In old-fashioned gardens, set on a pole over which honeysuckle and roses climbed from a bed where China pinks, phlox, sweet Williams, and hollyhocks crowded each other below, martin boxes used always to be seen with a pair of these large, beautiful swallows circling overhead. Bur now, alas! the boxes, where set up at all, are quickly monopolized by the English sparrow, a bird that the martin, courageous as a kingbird in attacking crows and hawks, tolerates as a neighbor only when it must.
Bradford Torrey tells of seeing quantities of long-necked squashes dangling from poles about the negro cabins all through the South. One day he asked an old colored man what these squashes were for.
"Why, deh is martins' boxes," said Uncle Remus. "No danger of hawks carryin'
off de chickens so long as de martins am around."The Indians, too, have always had a special liking for this bird. They often lined a hollowed-out gourd with bits of bark and fastened it in the crotch of their tent poles to invite its friendship. The Mohegan Indians have called it "the bird that never rests"--a name better suited to the tireless barn swallow, Dr. Abbott thinks.
Wasps, beetles, and all manner of injurious garden insects constitute its diet -- another reason for its universal popularity. It is simple enough to distinguish the martins from the other swallows by their larger size and iridescent dark coat, not to mention their song, which is very soft and sweet, like musical laughter, rippling up through the throat.
COWBIRD (Molothrus ater) Blackbird family Called also: BROWN-HEADED ORIOLE; COW-PEN BIRD; COW BLACKBIRD;COW BUNTING; [BROWN-HEADED COWBIRD, AOU 1998]
Length -- 7 to 8 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin.
Male -- Iridescent black, with head, neck, and breast glistening brown. Bill dark brown, feet brownish.
Female -- Dull grayish-brown above, a shade lighter below, and streaked with paler shades of brown.
Range -- United States, from coast to coast. North into British America, south into Mexico.
Migrations -- March. November. Common summer resident.
The cowbird takes its name from its habit of walking about among the cattle in the pasture, picking up the small insects which the cattle disturb in their grazing. The bird may often be seen within a foot or two of the nose of a cow or heifer, walking briskly about like a miniature hen, intently watching for its insect prey.
Its marital and domestic character is thoroughly bad. Polygamous and utterly irresponsible for its offspring, this bird forms a striking contrast to other feathered neighbors, and indeed is almost an anomaly in the animal kingdom. In the breeding season an unnatural mother may be seen skulking about in the trees and shrubbery, seeking for nests in which to place a surreptitious egg, never imposing it upon a bird of its size, but selecting in a cowardly way a small nest, as that of the vireos or warblers or chipping sparrows, and there leaving the hatching and care of its young to the tender mercies of some already burdened little mother. It has been seen to remove an egg from the nest of the red-eyed vireo in order to place one of its own in its place. Not finding a convenient nest, it will even drop its eggs on the ground, trusting them to merciless fate, or, still worse, devouring them. The eggs are nearly an inch long, white speckled with brown or gray.
Cowbirds are gregarious. The ungrateful young birds, as soon as they are able to go roaming, leave their foster-parents and join the flock of their own kind. In keeping with its unclean habits and unholy life and character, the cowbird's ordinary note is a gurgling, rasping whistle, followed by a few sharp notes.
STARLING (Sturnus vulgaris)
[Called also: EUROPEAN STARLING, AOU 1998]
Length -- 8 to 9 inches. Weight about equals that of robin, but the starling, with its short, drooping tail, is chunkier in appearance.
Male -- Iridescent black with glints of purple, green, and blue.
On back the black feathers, with iridescence of green and bronze, are tipped with brown, as are some of the tail and wing feathers. In autumn and early winter feathers of sides of head, breast, flanks and underparts are tipped with white, giving a gray, mottled appearance. During the winter most of the white tips on breast and underparts wear off. Until the first moult in late summer the young birds are a dark olive-brown in color, with white or whitish throat. These differences in plumage at different seasons and different ages make starlings hard to identify. Red-winged blackbirds and grackles are often mistaken for them. From early spring till mid-June, starling's rather long, sharp bill is yellow. Later in summer it darkens. No other black bird of ours has this yellow bill at any season.
Female -- Similar in appearance.
Range -- Massachusetts to Maryland. Not common beyond 100 miles inland. (Native of northern Europe and Asia.)Migrations -- Permanent resident, but flocks show some tendency to drift southward in winter.
This newcomer to our shores is by no means so black as he has been painted.
Like many other European immigrants he landed at or near Castle Garden, New York City, and his descendants have not cared to wander very far from this vicinity, preferring regions with a pretty numerous human population. The starlings have increased so fast in this limited region since their first permanent settlement in Central Park about 1890 that farmers and suburban dwellers have feared that they might become as undesirable citizens as some other Europeans -- the brown rat, the house mouse, and the English sparrow.
But a very thorough investigation conducted by the United States Bureau of Biological Survey (Bulletin No. 868, 1921) is most reassuring in its results.
