Birds of River, Forest and Sky 
5 
One sunset, while the four long-winged birds were cavorting about 
the sky, as I walked across the prairie floor a soft low chorus arose from 
little choristers, presumably Western chipping sparrows, hidden among 
the glowing weeds, a chorus so subdued and sweet that it went well 
with the soft evening light. 
And still overhead the nighthawks beat back and forth through 
the sky, till their breasts grew ruddy in the sunset light, till the notch of 
the McKenzie leading toward the Three Sisters, earlier filled with radiant 
cumulus clouds, softened to rose; till, as the sun lowered, the timbered 
ridge at the back of the park, earlier vitalized by light and shade, had 
dulled, and above it the gulch of the bony lava ridge had filled with 
shadow, while the Saddle and Baldy had flushed with rose. Back and 
forth they flew till the mountains themselves grew cold and there re¬ 
mained only rosy streaks on Castle Rock and salmon clouds in the sky 
above; until at last they sailed around over the glowing field with its 
encircling black conifers as the evening star came out clear and bright 
above the golden afterglow; when down the road the light of a camp 
fire showed in the deepening shadows, and it seemed time to leave them 
to their night watch in the sky. 
Forest Homes of the Winter Wren 
The jolly little brown Western winter wrens, with their short tipped- 
up tails, enliven the humid coast belt from Alaska to California and 
are met with at McKenzie Bridge in the heart of the Cascades, where 
they are as cheering as the occasional arresting red sprays of barberry. 
One that we surprised when it was hunting over a fallen tree-top 
stopped to look at us, and when I gave a poor imitation of its te-tib' 
stretched up on its wiry legs in listening attitude and then bobbed 
on its springs. Its droll courtesy, much like that of the dipper, would 
certainly help to keep families together in their shadowy haunts, though 
both dipper and wren have acquired such a nervous habit of bobbing 
that they do it when it might attract the attention of unfriendly ob¬ 
servers. 
The little brown wrens who chatter and babble and pipe so gaily 
were met with in some of the choicest parts of the forest. On one of 
the fishermen’s trails along the river where stumps bearing the marks 
of beaver teeth led to the discovery of hemlock poles dragged down the 
bank for their toothsome bark, and where a brotherhood of forest giants 
stood with the sun slanting in on their mossy sides, we surprised a family 
of wrenkins swarming over the bank like so many brown bumblebees; 
but they were quickly suppressed and spirited out of sight by their 
efficient parents. 
