BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER (Polioptila coerulea) Gnatcatcher family Called also: SYLVAN FLYCATCHERLength -- 4.5 inches. About two inches smaller than the English sparrow.
Male -- Grayish blue above, dull grayish white below. Grayish tips on wings. Tail with white outer quills changing gradually through black and white to all black on centre quills. Narrow black band over the forehead and eyes. Resembles in manner and form a miniature catbird.
Female -- More grayish and less blue, and without the black on head.
Range -- United States to Canadian border on the north, the Rockies on the west, and the Atlantic States, from Maine to Florida most common in the Middle States. A rare bird north of New Jersey. Winters in Mexico and beyond.
Migrations -- May. September. Summer resident.
In thick woodlands, where a stream that lazily creeps through the mossy, oozy ground attracts myriads of insects to its humid neighborhood, this tiny hunter loves to hide in the denser foliage of the upper branches. He has the habit of nervously flitting about from twig to twig of his relatives, the kinglets, but unhappily he lacks their social, friendly instincts, and therefore is rarely seen. Formerly classed among the warblers, then among the flycatchers, while still as much a lover of flies, gnats, and mosquitoes as ever, his vocal powers have now won for him recognition among the singing birds. Some one has likened his voice to the squeak of a mouse, and Nuttall says it is "scarcely louder," which is all too true, for at a little distance it is quite inaudible. But in addition to the mouse-like call-note, the tiny bird has a rather feeble but exquisitely finished song, so faint it seems almost as it the bird were singing in its sleep.
If by accident you enter the neighborhood of its nest, you soon find out that this timid, soft-voiced little creature can be roused to rashness and make its presence disagreeable to ears and eyes alike as it angrily darts about your unoffending head, pecking at your face and uttering its shrill squeak close to your very ear-drums. All this excitement is in defence of a dainty, lichen-covered nest, whose presence you may not have even suspected before, and of four or five bluish-white, speckled eggs well beyond reach in the tree-tops.
During the migrations the bird seems not unwilling to show its delicate, trim little body, that has often been likened to a diminutive mocking-bird's, very near the homes of men. Its graceful postures, its song and constant motion, are sure to attract attention. In Central Park, New York City, the bird is not unknown.
BROWN, OLIVE OR GRAYISH BROWN, AND BROWN AND GRAY SPARROWY BIRDSHouse Wren Yellow-billed Cuckoo Carolina Wren Bank Swallow and Winter Wren Rough-winged Swallow Long-billed Marsh Wren Cedar Bird Short-billed Marsh Wren Brown Creeper Brown Thrasher Pine Siskin Wilson's Thrush or Veery Smith's Painted Longspur Wood Thrush Lapland Longspur Hermit Thrush Chipping Sparrow Alice's Thrush English Sparrow Olive-backed Thrush Field Sparrow Louisiana Water Thrush Fox Sparrow Northern Water Thrush Grasshopper Sparrow Flicker Savannah Sparrow Meadowlark and Western Seaside Sparrow Meadowlark Sharp-tailed Sparrow Horned Lark and Prairie Song Sparrow Horned Lark Swamp Song Sparrow Pipit or Titlark Tree Sparrow Whippoorwill Vesper Sparrow Nighthawk White-crowned Sparrow Black-billed Cuckoo White-throated Sparrow See also winter plumage of the Bobolink, Goldfinch, and Myrtle Warbler. See females of Red-winged Blackbird, Rusty Blackbird, the Grackles, Bobolink, Cowbird, the Redpolls, Purple Finch, Chewink, Bluebird, Indigo Bunting, Baltimore Oriole, Cardinal, and of the Evening, the Blue, and the Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. See also Purple Finch, the Redpolls, Mourning Dove, Mocking-bird, Robin.
BROWN, OLIVE OR GRAYISH BROWN, AND BROWN AND GRAY SPARROWY BIRDSHOUSE WREN (Troglodytes aedon) Wren family Length -- 4.5 to 5 inches. Actually about one-fourth smaller than the English sparrow; apparently only half as large because of its erect tail.
Male and Female -- Upper parts cinnamon-brown. Deepest shade on head and neck; lightest above tail, which is more rufous. Back has obscure, dusky bars; wings and tail are finely barred.
Underneath whitish, with grayish-brown wash and faint bands Most prominent on sides.
Range -- North America, from Manitoba to the Gulf. Most common in the United States, from the Mississippi eastward. Winters south of the Carolinas.
Migrations -- April October. Common summer resident.
Early some morning in April there will go off under your window that most delightful of all alarm-clocks -- the tiny, friendly house wren, just returned from a long visit south. Like some little mountain spring that, having been imprisoned by winter ice, now bubbles up in the spring sunshine, and goes rippling along over the pebbles, tumbling over itself in merry cascades, so this little wren's song bubbles, ripples, cascades in a miniature torrent of ecstasy.
Year after year these birds return to the same nesting places: a box set up against the house, a crevice in the barn, a niche under the eaves; but once home, always home to them. The nest is kept scrupulously clean; the house-cleaning, like the house-building and renovating, being accompanied by the cheeriest of songs, that makes the bird fairly tremble by its intensity.
But however angelic the voice of the house wren, its temper can put to flight even the English sparrow. Need description go further.
Six to eight minutely speckled, flesh-colored eggs suffice to keep the nervous, irritable parents in a state bordering on frenzy whenever another bird comes near their habitation. With tail erect and head alert, the father mounts on guard, singing a perfect ecstasy of love to his silent little mate, that sits upon the nest if no danger threatens; but both rush with passionate malice upon the first intruder, for it must be admitted that Jenny wren is a sad shrew.
