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Updated: May 9, 2025
The morning was for a walk: to Lake Bradford, perhaps, in search of a mythical ivory-billed woodpecker, or westward on the railway for a few miles, with a view to rare migratory warblers. But in the afternoon I did not walk, I loitered; and though I still minded the birds and flowers, I for the most part forgot my botany and ornithology.
Nay, even in the winter when, the Nightingale and many other warblers have left our shores to spend the chilly months in some warmer climate, the robin only draws nearer to our homes, makes his abode in our gardens, pecks up the crumbs at our very doors, nay, often finds his way into our houses, and rewards every kindness shewn to him with the same sweet flood of song that he poured forth amidst the woods in the days of summer.
One knows where to look for sparrows and thrushes and bobolinks and warblers and flycatchers. But the occupation of the country by our winter residents is like the Indian occupation of the land. They are found in little bands, a few here and there, with large tracts quite untenanted. One may walk for hours through the winter woods and not see or hear a bird.
I walked down the path to the tree, but no Kentucky warblers were to be seen not right away. So I sat down in the path and waited to see what would happen. It was only a short time till the female appeared, with a telltale bunch of worms in her beak. A moment later her mate also arrived, carrying a small worm in the usual way. The situation was growing interesting.
Warblers, thrushes, flycatchers, shrikes, and crows must all be comparatively recent immigrants from the Asiatic mainland. Even in this respect, however, the Australian life-region still bears an antiquated and undeveloped aspect. Nowhere else in the world do we find those very oldest types of birds represented by the cassowaries, the emus, and the mooruk of New Britain.
She it was who made the superb discovery that the music they heard came from across the way, and that by opening a closet window they could look into a theatre and see the stage. All rushed at once and beheld an opera in full blast, heartily enjoying the unusual advantages of their position; for not only could they hear the warblers, but see them when the curtain was down.
The groves, in the tops of which the woodpeckers, warblers, and vireos disturbedly carried on the imperatively necessary work of rearing their broods, were gay with festoons of Chinese lanterns in readiness for the evening.
In a few instances the duck-hawk has been known to nest in trees. It is a solitary bird, and the sexes do not associate except at the breeding season. While it prefers water-fowl, it does not confine itself to them. I shot one on a Long Island beach and found in its crop whole legs of the robin, Alice's thrush, catbird, and warblers.
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