Web
and Book design, |
Click
Here to return to |
|
|
MY FIRST
WATER–OUZELS THERE is no
California bird, not even the big vulture, that I have been more insistent upon
seeing than the water-ouzel. There is none to which so romantic an interest
attaches. And it may be added that there is none which has cost me so many
steps. It is a bird of
mountain cañons; not of their precipitous rocky sides, like the cañon wren, but
of their hurrying brooks, and especially of their waterfalls. Technically, as
men take account of such things, it is a land-bird, as under the same ruling
the snipe and the woodcock are water-birds. But the bird does not know it.
Where there is no water, look for no ouzel. As well seek the kingfisher,
another “land-bird,” on the desert, or the hummingbird where there are no
blossoms. There were cañons
at San Diego, but no mountain cañons; and there were mountains at Witch Creek,
but no wild mountain brooks; so it was not until I reached Pasadena that I
began to cast about in earnest for the home of the ouzel. Three cañons were
named to me; all rather far removed, but, the inducement being weighed, not too
far. In so important a cause I was ready to sacrifice any reasonable amount of
shoe-leather. First, although
this was an accident, due to insufficient, or insufficiently understood,
directions, I tried the nearest and smallest. It was a pretty place, with
something of a brook; but it seemed to be much frequented by picnickers, and
perhaps was not secluded enough for the hermit1 I was seeking. Be
that as it might, I did not find him. Then I tried a second and larger cañon, two miles or more beyond, a distance which I increased materially by mistaking my course, stumbling into the arroyo too far down, and blundering about among the boulders a long while before striking the trail, so making a long and tiresome day of what should have been a comparatively short and easy one. And after all, though I sat for some time within sight of the cascade which had been my goal, I found no sign that any water-ouzel had ever been there. But for a solitaire, a most distinguished, aristocratic-seeming bird, always good to look at (this was only my second one), and a fretful cañon wren, the day would have been ornithologically a waste. A second visit to
the same cañon was equally unproductive, except that I took great interest in
hearing for the first time the song of the Western robin. A large flock of the
birds, a hundred or more, sat in a group of tall sycamores in the arroyo (the
dry, rocky, gravelly, flood-wrought river-bed which leads into — or out of —
every such ravine in this summer-dry Southwestern country), and one or two
among them were in free voice. Their calls I had previously found to be
indistinguishable from those of their Eastern relative. Now I learned, what I
had found no book to tell me, that the same is true of the song itself. If I
had heard it in Massachusetts, I should have remarked nothing peculiar about
it. The next morning,
having been at all pains to obtain particular instructions, I set out for the
third cañon, a last resort, a case of now or never, so far as the neighborhood
of Pasadena was concerned. By a stroke of good fortune, when I had left the
street-car and trudged across lots to the “avenue” that I had been instructed
to follow, — an avenue running between orange groves and vineyards, and shaded
by pepper-trees, — I was presently overtaken by a heavy wagon drawn by a pair
of mules, the young driver of which invited me to ride. “Thank you,” said
I, and clambered up into the lofty seat beside him. “I am going into the
cañon,” I said. “Just where I am going,”
he answered. He was hauling
stone out of the arroyo, it seemed. So this time I not only had made sure of my
course, but was spared a mile or two of walking. The cañon proved to
be a romantic, closely walled place, narrowly tucked in between two contiguous
mountains, each about six thousand feet high, and made alive, as it were, by
the clearest of mountain brooks, while the deliciously sweet falling whistle of
a cañon wren seemed to bid me welcome as I entered. Yes, said I, this is the
place, and this is the day; and now for the water-ouzels! Up the brook I
went, first on this side for a few rods, then on the other for a like distance,
as the water left room for me against the base of the cliff, till by and by I
came to the falls, which, for any but initiated or decidedly resolute
explorers, must be accepted as the head of the cañon. For myself, and for
to-day, at all events, there was no thought of proceeding farther. And within
five minutes I saw that to-day’s quest, like the others, was to end in failure.
The falls, some fifteen or twenty feet in height, and the inviting pool of
still water below, seemed to be all that the most fastidious ouzel could ask
for; but the ouzel was not there. I was nearly
discouraged, but hope revived overnight, as it so often does (this is partly
what nights are for); and in the morning I said, “I will try that place again.”
That was one of my
good sayings. Socrates, in the same case, couldn’t have done better. I had gone
perhaps halfway to the falls when I was startled by a rattle of loud, sharp
cries, which seemed to rise from the bed of the brook in front; and two birds
(I could not remember a minute afterward whether I had seen them or only heard
them) went flying round the next turn up the stream. I stole hurriedly along,
over boulders and what-not; and soon the same piercing calls were repeated.
This time I saw nothing; but I understood now that I had only one chance left.
If I was to overtake the birds again, it must be at the fall. Once above that,
they would be lost. Quietly — as
quietly as possible, the going being what it was — I hastened forward till at
last I had gone as far as I dared. If a side approach had been possible, the
thing might have been easy; but the perpendicular walls shut me in, and I could
do nothing but follow the brook. Then, with my glass focused upon the pool and
the cascade above it, I waited. No sight, no sound. Hope was fading out, when a
bird called. My eye followed the sound; and there, on the face of the cliff,
wet by the spray of the falling water, stood the small, dusky creature that I
had spent so many hours in seeking. Up and down he bobbed, wren fashion, on his
light-colored legs, at every motion uttering a note of complaint; and then he
took wing, flew up the fall and through the narrow opening above it, and was
gone. I lingered about
the spot, keeping as much in shadow as might be, — the opportunity being of the
poorest, — and even went back again and again after quitting the place
altogether, in hope that the birds might have returned; but they had gone
upstream for the day. It was too bad! So short a look after so long a hunt!
But, anyhow, I had seen them. And who could tell? There would be another day
to-morrow, and possibly I should then have better luck. So I munched my crackers
and chocolate, and started for the last time downstream. All this while, I
should have said, I had been casting frequent glances skyward in search of the
California condor. Unless it were the mountaintop, there could be no place
where my chance of seeing him should be better. And sure enough, while I was
still shut between the rocky walls, I looked up once more; and there he hung,
in midair, a mile or so, it might be, overhead. Twice he turned in such a way
that the sunlight shone full upon the under surface of his wings, lighting up
the white coverts. It was he, my second sight of him. And this time how big he
looked! He disappeared all
too quickly, but within fifteen minutes, when I had sat down in a little wider
space to rest, with more sky-room overhead, I beheld him again. Now, by good
luck, he was soaring in circles, and remained in sight a long while; and as
often as he came about, those snow-white patches were illuminated. Higher and
higher he rose, till if I lowered my glass I had hard work to find him again;
and the greater the height, so it seemed, the larger he looked. Like Niagara
and other such wonders, he was growing upon me. I lost him at last,
and had gone a good piece farther, when the same bird, or possibly another,
came into sight once more, this time moving in a straight course with wings
set. Half a mile, at least, I must have watched him fly without a stroke, till
he disappeared over the eastern wall of the cañon. “Well, well,” said I, “this
is my lucky day.” A few rods more, and
I was out of the cañon, away from the noise of the brook, in the dry,
boulder-sprinkled bed of the arroyo. Here I dallied along, having still a
considerable part of the afternoon before me, noticing a pair of scolding
vireos (Hutton’s), and the bright, orange-colored, heavy-scented clusters of
wallflower (a kind of maidenhair fern was common, also), when all at once I
descried a pair of large birds soaring not far off. I lifted my glass; and
behold, they were golden eagles. And a splendid chance they gave me, being at
first extraordinarily near (for eagles), and then rising in circles as the
condor had done. Sometimes the two were within the field of the glass at once.
For a while they seemed to feel a lively curiosity about me, or about something
in my neighborhood, craning their necks to look downward, and so displaying
again and again the golden brown of their foreheads. Wonderfully
athletic-looking birds they were, with that firm, immovable set of the
outspread wings — like the condor in that respect, and very unlike the turkey
vulture, whose tilting, unstable-seeming flight identifies him from afar. And now what next?
I thought. But that was the end. And for one day it was enough. “My lucky day,”
I called it. And so it was; for on the morrow, hoping to duplicate the
experience, at least in part, I visited the same cañon again; and lo, there was
neither ouzel nor condor, nor so much as an eagle. There was nothing for me to
do but to enjoy the cañon itself, with the flowers and the ferns, and to ruminate
upon my good fortune of the day before. “If you would see things,” I said, “you
must be willing to go and go, and go again, and be thankful for what is shown
you.” All things come to him who keeps going. I should never have seen the
ouzels if I had sat on my doorstep and whistled for them. Just a week
afterward, let it be added, for the sake of finishing the story, I went to the
same cañon once more. A special breakfast had been ordered the night previous;
for this time, if the thing were possible, I meant to be on hand so early that
nobody should have preceded me on the cañon trail. That, I considered, was my
only chance of success. Well, I reached the
entrance in excellent season and in high spirits, but just as I was preparing
to put my superfluous umbrella (little shade) into hiding a stranger’s voice
made itself heard from the bank immediately over my head. “Is this Eaton
Cañon?” it inquired. I answered that it was. “It is a pretty place,” the
stranger said; “I’ve just been up to the head of it.” It was well he could not
read my feelings at that moment. I have seldom hated a man so cordially. “All
this trouble for nothing!” I thought, and my spirits dropped to zero in no
time. Nevertheless,
having got rid of my questioner as quickly as the briefest touch of politeness
would permit, I followed the trail up to the falls. No ouzel, of course. I
waited and waited, and at last gave over the search, comforting myself as best
I could with the thought that possibly I might even yet have sight of a condor.
No loafer of a tourist could have frightened him away. I loitered and looked,
now standing, now strolling, now seated at my luncheon; but condors were as
scarce as water-ouzels, and by and by I started homeward. That plague of an
over-punctual man, who had no business in the cañon beyond an idle curiosity,
had ruined my day. But then, at the
last minute, some influence brought me to a better mind. “I’ll give myself one
more chance,” I said; “probably I shall never be here again.” And with that I
took off my coat, and trudged once more up the trail. It was the old story till
I came within sight of the falls. Then the now familiar notes were sounded, and
in a moment my glass was on the birds. There they stood,
each on a boulder, gesticulating and scolding, and to my delight one of them
presently dropped into the pool and swam across it. And now my attention was
caught by the fact that every time either of them bobbed up and down he winked!
For an instant his dark eye flashed white! The effect was
weird, I may truly say comical. A most extraordinary trick it surely seemed,
the reason or motive of which I must leave for others to conjecture. For
myself, I do not wonder that John Muir, in his prose poem upon the water-ouzel,
one of the most supremely beautiful chapters ever written about any bird, makes
no allusion to this habit. It would have been a jarring note. I looked and
laughed, till at length the birds flew to the cascade wall, stood there for a
minute or two side by side, still bobbing and winking, and then vanished
upstream. Probably I shall never have a nearer sight of them or of any like them. But how close I had come to missing my opportunity! And how many good things we must all have missed at one time and another, for lack of the one more trial that would have paid us thrice over for all our pains! 1 On further acquaintance I should
hardly call the ouzel a hermit, nor does he confine himself to mountain brooks.
At Sisson I found him more than once singing from a boat drawn up on the bank
of a small roadside lake; and at Banff and in the Yosemite, as well as in the
Ute Pass at Manitou, I have seen him perfectly at home where men on foot and in
carriages were continually passing close by him, or over his head. There are
few birds, indeed, that seem less put out by human propinquity. |
Click the book image to turn
to the next Chapter.