Six days ago (May 2) a rose-breasted grosbeak gladdened the morning
in a similar manner, though he was a little farther away, so that I
did not hear him until I stepped out upon the piazza. I stood still
a minute or two, listening to the sweet “rolling” warble, and then
crossed the street to have a look at the rose color. It was just as
bright as I remembered it.
Golden warblers (summer yellow-birds) made their appearance on the last
day of April. The next morning one had dropped into an ideal summering
place, a bit of thicket beside a pond and a lively brook,--good
shelter, good bathing, and plenty of insects,--and from the first
moment seemed to have no thought of looking farther. I see and hear him
every time I pass the spot. The same leafless thicket (but it will be
leafy enough by and by) is now inhabited by a catbird. I found him on
the 6th, already much at home, feeding, singing, and mewing. Between
him and his small, high-colored neighbor there is no sign of rivalry or
ill-feeling; but if another catbird or a second warbler should propose
settlement in that clump of shrubbery, I have no doubt there would be
trouble.
May-day brought me the yellow-throated vireo, the parula warbler, the
white-throated sparrow, and the least flycatcher, the last two pretty
late, by my reckoning. On the 2d came the warbling vireo, the veery,--a
single silent bird, the only one I have yet seen,--the kingbird,
the Maryland yellow-throat, the oven-bird, and the chestnut-sided
warbler, in addition to the grosbeak before mentioned. Then followed a
spell of cold, unfavorable weather, and nothing more was listed until
the 6th. That day I saw a Nashville warbler,--several days tardy,--a
catbird, and a Swainson thrush. On May 7, I heard my first prairie
warbler, and to-day has brought the oriole, the wood thrush, one silent
red-eyed vireo (it is good to know that this voluble “preacher” _can_
be silent), and the redstart. It never happened to me before, I think,
to see the Swainson thrush earlier than the wood. That I have done so
this season is doubtless the result of some accident, on one side or
the other. The Swainson was a little ahead of his regular schedule, I
feel sure; but on the other hand, it may almost be taken for granted
that a few wood thrushes have been in the neighborhood for several
days. The probability that any single observer will light upon the very
first silent bird of a given species that drops into a township must be
slight indeed. What we see, we tell of; but that is only the smallest
part of what happens.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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