SOME BIRDS THE STRANGER SEES 



ELIZABETH GRINJVELIi 



THOSE of us who have lived in this Paradise of the Pacific Slope 

 years enough to observe the annual appearance and disappearance, 

 the silence and the song of our birds, have learned when to expect 

 them, even to a day. For instance, the white-crowned sparrows, 

 return in flocks from their summer home in Alaska by the first of October, 

 shy at their coming, but fearless in a week. They surprise one always in 

 the thickest of the shrubbery by their long notes, two of them, whistled so 

 plaintively. One can but smife, though the notes are sad. Often we hear 

 a shorter, lower note after the longer ones. Sometimes the notes are 

 interrupted, as if the singer changed his mind. Once heard, the song of 

 the white-crown is never forgotten. White crown? No, the crown is not 

 solid white, but has three white stripes divided by two black stripes. The 

 impression as to general color of this beautiful bird is of gray and brown 

 mixed with white and black. The beak is yellow. 



If a stranger to these parts be given to melancholy, let him rise before 

 sun-up and wander off to some blue-gum trees, where he may see and 

 hear things that will liven his spirits. If he be lucky enough to approach 

 two or three flickers at a morning game, he will be paid for a long walk, 

 though often these wonderful birds are seen near our houses, gesticulating, 

 bobbing, talking in strange tones, dodging and fencing and parrying with 

 one another in indescribable mannerisms. Often near the ground, — say 

 ten feet, — but oftener high above your head, a group of the flickers perform, 

 not on the boughs of the tree, but on the trunk itself, standing straight up 

 by means of their sharp toes assisted by the stiff tail-feathers. In this 

 fashion do they also sleep at night. 



When they fly you will note the red flicker of the underwing and tail- 

 feathers, like shafts of flame, appearing and disappearing as the bird 

 darts here and there or off in a straight line and settles down. "Back 

 East" it was the yellow-shafted flicker, but here it is the red-shafted. 

 Always you will know it by the woodpecker habits, by the long, strong 

 beak, but more surely by the black crescent under the chin dividing the 

 pinkish brown throat from the polka-dotted breast. If you stand quite 

 still by the blue-gum trees, the flickers will think of breakfast and settle 

 down to gustatorial pleasures, probably at an ant-hill. If you count, you 

 will notice perhaps a hundred "bites at a cherry" before the bird takes 

 breath. Our walnut-growers assure me that now and then the flickers 

 help themselves to their best, cracking the soft-shells with perfect ease and 

 tossing the remnants over their shoulders at the astonished walnut-grower. 



With the first cold snap that makes the visitor to our summer land 

 grumble, though there may not be frost enough to nip a heliotrope, the 

 mountain blue-birds and chickadees and kinglets come down and sing in 

 the shrubbery, hunting for scale or left-over apples and dried up grapes. 

 These chickadees and kinglets are especially fearless, paying no heed 

 though you stand a few feet from them. If you are up early and visit 

 the orange-groves (with, of course, the consent of the owner), you may 

 discover the varied thrush at work in the tree-mulch, scratching and feed- 

 ing upon the rich fat grubs that hibernate in the dead leaves. 



While you are in the orange-grove you might look for the last year's 

 nest of the mocking-bird. It w\\\ probably be in plain sight on the outside 

 of the boughs, pretty well up. But that mocker bird ! Alas, he can never 

 be described ! One cannot be certain as to which most captivates the 

 attention of the average California tourist the orange-grove or the mocker 

 bird. The singer and his wife are so much alike one can never be certain 

 as to which he is gazing at until he opens his mouth to sing. 



One cannot even mention all the birds that greet the stranger in 

 California. By sea and shore, by mountain and glen, in city and farm, 

 they are here before you. 



