AMERICAN BIRDS (Illustrated)
Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure. It is also searchable and contains hyper-links to chapters.
***
PREFATORY NOTE
AN important and sometimes difficult phase in the study of bird life is to observe accurately and report without false interpretation the habits and actions of birds. The naturalist who uses the camera in the field often has the advantage of backing his observations with proof (not an unimportant thing in nature writing of to-day), and if he produces good authentic photographs, one may be quite sure they were not secured without patient waiting and a careful study of his subjects.
In this book no attempt has been made to include all the different bird families, but a series of representative birds from the hummingbird to the eagle has been selected. Each chapter represents a close and continued study with camera and notebook at the home of some bird or group of birds,—a true life history of each species. It is the bird as a live creature, its real wild personality and character, that I have tried to portray.
Many of these studies were made in the West, but in the list of birds treated an effort has been made to get a selection that is national in scope. In the popular mind a song sparrow is a song sparrow from ocean to ocean, yet scientifically he represents over a dozen subspecies, according to the part of the country in which he lives. To the ordinary bird lover, however, a robin is the same east and west, and the same is true of the chickadee, flicker, wren, grosbeak, vireo, warbler, hawk, and others dealt with in the following chapters.
In making this book, I have used many suggestions offered by my wife, and I have had her valued assistance and criticism.
In studying bird life, I have been closely associated with Mr. Herman T. Bohlman since boyhood. He has been my constant companion and helper in the field every summer for the past ten years. I owe much to him, for this book embraces the chapters in his experience as well as in mine.
***
An excerpt from the beginning of the first chapter:
THE HUMMINGBIRD AT HOME
HE dropped into our garden like the flying fleck from a rainbow, probed at the geranium blossoms and disappeared as the flash from a whirling mirror. I had often watched him and listened to the musical hum of his wings, as it rose and fell in sweetest cadences. I always had the unsatisfied tinge of disappointment as I was left gazing at the trail of this little shooting star of our garden, that hummed as well as glowed. I longed to have him and call him mine. Not caged, mercy no! I wanted his lichen-shingled home in the Virginia creeper, his two pearly eggs, the horned midgets, the little fledglings, the mother as she plied them with food, and I wanted the glint of real live sunshine that hovered and poised about the flowers and got away, a minute ethereal sprite. And more than that, I wanted to have forever with me this mite that possesses the tiniest soul in feathers.
It was not till we had studied, had watched and waited with the camera for four different nesting seasons about the hillside and along the creek, that we succeeded in getting a series of pictures of the home life of the little Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus).
The first year, by the merest chance, we found a nest that had been placed in a Wild blackberry brier just above the creek. The green fibres and the lichens that shingled the outside of the tiny cup blended exactly with the green leaves and stems of the vines. The cotton lining of the nest and the two eggs looked precisely like the clusters of white blossoms surrounding. One might have searched all over the vine a dozen times and yet not have discovered the nest.
Many a spider's suspension-bridge the hummingbird had torn away, and many a mouthful of cotton from the balms and down from the thistles, she collected. As I watched her, it looked to me as if a bill for probing flowers was not suitable for weaving nests. Maybe it would have been more convenient at times if it had been shorter. But she wove in the webs and fibres. She whirred round and round and shaped the side of her cup as a potter moulds his masterpiece. Then she thatched the outside with irregular bits of lichen.
Another pair of hummers took up a homestead on the hillside. The bank had been cut down to build a wood road, but the place had been abandoned a generation ago. The hummer saddled her tiny cup on the lowest branch of a small fir at the top of the bank. It looked as if she had picked out a spot to please the photographer.
When the weather was warm, the mother didn't brood long at a time. It often looked to me as if it was only child's play at setting. Five minutes was such a long, wearisome spell that she just had to take a turn about the garden....
"1027972086"
***
PREFATORY NOTE
AN important and sometimes difficult phase in the study of bird life is to observe accurately and report without false interpretation the habits and actions of birds. The naturalist who uses the camera in the field often has the advantage of backing his observations with proof (not an unimportant thing in nature writing of to-day), and if he produces good authentic photographs, one may be quite sure they were not secured without patient waiting and a careful study of his subjects.
In this book no attempt has been made to include all the different bird families, but a series of representative birds from the hummingbird to the eagle has been selected. Each chapter represents a close and continued study with camera and notebook at the home of some bird or group of birds,—a true life history of each species. It is the bird as a live creature, its real wild personality and character, that I have tried to portray.
Many of these studies were made in the West, but in the list of birds treated an effort has been made to get a selection that is national in scope. In the popular mind a song sparrow is a song sparrow from ocean to ocean, yet scientifically he represents over a dozen subspecies, according to the part of the country in which he lives. To the ordinary bird lover, however, a robin is the same east and west, and the same is true of the chickadee, flicker, wren, grosbeak, vireo, warbler, hawk, and others dealt with in the following chapters.
In making this book, I have used many suggestions offered by my wife, and I have had her valued assistance and criticism.
In studying bird life, I have been closely associated with Mr. Herman T. Bohlman since boyhood. He has been my constant companion and helper in the field every summer for the past ten years. I owe much to him, for this book embraces the chapters in his experience as well as in mine.
***
An excerpt from the beginning of the first chapter:
THE HUMMINGBIRD AT HOME
HE dropped into our garden like the flying fleck from a rainbow, probed at the geranium blossoms and disappeared as the flash from a whirling mirror. I had often watched him and listened to the musical hum of his wings, as it rose and fell in sweetest cadences. I always had the unsatisfied tinge of disappointment as I was left gazing at the trail of this little shooting star of our garden, that hummed as well as glowed. I longed to have him and call him mine. Not caged, mercy no! I wanted his lichen-shingled home in the Virginia creeper, his two pearly eggs, the horned midgets, the little fledglings, the mother as she plied them with food, and I wanted the glint of real live sunshine that hovered and poised about the flowers and got away, a minute ethereal sprite. And more than that, I wanted to have forever with me this mite that possesses the tiniest soul in feathers.
It was not till we had studied, had watched and waited with the camera for four different nesting seasons about the hillside and along the creek, that we succeeded in getting a series of pictures of the home life of the little Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus).
The first year, by the merest chance, we found a nest that had been placed in a Wild blackberry brier just above the creek. The green fibres and the lichens that shingled the outside of the tiny cup blended exactly with the green leaves and stems of the vines. The cotton lining of the nest and the two eggs looked precisely like the clusters of white blossoms surrounding. One might have searched all over the vine a dozen times and yet not have discovered the nest.
Many a spider's suspension-bridge the hummingbird had torn away, and many a mouthful of cotton from the balms and down from the thistles, she collected. As I watched her, it looked to me as if a bill for probing flowers was not suitable for weaving nests. Maybe it would have been more convenient at times if it had been shorter. But she wove in the webs and fibres. She whirred round and round and shaped the side of her cup as a potter moulds his masterpiece. Then she thatched the outside with irregular bits of lichen.
Another pair of hummers took up a homestead on the hillside. The bank had been cut down to build a wood road, but the place had been abandoned a generation ago. The hummer saddled her tiny cup on the lowest branch of a small fir at the top of the bank. It looked as if she had picked out a spot to please the photographer.
When the weather was warm, the mother didn't brood long at a time. It often looked to me as if it was only child's play at setting. Five minutes was such a long, wearisome spell that she just had to take a turn about the garden....
AMERICAN BIRDS (Illustrated)
Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure. It is also searchable and contains hyper-links to chapters.
***
PREFATORY NOTE
AN important and sometimes difficult phase in the study of bird life is to observe accurately and report without false interpretation the habits and actions of birds. The naturalist who uses the camera in the field often has the advantage of backing his observations with proof (not an unimportant thing in nature writing of to-day), and if he produces good authentic photographs, one may be quite sure they were not secured without patient waiting and a careful study of his subjects.
In this book no attempt has been made to include all the different bird families, but a series of representative birds from the hummingbird to the eagle has been selected. Each chapter represents a close and continued study with camera and notebook at the home of some bird or group of birds,—a true life history of each species. It is the bird as a live creature, its real wild personality and character, that I have tried to portray.
Many of these studies were made in the West, but in the list of birds treated an effort has been made to get a selection that is national in scope. In the popular mind a song sparrow is a song sparrow from ocean to ocean, yet scientifically he represents over a dozen subspecies, according to the part of the country in which he lives. To the ordinary bird lover, however, a robin is the same east and west, and the same is true of the chickadee, flicker, wren, grosbeak, vireo, warbler, hawk, and others dealt with in the following chapters.
In making this book, I have used many suggestions offered by my wife, and I have had her valued assistance and criticism.
In studying bird life, I have been closely associated with Mr. Herman T. Bohlman since boyhood. He has been my constant companion and helper in the field every summer for the past ten years. I owe much to him, for this book embraces the chapters in his experience as well as in mine.
***
An excerpt from the beginning of the first chapter:
THE HUMMINGBIRD AT HOME
HE dropped into our garden like the flying fleck from a rainbow, probed at the geranium blossoms and disappeared as the flash from a whirling mirror. I had often watched him and listened to the musical hum of his wings, as it rose and fell in sweetest cadences. I always had the unsatisfied tinge of disappointment as I was left gazing at the trail of this little shooting star of our garden, that hummed as well as glowed. I longed to have him and call him mine. Not caged, mercy no! I wanted his lichen-shingled home in the Virginia creeper, his two pearly eggs, the horned midgets, the little fledglings, the mother as she plied them with food, and I wanted the glint of real live sunshine that hovered and poised about the flowers and got away, a minute ethereal sprite. And more than that, I wanted to have forever with me this mite that possesses the tiniest soul in feathers.
It was not till we had studied, had watched and waited with the camera for four different nesting seasons about the hillside and along the creek, that we succeeded in getting a series of pictures of the home life of the little Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus).
The first year, by the merest chance, we found a nest that had been placed in a Wild blackberry brier just above the creek. The green fibres and the lichens that shingled the outside of the tiny cup blended exactly with the green leaves and stems of the vines. The cotton lining of the nest and the two eggs looked precisely like the clusters of white blossoms surrounding. One might have searched all over the vine a dozen times and yet not have discovered the nest.
Many a spider's suspension-bridge the hummingbird had torn away, and many a mouthful of cotton from the balms and down from the thistles, she collected. As I watched her, it looked to me as if a bill for probing flowers was not suitable for weaving nests. Maybe it would have been more convenient at times if it had been shorter. But she wove in the webs and fibres. She whirred round and round and shaped the side of her cup as a potter moulds his masterpiece. Then she thatched the outside with irregular bits of lichen.
Another pair of hummers took up a homestead on the hillside. The bank had been cut down to build a wood road, but the place had been abandoned a generation ago. The hummer saddled her tiny cup on the lowest branch of a small fir at the top of the bank. It looked as if she had picked out a spot to please the photographer.
When the weather was warm, the mother didn't brood long at a time. It often looked to me as if it was only child's play at setting. Five minutes was such a long, wearisome spell that she just had to take a turn about the garden....
***
PREFATORY NOTE
AN important and sometimes difficult phase in the study of bird life is to observe accurately and report without false interpretation the habits and actions of birds. The naturalist who uses the camera in the field often has the advantage of backing his observations with proof (not an unimportant thing in nature writing of to-day), and if he produces good authentic photographs, one may be quite sure they were not secured without patient waiting and a careful study of his subjects.
In this book no attempt has been made to include all the different bird families, but a series of representative birds from the hummingbird to the eagle has been selected. Each chapter represents a close and continued study with camera and notebook at the home of some bird or group of birds,—a true life history of each species. It is the bird as a live creature, its real wild personality and character, that I have tried to portray.
Many of these studies were made in the West, but in the list of birds treated an effort has been made to get a selection that is national in scope. In the popular mind a song sparrow is a song sparrow from ocean to ocean, yet scientifically he represents over a dozen subspecies, according to the part of the country in which he lives. To the ordinary bird lover, however, a robin is the same east and west, and the same is true of the chickadee, flicker, wren, grosbeak, vireo, warbler, hawk, and others dealt with in the following chapters.
In making this book, I have used many suggestions offered by my wife, and I have had her valued assistance and criticism.
In studying bird life, I have been closely associated with Mr. Herman T. Bohlman since boyhood. He has been my constant companion and helper in the field every summer for the past ten years. I owe much to him, for this book embraces the chapters in his experience as well as in mine.
***
An excerpt from the beginning of the first chapter:
THE HUMMINGBIRD AT HOME
HE dropped into our garden like the flying fleck from a rainbow, probed at the geranium blossoms and disappeared as the flash from a whirling mirror. I had often watched him and listened to the musical hum of his wings, as it rose and fell in sweetest cadences. I always had the unsatisfied tinge of disappointment as I was left gazing at the trail of this little shooting star of our garden, that hummed as well as glowed. I longed to have him and call him mine. Not caged, mercy no! I wanted his lichen-shingled home in the Virginia creeper, his two pearly eggs, the horned midgets, the little fledglings, the mother as she plied them with food, and I wanted the glint of real live sunshine that hovered and poised about the flowers and got away, a minute ethereal sprite. And more than that, I wanted to have forever with me this mite that possesses the tiniest soul in feathers.
It was not till we had studied, had watched and waited with the camera for four different nesting seasons about the hillside and along the creek, that we succeeded in getting a series of pictures of the home life of the little Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus).
The first year, by the merest chance, we found a nest that had been placed in a Wild blackberry brier just above the creek. The green fibres and the lichens that shingled the outside of the tiny cup blended exactly with the green leaves and stems of the vines. The cotton lining of the nest and the two eggs looked precisely like the clusters of white blossoms surrounding. One might have searched all over the vine a dozen times and yet not have discovered the nest.
Many a spider's suspension-bridge the hummingbird had torn away, and many a mouthful of cotton from the balms and down from the thistles, she collected. As I watched her, it looked to me as if a bill for probing flowers was not suitable for weaving nests. Maybe it would have been more convenient at times if it had been shorter. But she wove in the webs and fibres. She whirred round and round and shaped the side of her cup as a potter moulds his masterpiece. Then she thatched the outside with irregular bits of lichen.
Another pair of hummers took up a homestead on the hillside. The bank had been cut down to build a wood road, but the place had been abandoned a generation ago. The hummer saddled her tiny cup on the lowest branch of a small fir at the top of the bank. It looked as if she had picked out a spot to please the photographer.
When the weather was warm, the mother didn't brood long at a time. It often looked to me as if it was only child's play at setting. Five minutes was such a long, wearisome spell that she just had to take a turn about the garden....
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AMERICAN BIRDS (Illustrated)
AMERICAN BIRDS (Illustrated)
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Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940012515162 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Leila's Books |
| Publication date: | 04/28/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 4 MB |
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