to boldly peck about the dog's dish and enter the barnyard, calling their feathered friends with a sharp "tseep" to follow them.

Seeds and insects are their chosen food, and were they not well wrapped in an adipose coat under their feathers, there must be many a winter night when they would go shivering, without dinner, to their perch.

In the dark of midnight one may sometimes hear the White Throated Sparrow softly singing in its dreams.

WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW
(Zonotrichia leucophrys) Finch family

The large size and handsome markings of this aristocratic-looking northern sparrow would serve to distinguish him at once, did he not often consort with his equally fine-looking white-throated cousins while migrating, and so too often get overlooked.

The sparrows are such gregarious birds that it is well to scrutinize every flock with special care in the spring and autumn, when the rarer migrants are passing. This White-Crowned Sparrow is more common in the high altitudes of the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains than elsewhere in the United States.

There in the lonely forest the White Crowned Sparrow nests in low bushes or on the ground, and sings its full love song, but during the migrations it favors us only with selections from its repertoire.

Mr. Ernest Thompson says, "Its usual song is like the latter half of the white-throat's familiar refrain, repeated a number of times with a peculiar, sad cadence and in a clear, soft whistle that is characteristic of the group."

"The song is the loudest and most plaintive of all the sparrow songs," says John Burroughs. "It begins with the words fe-u, fe-u, fe-u, and runs off into trills and quavers like the song sparrow's, only much more touching."

Colorado miners tell that the White Crowned Sparrow, like its white-throated relative, sings on the darkest nights. Often a score or more birds are heard singing at once after the habit of the European Nightingales, which choose to sing only in the moonlight.

VEERY
(Turdus fuscescens) Thrush family
AKA: WILSON'S THRUSH; TAWNY THRUSH

To many of us the Veery is merely a voice, a sylvan mystery, reflecting the sweetness and wildness of the forest, a vocal "will-o'-the-wisp" that, after enticing us deeper and deeper into the woods, where we sink into the spongy moss of its damp retreats and become entangled in the wild grape-vines twined about the saplings and underbrush, still sings to us from unapproachable tangles. Plainly, if we want to see the Veery, we must let it seek us out on the fallen log where we have sunk exhausted in the chase. 

Presently a brown bird scuds through the fern. It is a thrush, you guess in a minute, from its slender, graceful body. At first you notice no speckles on its breast, but as it comes nearer, obscure arrow-heads are visible -- not
heavy, heart-shaped spots such as plentifully speckle the larger wood thrush or the smaller hermit. It is the smallest of the three commoner thrushes, and it lacks the ring about the eye that both the others have. Shy and elusive, the Veery slips away again and is lost in the wet tangle before you have become acquainted. You determine, however to cultivate the acquaintance of this bird next spring, before it mates and retreats to the forest, when it comes boldly into the gardens and scratches about in the dry leaves on the ground for the lurking insects beneath.

Miss Florence Merriam tells of having drawn a number of Veerys about her by imitating their call-note, which is a whistled "wheew, whoit", very easy to counterfeit when once heard.

"Taweel-ah, taweel-ah, twil-ah, twil-ah!" Professor Ridgeway interprets their song, that descends in a succession of trills without break or pause; but no words can possibly convey an idea of the quality of the music. The Veery sings at night also, and its weird, sweet strains floating through the woods at dusk, thrill one like the mysterious voice of a disembodied spirit.

Whittier mentions the Veery in "The Playmate": "And here in spring the Veerys sing the song of long ago."

SWAINSON'S THRUSH
(Turdus ustulatus swainsonii) Thrush family
AKA: Olive-Backed THRUSH

Mr. Parkhurst tells of finding this "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.

Usually, however, we have to be on the lookout to find the Swainson's Thrush, or it will pass unnoticed in the great companies of more conspicuous birds traveling 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. 

The thrushes' nesting grounds are in the pine woods of New England or Labrador if they are traveling up the east coast, or to Alaska, British Columbia or Manitoba if west of the Mississippi. There they stay all summer, often traveling southward with the sparrows in the autumn. 

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 a Veery song.

CEDAR WAXWING
(Ampelis cedrorum) Waxwing family
AKA: CHERRY-BIRD; CANADA ROBIN; RECOLLET

As the Cedar Waxwings travel about in great flocks that quickly exhaust their special food in a neighborhood, they necessarily lead a nomadic life -- here to-day, gone tomorrow. It is surprising how very little noise so great a company of these birds make at any time. That is because they are singularly gentle and refined; soft of voice, as they are of color, their plumage suggesting a fine Japanese water-color painting on silk, with its beautiful sheen and exquisitely blended tints.

One listens in vain for a song; only a lisping "Twee-twee-ze," or "a dreary whisper," as Minot calls the Cedar Waxwing's low-toned communications with each other, reaches our ears from their high perches in the cedar trees, where they sit, almost motionless hours at a time, digesting the enormous quantities of juniper and whortleberries, wild cherries, worms, and insects upon which they have gormandized.

Nuttall gives the Cedar Waxwings credit for excessive politeness to each other. He says he has often seen them passing a worm from one to another down a whole row of beaks and back again before it was finally eaten.

When nesting time arrives they give up their gregarious habits and live in pairs, billing and kissing like turtle-doves in the orchard or wild crab trees, where a flat, bulky nest is rather carelessly built of twigs, grasses, feathers, strings - any odds and ends that may be lying about. The eggs in a nest of a Cedar Waxwing are usually four in number, white tinged with purple and spotted with black.

Apparently they have no molting season; their plumage is always the same, beautifully neat and full-feathered.

Nothing ever hurries or flusters the Cedar Waxwing, their greatest concern apparently being, when they alight, to settle themselves comfortably between their over-polite friends, who are never guilty of jolting or crowding. Few birds care to take life so easily, not to say indolently.

Among the French Canadians they are called Recollet, from the color of their crest resembling the hood of the religious order of that name. Every region the birds pass through, local names appear to be applied to them, a few of the most common of which are given above.

Of the three waxwings known to scientists, two are found in America, and the third in Japan.

HERMIT THRUSH
(Turdus aonalaschkae pallasii) Thrush family
AKA: SWAMP ANGEL; LITTLE THRUSH

The Hermit Thrush is the first thrush to come and the last to go. Nevertheless it is scarcely seen throughout its long visit north. It may loiter awhile in the shrubby roadsides, in the garden or the parks in the spring before it begins the serious business of life in a nest of moss, coarse grass, and pine-needles placed on the ground in the depths of the forest. By the middle of May the Hermit Thrush's presence becomes only a memory. Although one never hears it at its best during the migrations, how one loves to recall the serene, ethereal evening hymn!

"The finest sound in Nature," John Burroughs calls it. "It is not a proud, gorgeous strain like the tanager's or the grosbeak's," he says; "it suggests no passion or emotion -- nothing personal, but seems to be the voice of that calm, sweet solemnity one attains to in his best moments. It realizes a peace and a deep, solemn joy that only the finest souls may know."

Beyond the question of even the hypercritical, the Hermit Thrush has a more exquisitely beautiful voice than any other American bird, and only the nightingale's of Europe can be compared with it. It is the one theme that exhausts all the ornithologists' musical adjectives in a vain attempt to convey in words any idea of it to one who has never heard it, for the quality of the song is as elusive as the bird itself. But why should the poets be so silent? Why has it not called forth such verse as the English poets have lavished upon the Nightingale? Undoubtedly because it lifts up its heavenly voice in the solitude of the forest. Whereas the nightingales, singing in loud choruses in the moonlight under your window, cannot but impress his waking thoughts and even his dreams with their melody.

Since the severe storm and cold in the Gulf States a few winters ago, where vast numbers of Hermit Thrushes died from cold and starvation, this bird has been very rare in haunts where it used to be abundant. Other thrushes
escaped because they spend the winter farther south.

HORNED LARK
(Otocoris alpestris) Lark family
AKA: SHORE LARK

Far away to the north in Greenland and Labrador this true lark, the most beautiful of its genus, makes its summer home. There the Horned Lark is a conspicuously handsome bird with its pinkish-gray and chocolate feathers, that have greatly faded into dull browns when we see them in the late autumn. In the far north only does it sing, and according to Audubon, the charming song is flung to the breeze while the bird soars like a skylark. In the United States we hear only its call-note.

Great flocks come down the Atlantic coast in October and November, and separate into smaller bands that take up their residence in sandy stretches and open tracts near the sea or wherever the food supply looks promising. There the Horned Lark stays until all the seeds, buds of bushes, berries, larvae, and insects in their chosen territory are exhausted.

They are ground birds - walkers - and when disturbed at their dinner, prefer to squat on the earth rather than expose themselves by flight. Sometimes they run nimbly over the frozen ground to escape an intruder, but flying is reserved as a last resort. When the visitor has passed they quickly return to their dinner.

If they were content to eat less ravenously and remain slender, fewer victims might be slaughtered annually to tickle the palates of the epicure. It is a mystery what they find to fatten upon when snow covers the frozen ground.

Even in the severe midwinter storms they will not seek the protection of the woods, but always prefer sandy dunes with their scrubby undergrowth or open meadow lands. Occasionally a small flock wanders toward the farms to pick up seeds that are blown from the hayricks or scattered about the barn-yard by overfed domestic fowls.

The Prairie Horned Lark (Otocoris alpestris praticola) is similar to the preceding, but a trifle smaller and paler, with a white instead of a yellow streak above the eye, the throat yellowish or entirely white instead of sulphur-yellow, and other minor differences. It has a far more southerly range, confined to northern portions of the United States from the Mississippi eastward. Once a distinctly prairie bird, it now roams wherever large stretches of open country that suit its purposes are cleared in the East, and remains resident. This species also sings in midair on the wing, but its song is a crude, half-inarticulate affair, barely audible from a height of two hundred feet.

BICKNELL'S THRUSH
(Turdus alicia) Thrush family
AKA: GRAY-CHEEKED THRUSH

Like the olive-backed thrush, Bicknell's Thrush is almost identical when both are alive and hopping about the shrubbery. However Bicknell's Thrush has upper plumage that is a dull olive-brown and is more protective than pleasing to our eyes.

Just as Wilson hopelessly confused the olive-backed thrush with the hermit, so has Bicknell's Thrush been confounded by later writers with the olive-backed, from which it differs chiefly in being a trifle larger, in having gray cheeks instead of buff, and in possessing a few faint streaks on the throat.

It makes a home for its greenish-blue speckled eggs in low bush at the northern end of its range and bursts into song, but except in the nesting grounds Bicknell's Thrush's voice is never heard. Mr. Bradford Torrey, who heard it singing in the White Mountains, describes the song as like the thrush's in quality, but differently accented: "Wee-o-wee-o-tit-ti-wee-o!"

In New England and New York this thrush is most often seen during its autumn migrations. As it starts up and perches upon a low branch before you, it appears to have longer legs and a broader, squarer tail than its congeners.

WOOD THRUSH
(Turdus mustelinus) Thrush family
AKA: SONG THRUSH; WOOD ROBIN; BELLBIRD

When Nuttall wrote of "this solitary and retiring songster," before the country was as thickly settled as it is to-day, it possibly had not developed the confidence in men that now distinguishes the wood thrush from its shy congeners that are distinctly wood birds, which it can no longer strictly be said to be. In city parks and country places, where plenty of trees shade the village streets and lawns, it comes near you, half hopping, half running, with dignified unconsciousness and even familiarity, all the more delightful in a bird whose family instincts should take it into secluded woodlands with their shady dells. Perhaps, in its heart of hearts, it still prefers such retreats.

Many conservative Wood Thrushes keep to their wild haunts, and it must be owned not a few liberals, that discard family traditions at other times, seek the forest at nesting time. But social as the wood thrush is and abundant, too, it is also eminently high-bred; and when contrasted with its tawny cousin, the veery, that skulks away to hide in the nearest bushes as you approach, or with the hermit thrush, that pours out its heavenly song in the solitude of the forest, how gracious and full of gentle confidence it seems!

Every gesture is graceful and elegant; even a wriggling beetle is eaten as daintily as caviar at the king's table. It is only when its confidence in you is abused, and you pass too near the nest, that might easily be mistaken for a robin's, just above your head in a sapling, that the wood thrush so far forgets itself as to become excited. "Pit, pit, pit", sharply reiterated, is called out with a strident quality in the tone that is painful evidence of the fearful anxiety your presence gives this gentle bird.

Too many protectors of nests, whether out of excessive happiness or excessive stupidity, have a dangerous habit of singing very near their nests. Not so the wood thrush. "Come to me," as the opening notes of its flute-like song have been freely translated, invites the intruder far away from where the blue eggs lie  cradled in ambush. is as good a rendering into syllables of the luscious song as could very well be made. Pure, liquid, rich, and luscious, it rings out from the trees on the summer air and penetrates our home like "Uoli-a-e-o-li-noli-nol-aeolee-lee! strait of music from a stringed quartette.

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Small Brown Birds

Large Brown  Birds

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