A walk in one of our extensive parks is nearly always rewarded by the
sight of one or more of these interesting and attractive birds. They
are usually so industriously engaged that they seem to give little
attention to your presence, and hunt away, tapping the bole of the
tree, until called elsewhere by some more promising field of
operations. Before taking flight from one tree to another, they stop
the insect search and gaze inquisitively toward their destination. If
two of them meet, there is often a sudden stopping in the air, a
twisting upward and downward, followed by a lively chase across the
open to the top of a dead tree, and then a sly peeping round or over a
limb, after the manner of all Woodpeckers. A rapid drumming with the
bill on the tree, branch or trunk, it is said, serves for a love-song,
and it has a screaming call note.
THE WARBLING VIREO.
The Vireos are a family of singers and are more often heard than seen,
but the Warbler has a much more musical voice, and of greater compass
than any other member of the family. The song ripples like a brook,
floating down from the leafiest tree-tops. It is not much to look at,
being quite plainly dressed in contrast with the red-eyed cousin, the
largest of the Vireos. In nesting time it prefers seclusion, though in
the spring and mid-summer, when the little ones have flown, and
nesting cares have ceased, it frequents the garden, singing in the
elms and birches, and other tall trees. It rambles as well through the
foliage of trees in open woodland, in parks, and in those along the
banks of streams, where it diligently searches the under side of
leaves and branches for insect life, "in that near-sighted way
peculiar to the tribe." It is a very stoic among birds, and seems
never surprised at anything, "even at the loud report of a gun, with
the shot rattling about it in the branches, and, if uninjured, it will
stand for a moment unconcerned, or move along, peering on every side
amongst the foliage, warbling its tender, liquid strains."
The nest of this species is like that of the Red-eyed Vireo--a
strong, durable, basket-like fabric, made of bark strips, lined with
fine grasses. It is suspended by the brim in slender, horizontal forks
of branches, at a great height from the ground.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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