Citizen Bird: Scenes from Bird-Life in Plain English for BeginnersWright, Mabel Osgood
General
Citizen Bird: Scenes from Bird-Life in Plain English for Beginners
Wright, Mabel Osgood
Birds -- Juvenile literature
"There is one thing more that I must tell you here, lest you make a
mistake about the Golden-crowned Kinglet. He has a twin brother, so much
like himself that their own parents can hardly tell them apart without
looking at the tops of their heads. The other twin's name is Ruby-crown,
for he has a beautiful little crest of that color, half hidden in dark
greenish; but not any of the black and yellow marks on the head that
will always enable you to recognize the Golden-crown, if you can get a
chance to see them while the little fellow is fidgeting about. It is a
snug family that contains these two birdlets, for there is only one
other member of it in all this part of the world, and you will not be
likely to see him about Orchard Farm."
The Golden-crowned Kinglet
Length four inches.
Upper parts olive-green, browner on the wings and tail, which have some
yellowish edgings.
A bright-red stripe on the crown, bordered by a yellow and then by a
black line; but young birds and females have only the yellow and black
stripes, without any red.
Under parts soiled white, without any marks.
A Citizen of the United States, and a Tree Trapper.
THE WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH
"'Yank! yank!' says the White-breasted Nuthatch, as he runs up
tree-trunks and comes down again head foremost, quite as a matter of
course.
[Illustration: White-Breasted Nuthatch.]
"At first, or from a distance, you may mistake him for his cousin the
Chickadee, who wears clothes of much the same color and is seen in the
same places; or perhaps for the little Downy Woodpecker, who also
hammers his insect food out of the tree bark.
"But at a second glance you will find the Nuthatch is very different. He
keeps his body very close to the tree and uses his feet to creep about
like a mouse or chipmunk; he also goes upside down, in a way that
Woodpeckers never do, clings to the under side of a branch as easily as
a fly to the ceiling, and often roosts or takes a nap head downward on
the side of a tree-trunk--a position that would seem likely to give him
a severe headache, if birds ever have such things."
"This is the bird I saw the first day I went to the orchard with Olive;
but why is he called a Nuthatch?" asked Nat.
"Because, besides liking to eat insects and their grubs or their eggs,
he is also very fond of some kinds of nuts, like beech and chestnuts,"
said the Doctor, "and he may be obliged to live entirely upon them in
winter, when insects fail him. Having no teeth to gnaw and crack them
open as squirrels do, he takes a nut in his claws and either holding it
thus, or jamming it tight into a crack in the bark, then uses his bill
for a hatchet to split or hack the nut open. I have seen the bird crack
hard nuts in this way, that it would take very strong teeth to break.
People used to call him 'Nuthack' or 'Nuthacker'; these words mean
exactly the same thing, but we always say 'Nuthatch' now."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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