Outings At Odd Times. Abbott Charles Conrad
friends, the meadow mice, were in their glory. Their grass-walled runways were roofed with ice, and not a breath of the chilly breeze that fretted the outer world could reach them. I quite forgot the increasing beauty of the eastern sky in my eagerness to watch the mice. I could look down upon them, through the transparent roofs of their crystal palaces, and wonder what might be their errands. Every one was in a hurry, and none stopped to nibble at a blade of grass or tarried at a cluster of seed-pods. Was it the mere pleasure of activity that prompted them? It was very warm beneath the ice and far from cold above it. But all the while I might be frightening the poor creatures, so I withdrew, at the thought, to the cover of a clump of bushes. Quiet then seemed partially restored, and soon one mouse came from an opening in the roof, where many runways met. It picked its painful way over the frost, as though every crystal was a pricking needle. I moved and away it darted, but not to tell its fellows. Another and another came, and, like the one first seen, they simply ran from post to pillar and back from pillar to post. Perhaps a weasel was on their track – but, if we commence surmising, there will never be an end to it. Let me declare dogmatically, these mice were taking a sun bath, and with this thought, leave them.
As I looked about me, the crows again became the most prominent feature of the landscape. They hovered in a loose flock over all the meadows; literally, in thousands, and as the rays of the sun struck them, they too glistened as though the frost crystals had incased their feathers. Higher and higher they rose into the misty air and soon dispersed in every direction; but they will gather again as the day closes, for over the river, somewhere in the woods, they have a roosting-place. I have seen this knoll, now thickly tenanted by mice, black with crows, day after day, within a fortnight. What then became of the mice? Surely their cunning stood them well in need to escape these ravenous birds, and yet they have done so. Stupid as they seem when studied individually, these mice must have a modicum of mother-wit, to thrive in spite of so many odds against them.
But now, as the day advanced, the wooded bluff a mile away and the willows on the river-shore gave evidence that not alone were the crows and mice awake to the beauty and warmth of a winter sunrise. The feathered world was now astir and music from a hundred throats filled the crisp air. There was, it is true, not that volume of sound that greets the daybreak in June, and no one voice was as tuneful as a thrush. This mattered not. The essential feature of a pleasant stroll, evidence that I was not alone, was present; for I can not keep company with meadow mice. I call it a dead day, when there are no birds, and he who would know what such a day is should be on the marshes or the river when not a sound rises from the wild waste about him.
I stood long listening to the afar-off choir, and then, turning my steps homeward, fancied I could distinguish the different birds that now made the woods fairly ring. There was a ditch to cross before reaching the hillside, and right glad am I that I looked before leaping it, for I saw a lazy frog slowly responding to the increasing warmth of the sunshine. All night long this creature had been sleeping in a cosy nook, a foot deep in the soft mud which was protected here from the north and west and has never been known to freeze. One eye and a small fraction of the frog’s head were visible, but the former was bright, and I was sure that no accident had happened to bring it even so far above the surface. I stood very still, expecting much, but it was like watching the hour-hand of a clock. In time the whole head was exposed, then the fore-limbs, and this, for many minutes, was the extent of the frog’s activity. I ventured finally to assist, and lifting up the clammy creature, placed it on a floating fence rail, whereon the sun shone as in summer. The frog was happy. Its expression showed this, its pulsing sides proved it, and could I have heard it croak, my own satisfaction would have been complete; but this it would not do. But let it be remembered, the croaking can not be forced, either in June or January, and the voices of frogs have been heard frequently during the latter month. Even when the winter has been very severe, a typical January thaw has led them to give tongue, to croak unmistakably, although in thinner tones than during a summer’s night chorus.
There were hours yet before noon, and my little adventure with the languid frog prompted me to explore the ditch in a rude way. All forms of aquatic life seemed as active as in spring. Fish, salamanders, snakes, turtles, and insects, were not only active but alert, and as difficult to capture as I had ever found them. Actual sluggishness characterized the frogs only, and yet these creatures are supposed to be less susceptible to cold than all the others. The truth is, the winter habits of every form of life are little known, and what impressions, if any, most have upon the subject are more or less erroneous. We have had no winter as yet, but the same conditions that I found to-day were true of the ditch-dwellers last year and the year before, when we had not only winter, but winter intensified.
I did not enumerate the many birds aright as I approached the hillside. My attention was suddenly called from the ditch to the green-brier thicket beyond by a familiar sound, yet which now, late in January, seemed quite out of place if not out of tune and harsh. It was the querulous cry of a cat-bird. This familiar thrush is no rara avis at such a time, although probably in Audubon’s day few if any remained in New Jersey during the winter. No author makes mention, I believe, of such an occurrence. The number seen each winter gradually increases, and the disposition to remain affects apparently these birds over a steadily extending area. So, at least, from correspondence, I am led to believe.
I found but three flowers as I neared my home – a dandelion, a violet, and a pale spring beauty; but earlier in the month, a friend had been more successful, and gathered not only those I have named, but others. Doubtless these superlatively early blossomings have to do with the present extraordinary winter, now more than half gone, but not altogether, perhaps. Many a plant is more vigorous than we suspect, and stray flowers are hidden beneath the fallen leaves more often than we know.
When, in the forbidding gloom of a winter dawn, I ventured out of doors, it was with the anticipation of a cheerless walk, if not fear of actual discomfort; but the brilliant sunrise promptly dispelled all this, my fears giving way to hopes that were more than realized.
Midwinter Minstrelsy
It is a common impression, I find, that when the Northern song-birds come in autumn from Canada to the Middle and Southern States, they leave their music behind them, and during their sojourn here they only chirp and twitter at best, and far oftener are moody and silent. This absurdity is not readily explained, unless it be that lovers of birds are persistently indoors from November until May. I do not pretend to say that a keen, cold, frosty morning is rendered the more charming by reason of the best efforts of the winter wren, purple finch, or white-crowned sparrow, but that not one of them is necessarily mute because the mercury is down to zero. Indeed, temperature alone seems to have almost nothing to do with the movements or habits generally of our birds, either the resident or migratory species. All depends upon the food-supply, and a feast in winter is followed by a merry heart as surely as a successful wooing in May results in ecstatic song. I think this is borne out by the fact that during the present season – as yet winter only in name – there has been really less activity and disposition on the part of all our birds to sing than when we have had snow and ice in abundance. I worked my way recently through a tangled, trackless bit of swamp, and, while climbing over the prostrate trunk of a huge tree, startled a winter wren as it crept from beneath a smaller log near by. It seemed as astonished that I should have ventured so far from the open meadow as I was to see any bird less mopish than an owl. The wren stood contemplating me for at least one minute – a long time for a wren to remain in one spot – and then gave vent to its astonishment by, not a chirp, but a short series of sweet notes, that well repaid me for my recent labors. Then, darting into the thicket, the wren was gone, but I was not left alone. At the same moment, a troop of tree-sparrows settled upon the clustered water-birches, and their united voices rose to the dignity of a bird’s song. Such it evidently was intended to be, for the chattering of birds, when they merely chirp or twitter – which is but their conversation – is never so softly modulated, but pitched in a hundred different keys. This became noticeable directly afterward, for the birds scattered among the undergrowth, and the short, quick utterances that I soon continually heard bore no resemblance to the two or three notes, which, before they had separated, they uttered in concert.
And as I returned home, while crossing a wide meadow where the rank grasses afforded excellent cover, I found many small brown birds that ran through them as aimlessly as frightened mice;