File:Bird neighbors. An introductory acquaintance with one hundred and fifty birds commonly found in the gardens, meadows, and woods about our homes (1904) (14729524836).jpg

Identifier: birdneighbors00blan (find matches)
Title: Bird neighbors. An introductory acquaintance with one hundred and fifty birds commonly found in the gardens, meadows, and woods about our homes
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Blanchan, Neltje, 1865-1918
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: New York : Grosset & Dunlap

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ange—North America, from northern British provinces to Cen-tral America in winter. Migrations—h roving resident, without tixed seasons for migrat-ing. As the cedar birds travel about in great flocks that quicklyexhaust their special food in a neighborhood, they necessarilylead a nomadic life—here to-day, gone to-morrow—and, like theArabs, they silently steal away. It is surprising how verylittle noise so great a company of these birds make at any time.That is because they are singularly gentle and refined; soft ofvoice, as they are of color, their plumage suggesting a fine Japan-ese water-color painting on silk, with its beautiful sheen andexquisitely blended tints. One listens in vain for a song; only a lisping Twee-twee-:ie,or a dreary whisper, as Minot calls their low-toned commu-nications with each other, reaches our ears from their high perchesin the cedar trees, where they sit, almost motionless hours at atime, digesting the enormous quantities of juniper and whortle 144
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CEDARBIRD Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds berries, wild clnerries, worms, and insects upon which they havegormandized. Nuttall gives the cedar birds credit for excessive politenessto each other. He says he has often seen them passing a wormfrom one to another down a whole row of beaks and back againbefore it was finally eaten. When nesting time arrives—that is to say, towards the end ofthe summer—they give up their gregarious habits and live in pairs,billing and kissing like turtle-doves in the orchard or wild crab-trees, where a flat, bulky nest is rather carelessly built of twigs,grasses, feathers, strings—any odds and ends that may be lyingabout. The eggs are usually four, white tinged with purple andspotted with black. Apparently they have no moulting season; their plumage isalways the same, beautifully neat and full-feathered. Nothingever hurries or flusters them, their greatest concern apparentlybeing, when they alight, to settle themselves

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