Everyday birds; elementary studies (1901) (14568786947)

Identifier: everydaybirdsele00torr (find matches)

Title: Everyday birds; elementary studies

Year: 1901 (1900s)

Authors: Torrey, Bradford, 1843-1912

Subjects: Birds

Publisher: Boston, New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Company

Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries

Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

Text Appearing Before Image:

pring comes on, the flicker becomesnumerous and very noisy. His best known vocaleffort is a prolonged hi-hi-hi, very loud and ring-ing, and kept up until the listener wonders wherethe author of it gets his wind. This, I think, isthe birds substitute for a song. He has at alltimes a loud, unmusical yawp, — a signal, I sup-pose, — and in the mating season especially heutters a very affectionate, conversational wickeror flicker. Every country boy should be familiarwith these three notes. But besides being a vocalist, — we can hardlycall him a singer, — the flicker is a player uponinstruments. He is a great drummer; and ifany one imagines that woodpeckers do not enjoythe sound of their own music, he should watcha flicker drumming with his long bill on a bat-tered tin pan in the middle of a pasture. Morn-ing after morning I have seen one thus engaged,drumming lustily, and then cocking his head tolisten for an answer; and Paderewski at hisdaily practice upon the piano could not have

Text Appearing After Image:

FLICKERI. Male. 2. Females THE FLICKER 67 looked more in earnest. At other times theflicker contents himself with a piece of resonantloose bark or a dry limb. One proof that this drumming — which isindulged in by woodpeckers generally — is atrue musical performance, and not a mere drill-ing for grubs, is the fact that we never hear itin winter. It begins as the weather grows mild,and is as much a sign of spring as the peepingof the little tree-frogs — hylas — in the meadow. The flickers nest, as I have said, is built in ahole in a tree, often an apple-tree. Very noisyin his natural disposition, he keeps a wise silencewhile near the spot where his mate is sitting, andwill rear a brood under the orchard-owners nosewithout betraying himself. The young birdsare fed from the parents crop, as young pigeonsand young hummingbirds are. The old birdthrusts its bill down the throat of the nestlingand gives it a meal of partially digested food bywhat scientific people call a process of re

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1901

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