Spring Birds on the Kankakee 



By Edward B. Clark 



The cup of the bird-lover is full who is permitted to wander along the Kan- 

 kakee's wooded banks or to float in a boat on its bosom during the early May 

 time. It is a varied bird-life that makes glad this river valley. The wood ducks 

 nest in the timber, the golden plover dot the meadows, the sandpipers bob on 

 the river bars, the tree swallows dip in the waters, and warblers in thousands 

 haunt the treetops. In the early morning hours river, woodland, and marsh ring 

 with the bird chorus. 



It was warbler time, the first week in May, when three of us having a com- 

 mon hobby left the great city and took the way which led to the pleasant river 

 valley. My companions were of the gentler sex, but with a keen enthusiasm 

 and an untiring perseverance in the pursuit of field study. Our train drew into 

 the little village of Kouts, Indiana, where we found waiting a comfortable dem- 

 ocrat wagon which was to take us the last stage of our journey, five miles across 

 country to the banks of the Kankakee. It was after sundown, but some sparrow 

 songs floated to us from across the fields and an oriole whistled good night from 

 an elm. Our host had met us, and as we drove along through the deepening 

 dusk, he told us that the whippoorwill had come. It was a bit of superfluous 

 information, for at that instant, from a little stretch of timber at the side of the 

 road, the bird he had named called to us softly. Its voice gained in volume as it 

 rolled out the syllables one after another. I have read in one of the books that 

 William calls for his thrashing five times in succession, and then pauses for a 

 while before he begins his plea again. My birds, like those of Dr. Abbott, are 

 always doing something contrary to the books. That Kankakee whippoorwill 

 certainly made no pause for breath until we were well out of hearing. At the 

 time that I had read the statement that the bird rested after calling five times, I 

 sought a whippoorwill haunt for the sole purpose of testing the matter. When 

 darkness had settled over the wood, one of the birds began calling. I counted 

 fifty-eight "whippoorwills" uttered in rapid succession. I gave up the task, 

 firmly convinced that it is rarely safe to put down anything as a bird rule without 

 making due allowance for exceptions. 



Another Kankakee Valley whippoorwill sang me to sleep that night, and 

 during the occasional wakeful moments caused by the newness of the surround- 

 ings I heard him still calling. The night bird's voice was mingling in my dreams 

 with a note of sweeter substance when I woke to a consciousness that day was 

 breaking, and that an oriole was giving it a jubilant welcome from a maple at 

 the window. Enthusiasm took all three of us afield before breakfast for an 

 hour with the birds. One of the soft maples in the dooryard, our host told us, 

 had for four successive years been the home of a pair of orioles. He was 

 firmly convinced that the two birds which Avere then at his door were his 



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