BIRDS IN WINTER

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20503, 22 August 1936, Page 13

BIRDS IN WINTER

BY DALLAS LORE SHARP.

“The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold.” A storm had been raging from the north-west all day. Toward evening the w’ind strengthened to a gale, and the fine, icy snow swirled and drifted over the frozen fields. I lay a long time listening to the wild symphony of the winds, thankful for the roof over my head, and wondering how the hungry, homeless creatures out of doors would pass the night. Where do the birds sleep such nights as this? Where in this bitter cold, this darkness and storm, will they make their beds? The lark that broke from the snow at my feet as I crossed the pasture this afternoon — What comes o’ thee? Whar wilt thou cow’r thy chittering wing, An’ close thy e’e? The storm grew fiercer; the wind roared through the big pines by the

side of the house and swept hoarsely on across the fields; the pines shivered and groaned, and their long limbs scraped over the shingles above me as if feeling with frozen fingers for a way in; the windows rattled, the cracks and corners of the old farm-house shrieked, and a long, thin line of snow sifted in from beneath the window across the garret floor. I fancied these sounds of the storm were the voices of freezing birds, crying to be taken in from the cold. Once I thought I heard a thud against the window, a sound heavier than the rattle of the snow. Something seemed to be beating at the glass. It might be a bird. I got out of bed to look; but there was only the ghostly face of the snow pressed against the panes, half way to the window’s top. I imagined I heard the thud again; but, while listening, fell asleep and dreamed that my window was frozen fast, and that all the birds in the world were knocking at it, trying to get out of the night and storm. The fields lay pure and white and flooded with sunshine when I awoke. Jumping out of bed, I ran to the window, and saw a dark object on the sill outside. I raised the sash, and there, close against the glass, were two quails—frozen stiff in the snow. It was they I heard the night before fluttering at the window. The ground had been covered deep with snow for several days, and at last, driven by hunger and cold from the fields, they saw my light, and sought shelter from the storm and a bed for the night with me.

Four others, evidently of the same covey, spent the night 4n the wagonhouse, and in the morning helped themselves fearlessly to the chickens’ breakfast. They roosted with the chickens several nights, but took to the fields again as soon as the snow began to melt.

It was easy to account for our winter birds during the day. Along near noon, when it is warm and bright, you will find the sparrows and the goldfinches searching busily among the bushes and weeds for food, and the crows and jays scouring the fields. But what about them during the dark? Where do they pass the long winter nights?

Why, they have nests, you say. Yes, they had nests in the summer, and then perhaps, one of the parent birds may be said to have slept in the nest during the weeks of incubation and rearing of the young. But nests are cradles, not beds, and are never used by even the young birds from the day they leave them. Muskrats build houses, foxes have holes, and squirrels sleep in true nests; but of the birds it can be said, “they have not where to lay their heads.” They sleep upon their feet in the grass, in hollow trees, and among the branches; but, at best, such a bed is no more than a roost. A large part of the year this roost is new every night, so that the question of a sleeping-place during the winter is most serious.

The cheerful little goldfinches, that bend the dried rag-weeds and grassstalks down and scatter their chaff over the snow, sleep in the thick cedars and pines. These warm, close-limbed evergreens I have found to be the lodging-houses of many of the smaller winter birds.

The meadow-larks always roost upon the ground. They creep well over the grass, or, if the wind is high and it snows, they squat close to the ground behind a tuft of grass or thick bush and sleep while the cold flakes fall about them. They are often covered before the morning; and when housed thus from the wind and hidden from prowling enemies, no bird could wish for a cosier, warmer, safer bed.

But what a lonely bed it is! Nothing seems so utterly homeless and solitary as a meadow-lark after the winter nightfall. In the middle of a wide, snow-covered pasture one will occasionally spring from under your feet, scattering the snow that covered him, and go whirring away through the dusk, lost instantly in the darkness — a single little life in the wild, bleak wilderness of winter fields’ Again, the grass is often a dangerous bed. On the day before the great March blizzard of 1888, the larks were whistling merrily from the fences, with just a touch of spring in their call. At noon I noted no signs of storm, but by four o’clock —an hour earlier than usual—the larks had disappeared. They rose here and there from the grass as I crossed the fields, not as they did when feeding, far ahead of me, but close to my feet. They had gone to bed. By early evening the snow began to fall, and for two days continued furiously. A week later, when the deep drifts melted, I found several larks that had perished from cold or starvation or been smothered under the weight of snow.

There is something of awe in the thought of a bird nestling close beneath a snow-laden bush in a broad meadow, or clinging fast to a limb in the swaying top of some tall tree, rocked in its great arms through the

night by a winter gale. All trees, even the pines and cedars, are fearfully exposed sleeping-places, and death from cold is not infrequent among the birds that • take beds in them. Here, in the swaying tops, amid the heavy roar of the winds, the birds sleep. You need never fear of waking them as you steal through the shadows beneath the trees. The thick mat of needles or the sifted snow muffles your footfalls; and the winds still the breaking branches and snapping twigs. What a bed in a winter storm! The sky is just light enough for you to distinguish the dim outlines of the sleepers as they rock in the waves of the dark green that rise and fall above you; the trees moan, the branches shiver and creak, and high above all, around and beneath you, filling the recesses of the dark wood rolls the volume of the storm.

Who has not wondered, as he has seen the red rim of the sun sink down in the sea, where the little brood of Mother Carey’s chickens skimming round the vessel would sleep that night? Or who, as he hears thehonking of geese overhead in the darkness, has not questioned by what . . . plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean-side, they will find rest? THE KING’S PHEASANTS Amid all the cares of Empire which now devolve upon him, King Edward will not, we may be sure, forget the pheasants at Buckingham Palace, for they figured in a delightful little romance in the life of his parents, says the “Children’s Newspaper.” Mr Howlett, keeper of King George’s wardrobe, laid the foundation of the romance a few years ago when, discovering a pair of pheasants nesting in the garden of the palace, he put out food for them.

Queen Mary hardly dared to hope that such shy birds would remain for long in a scene so near the heart of the world’s busiest traffic centre, but to her delight she discovered the parent birds strutting about, attended by a brood of little ones.

King George shared her pleasure at the confidence of these uninvited guests, and from that time forth pheasants have made the palace grounds a sanctuary. Day after day King George would turn from Imperial affairs to take up crumbs and other bird dainties which he had prepared for them, and up the birds would come, scampering for their feast. They have now established squatter’s rights at the palace, and King Edward, who loves birds and animals, will be as much interested as his father was in maintaining the flow of food and kindness which endeared the Royal home to these timid beauties from the wilds.