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CHAPTER X BIRDS OF THE SALT MARSHES
“TH’ Eele-murthering
Hearne,” or, as Chaucer has it, “the ele’s foo, the heroune,” is perhaps the
most characteristic, certainly the most spectacular bird of the salt marshes.
There are several different kinds of these hearnes or herons. The smallest,
the little green heron, prefers fresh water, yet it is common enough in the
marshes, especially on the muddy edges of the creeks at low tide, where the
hunting is good. As it stands or walks it may draw in its head until it appears
to have no neck, or it may extend it as long as its body. If one has ever blown
a blade of grass stretched tightly between the thumbs side by side, one will
recognize the voice of this bird, which mimics exactly the music of the grass
blade. The night heron,
half as large again as the green heron, is a familiar bird in these regions.
Although, as its name would imply, it is largely a bird of the night, yet, when
it has insatiable young in the nest clamoring for food, it must needs work by
day. Indeed at all seasons it is commonly seen by day, but, when the young
shift for themselves, it generally spends the hours of light in slothful ease,
dozing in companies on the tops of bushes or trees. At dusk it is all alert,
and flies to the beach and the marshes, squawking as it goes. It delights most
in the lowest tides, for then it can fish in the pools and meandering streams
of the sand flats. As one pushes a canoe along a winding creek in the darkness
and silence of the night, there is nothing more startling than the uncanny
cries with which these birds suddenly pierce the gloom. The adult night
heron is a handsome bird, with its pearl-gray back and white breast and with
its black crown and slender drooping plumes. It is very conspicuous as it
stands like a sentry in the green marsh, but on the white sands it is far less
noticeable. The most striking pictures made by these birds are to be seen some
five miles away in the heronry — the source of supply for the whole region. The
parent birds on the tree-tops, in a setting of graceful larch sprays against a
clear blue sky, make up a scene which in beauty contrasts strangely with the
hideous blackness and nakedness, as well as with the reptile-like actions of
the young birds in the nests and on the branches below, and with the filth that
assails the eyes and nostrils, and with the discordant cries that rend the
air. Perhaps it is no more fair to judge of the family life and customs of
night herons from a trip below the trees in which they are nesting, than it
would be to judge of the customs of the Parisians by a journey through their
sewers. Be this as it may, the noise and the stench of a large heronry remain
long in the memory. The great blue
heron is indeed a splendid bird, for it stands more than four feet high, and it
is full six feet from tip to tip of its extended wings. Although it formerly
bred in these regions, it does not do so now as far as I can discover, yet it
may be seen there throughout the summer. It is most common, however, in April
and May and after the middle of July. Exceedingly picturesque it is as it
stands motionless in the green marsh, or stalks sedately along the edge of a
creek, or flaps majestically over the water. Herons were one of
the favorite quarries in the days of falconry, and Hamlet showed his
familiarity with this fact, as well as his sanity, in stating that he knew “a
hawk from a hernshaw.” It has never been my fortune to see a hawk fly at a
heron, but I once saw a common tern attack a great blue heron in a way that
brought to mind some of the old hawking pictures. The screaming tern darted at
the noble bird from above and behind, as it was winging its course high above
the marsh. The heron screamed hoarsely, partly dropped its legs from their
extended position behind, and, erecting the feathers on its head in anger,
stretched and turned around its long neck in the endeavor to reach its tormentor.
John Shaw wrote in
1635 “that the heron or hernsaw is a large fowle that liveth about waters,” and
that “hath a marvellous hatred to the hawk, which hatred is duly returned. When
they fight above in the air, they labour both especially for this one thing —
that one may ascend and be above the other. Now, if the hawk getteth the upper
place, he overthroweth and vanquisheth the heron with a marvellous earnest
flight.” In the spring and
early summer one of the most characteristic sounds of the marsh is the booming
or pumping of the bittern, a sound that always recalls to me many pleasant memories
of a camp in the fresh water marshes of the Ipswich River, where bitterns are
more abundant. The curious sound, which seems to come from nowhere in
particular, is in reality the love song of the bittern, and it so exactly
resembles the working of an old pump that one expects to hear the grateful
sound of gushing water. The unk-a-chunk is repeated from three to eight times.
At a considerable distance the last syllable only is audible, and this chunk so
closely resembles the driving of a stake into a bog that the bird is sometimes
called by the country people the “stake-driver.” On one occasion I
was so fortunate as to have a very good view of a bittern engaged in the
production of this extraordinary song. By paddling my canoe vigorously while
the bird was absorbed in his performance, and by remaining motionless while he
was resting, I had eluded observation and had approached within a short
distance. This method is similar in plan to that employed in the murderous
stalking of the capercaillie. As a preliminary, the bittern opened wide its
bill, which it held straight up, and audibly gulped the air six or eight times.
Then the “pumping” began, and with each pump the throat was swelled and the
head ducked, as if the bird were terribly nauseated, and were endeavoring to
rid its stomach of the air. It was not a graceful performance, or one that
would seem to be especially attractive to a lady bittern, — but I suppose it
was. Besides this curious song the birds have an interesting courtship display of soft fluffy white feathers which are ordinarily concealed, but which on this occasion are spread conspicuously on each side of the breast while the gallant cock-bird struts before the hen.  YOUNG BITTERNS Another interesting
trait possessed by the bittern is its power of concealment. This is due partly
to the streaked brown and pale buff plumage which matches admirably the dead
tufts of grass, but chiefly to the motionless and un-bird-like posture, with
upward pointing bill, assumed by the bird. It is sometimes almost impossible
to point out a bird in this position that one has been fortunate enough to see,
to another who has not seen it, so perfect is the protection afforded by the
colors and the posture. I once started a bittern from the black-grass region
of the marsh on a June day, and soon after realized that four objects that I
had supposed were the stakes of a dilapidated gunner’s blind were, in reality,
the outstretched necks of four young bitterns. When closely approached they
abandoned this method of deception, snapped their bills loudly in anger,
erected the feathers of their necks, spread their feeble pin-feathered wings
and, emitting faint hissing snarls, sprang defiantly at me. Their deserted nest
was near at hand, a thin, flat platform of dry grasses. The assumption of this
posture-concealing habit early in life shows its antiquity and long
inheritance. Although I have
described the beautiful evolutions of herring gulls as seen from the dunes,
they must again be mentioned here, for the marsh in the autumn is a favorite
resort for these birds. Then it is that one sees an acre or more of brown marsh
become white like snow with these splendid gulls. Suddenly they rise, the snow
vanishes as they turn in shadow, again to flash out in a brilliant white cloud
high in the air. As they circle about, first one way then another, all calling
and talking together, they rise higher and higher, when with a common impulse
they descend with great rapidity, circling sharply and tipping their wings from
side to side, and the patch of snow reappears in the brown marsh. At all seasons the
herring gulls are fond of feeding in the creeks and estuaries at low tide, and
one can often float in a canoe within close range of these wary birds. They are
adepts at picking from the surface of the water any edible flotsam and jetsam,
and they often do this without wetting a feather, save only the tip of the
tail, which they spread and curve downwards to check their course.
Occasionally, however, they throw themselves at the water in order to obtain
food below the surface, and, on rare occasions, actually disappear for a
moment, bobbing up later to swallow their prey. Although herring
gulls often spend the night on the beach, I have sometimes seen them collect on
the marsh in the latter part of the evening, as if they were preparing to sleep
there. One June day, between five and six o’clock in the afternoon, I counted
over nine hundred of these birds slowly winging their way, singly and in small
bands to a narrow island of green marsh, where they settled in closely crowded
ranks. They were still coming in undiminished numbers when I stopped counting. A long list could
be made of the ducks that have been seen in the salt marshes, but alas, in
these degenerate days, most of those on the list are of but rare or accidental
occurrence. The early days are long passed when, in the words of William Wood,
writing in 1634, “The Duckes of the countrey be very large ones and in great
abundance, so is there of Teak likewise; the price of a Ducke is six pence, of
a Teale three pence. If I should tell you how some have killed a hundred Geese
in a weeke, 50. Duckes at a shot, 40. Teales at another, it may be counted
impossible, though nothing more certaine.” The red-breasted merganser or
sheldrake is still common enough in winter, and I have already described at
some length this interesting bird. The whistler or golden-eye and the black
duck are the only others sufficiently common to be included here. The whistler
comes from the north early in October and remains with us until the last of
April. The drake is a handsome bird, with its iridescent green head, a round
white spot below its golden eye and its snowy breast and flanks. The duck is
considerably smaller and has a dull brown head. They are shy birds and are
always on the lookout for danger, and like the “fearefull Gull” are quick to
“shunne the murthering Peece.” As they fly by or overhead they make loud whistling
music with their wings, and it is from this that they get their common name. Their courtship is
still more spectacular than that of the sheldrake and would take long to tell.
Suffice it to say that the drake bobs his head back so that it rests on the
rump, — a most singular and undignified position for a suitor, — that he
displays his orange-red legs with a spurt of water, and that he emits an
extraordinary double note which is loud and rasping. In fact, he is perfectly
irresistible, and the ladies all succumb, and each drake finds a duck.1
At sunset all the
whistlers leave the marshes, where they have been feeding during the day, and
fly out to sea to spend the night. It would be manifestly unsafe for ducks to
sleep on the surface of the narrow creeks, for they would either be carried by
the wind or tide against the banks or stranded on the flats, whereas on the
surface of the ocean they can rest undisturbed. In the daytime I have noticed
that sleeping ducks, with their bills buried in the feathers of the back, head
up into the wind, and that they paddle gently so as to keep in the same place.
Sometimes, with one leg tucked under a wing, the bird paddles with the other,
so that it revolves in a circle. The black duck has a different outlook on life, for he prefers to feed by night, and when the whistler goes to sleep on the sea, he arises from his daytime slumbers in the same region and repairs to the marshes. These two ducks are the Box and Cox of the marshes. I have seen great flocks of black ducks floating in a long line off the beach in the bright sunlight, most of them fast asleep. They are alert birds, however, and cannot be caught napping, for there are always some on the watch, and even the sleepiest awake from time to time, stretch their wings and yawn, as they look about before settling down for another nap. Occasionally, and especially in stormy weather, one may be fortunate enough to find a great black mass of these birds sleeping on the beach. They present a curious sight, and loud is the roar of their wings as they rise into the air. Unlike the sheldrake, the black duck does not need a run to launch his aeroplane into the air, but has strength of wing enough to rise straight up even in a dead calm. Unlike the sheldrake, also, the black duck is present in the summer as well as the winter, for it breeds in near-by swamps, and visits the salt marshes for food. There are reasons for believing that our summer black duck is a different race from the winter one, which comes from the north and is a larger bird, with a thickly spotted throat, yellow bill and bright red legs.  IN THE UPPER REACHES OF THE CASTLE NECK RIVER Rails are familiar
birds in certain salt marsh regions. Not so at Ipswich, for only during the
migrations are they found in these marshes, and then only at rare intervals,
for they seem to prefer fresh-water swamps. I have several times found sora
rails in the fall there; once I heard what I believed to be a black rail; and
once I was treated to a very near view of the rare clapper rail, as he ran
crouching along a mud flat and disappeared into the thatch. I quickly landed
from my canoe and ran into the grass, when he arose from under my very feet
with feeble wings and dangling legs, and flew off a few yards into the marsh.
His large size, long curved bill and gray color made his identification
certain. The king rail is uncommon but less rare here than the clapper rail,
which it resembles closely except that it is of a rich brown color. Although many shore
birds are nearly as much at home on the marsh as on the beach, most of those
that are found on the marsh are distinct from the beach-loving birds. The
smallest sandpiper of all, the mud-peep or least sandpiper, has the manners and
customs of its cousin of the beaches already described. It is a gentle,
confiding bird and when it is intently feeding one can almost catch it under
one’s hat. From the sand-peep it is distinguished by its slightly smaller
size, by its browner back, by its slightly decurved bill and by the
greenish-yellow legs. A sand-peep in a flock of these birds of the marsh looks
decidedly sandy-colored and out of place. A larger edition of
the least sandpiper, as Ralph Hoffmann has well called it, is the pectoral
sandpiper or grass bird, a bird I have never seen outside of salt marshes.
Unlike most of the members of the sandpiper family, the male grass bird is
larger than the female. It is a bird that at times visits the marshes in
numerous flocks, pouring down in great flights from the north in the fall, but
in the spring it is not to be seen here, for it goes to its breeding grounds by
an inland route. Its note is a rolling whistle like that of the peep, but it
also emits a characteristic grating kriek. A familiar bird of
the marshes, and one that visits also the upper regions of the beaches, is the
spotted sandpiper or teeter-peep, so named because the adults are spotted and
because they all, young and old, have a nervous trick of teetering the body,
sending the tail up and down as if it were on springs, and jerking the head and
neck in and out. When this is accompanied by short walks back and forth, and by
frequent turnings of the body, the effect is almost ludicrous. Their flight
with vigorous down-curved wings and alternate scaling, is as characteristic as
their teetering and their loud double whistle. In the spring they often repeat
their whistle rapidly while they are flying about on quivering wings — a
nuptial song and dance, no doubt. They are interesting birds and would doubtless
increase if the boy with the gun would leave them alone, for they breed back of
beaches and on the islands along the coast. A near relative of
the spotted sandpiper, one that resembles it in many ways, is the solitary
sandpiper, frequenter of mud holes in the marsh as far removed as possible from
salt water. It teeters, but in a much less exuberant manner than its spotted
cousin, and, when it flies, its beautiful tail with white feathers veined with
black and its pointed black wings make it easy of recognition. Both spring and
fall, on its journeys to and from its breeding place in the north, the solitary
sandpiper is to be found in the marsh in small numbers, for it generally lives
up to its name and is solitary, although occasionally two or three are seen
together. Only within a few years have its eggs been found, and, like the
redshanks of England, it lays them in the deserted nest of some other bird in a
low tree or bush. The dowitcher
resembles the snipe, but it lacks the robust, almost corpulent form of that
bird, for it is decidedly more slender. While the snipe bears the name of
English, the dowitcher is for some reason named German, for “dowitcher” is
believed to be a corruption of deutsche. Owing to its red breast it is commonly
called “red-breasted snipe” or “robin snipe,” while from the color of its back
it is also known as “brown-back.” The local names for our shore birds are
legion. Gurdon Trumbull, in his “Names and Portraits of Birds which interest
Gunners,” gives eleven other names besides those already mentioned. He has
also collected as many as twenty-seven names for the black-bellied plover!  GROUP OF BIRDS OF THE MARSH Boston Society of Natural History The dowitcher is a
confiding bird, and is only too anxious to fly in among the gunner’s decoys, so
that it has dwindled ominously in numbers of late years. Fortunately most of
the birds go south in July and early August, and as the opening of the shooting
season is now delayed until the middle of August, there is still a chance that
this charming bird may not be totally exterminated. Another bird that
has been in danger of extinction is the upland plover, which is now protected
by law at all seasons. Although, as its name implies, it frequents the uplands,
it occasionally alights in the black-grass region of the marsh, and, as it
extends its wings straight up over its back and then slowly folds them, it is a
beautiful object. After this preliminary it stretches its neck and looks carefully
about, for it is extremely cautious and shy, and takes alarm at the least sight
of man. In walking, the neck and breast are thrust in and out in a dove-like
manner, and the short tail is held parallel with the ground. It is a fast
runner and generally manages to get some object between it and the prying man.
When it stands still, it nods its head like a nervous hen. Its call note is a
delightful bubbling sound that drops down from the sky as the bird flies over.
I have heard it by night as well as by day, and its sweet but mournful
character, and a certain strange unbirdliness, make it very interesting. One
can only hope that this bird — which, by the way, is a sandpiper and not a
“plover” — will some day breed here regularly, as in the days gone by. Perhaps the most
characteristic shore birds of the salt marshes, birds that very rarely wander
to the beach, are the yellow-legs, both greater and lesser, or, as they are
generally called in these Ipswich regions, “winter” and “summer.” The lesser or
summer yellow-leg is very rare in the spring migration, for it goes north by an
inland route, but in the fall it is generally an earlier migrant than the
greater, as it is rarely seen after the middle of September, while that bird
is generally most common in October, and is, moreover, an abundant spring
migrant. Both birds have long yellow legs, long necks and bills and white
rumps, but the greater, le grand Chevalier a pieds jaunes of the Acadians, is a
third larger than the lesser, and is indeed a fine bird. Both birds have long
pointed wings, and they alternately scale and fly with down-curved strokes;
both lift their wings high over their backs before folding them on alighting,
and both nervously teeter. They peck at their food with sudden thrusts, more in
the manner of a plover than a sandpiper, and both have call notes, which,
although very similar in the two species, are yet easily distinguished. The
alarm notes are a series of loud wheus, deep and in volleys of six or eight in
the case of the “winter,” but in less number and higher pitched in the case of
the “summer.” Not infrequently in
the spring the marshes are filled with sweet and plaintive whistlings, the love
song of the greater yellow-legs. If a man appears on the scene, the tone
changes to one of loud alarm, which warns not only their own species of danger,
but all other shore birds within hearing. At times they give vent to a
prolonged roll, like that of a flicker, but the notes follow each other so
slowly it is possible to count them, an impossibility in the case of the
flicker. This roll is heard at times in the fall, and is also given, but in a
more rapid fashion, by the lesser yellow-legs. So much for the
water birds of the salt marshes; they are a charming group and much more could
be said of their delightful ways. There are certain land birds to be mentioned,
however, that are equally at home in these regions. Chief and most
characteristic of these is the sharp-tailed sparrow, a bird that bears the same
relation to salt marshes that marsh wrens do to fresh water marshes. The
sharp-tails are difficult birds to find, and are generally an unknown quantity
to the casual observer. They conceal their nests in the grass of the higher
parts of the marshes, and under windrows of dead thatch. They move about like
mice running with head low, and, when flushed, fly concealed, if possible,
between the banks of a ditch. On alighting they at once disappear in the grass.
However, one can become intimate with them by the exercise of due caution and
patience, and they will even sit near at hand on a swaying grass blade and pour
forth their song. I have heard the song given fifteen times in a minute by an
ardent performer, and I suppose that his lady-love appreciated it. There is no
accounting for tastes, as the song of the sharp-tail is a peculiar melody that
resembles more closely the hiss of a hot iron in water, or the sinking of the
foot into the oozy marsh than it does a song. Near at hand one can hear two
short notes that follow immediately after the song. Occasionally the bird is so
carried away by the rapture of his passion and music that he mounts in the air
with quivering wings to the height of thirty or forty feet and pours forth his
soul in rapid repetitions of the song as he drops to earth again. He is
frequently unable to fly high enough to unwind his complete repertoire in the
descent, for he often continues to sing after he has alighted in the grass.  THE GUNNER’S BLIND AND DECOYS AT THE SLOUGH The sharp-tail
sparrows bring forth two broods of young, which wear a very different dress
from their parents, and look in their yellow and buff the exact counterpart of
female bobolinks, but much smaller. Closely related to
these birds of our marshes is the Acadian sharp-tail, which breeds farther
north, along the northern half of the Maine coast and in New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia. It passes through the Ipswich marshes late in May and early in June,
and has similar habits and song, but can be distinguished by its slightly
larger size and by its buffy and faintly striped breast. The Savannah
sparrow, already described in the chapter on dune birds, is a common frequenter
of the marsh and one that breeds in the same situations chosen by the
sharp-tail. Its famous cousin, the Ipswich sparrow, very rarely strays
marshward, and when it does its gray, sandy-colored plumage is very noticeable.
Besides those
already mentioned the list of land birds that visit the salt marshes is like
that of the plants, somewhat limited. The marsh hawk, with its long tail and
flashing white rump, frequently sails close to the surface, and rarely the
short-eared owl may be seen there. The kingfisher — almost a water bird — is
often there, and, in the absence of dead trees or of masts of boats, watches
for its prey from the marsh bank. The crow and all the swallow tribe are very
fond of the salt marshes, while the meadowlark, bobolink, red-winged blackbirds
and grackles are as much at home there as in the upland meadows. The kingbird,
robin, and song sparrow, the pipit, horned lark and, rarely, the snow bunting
and Lapland longspur are also to be found there. I have seen yellow warblers
drop down into the black grass from the near-by uplands, and several times in
February I have found little flocks of myrtle warblers flitting from pile to
pile of thatch where it extended above the ice, hunting for dormant spiders and
other insects. Strange surroundings for a member of the delicate tribe of wood
warblers! 1 For a full account of the courtship
action of this bird and of the eider see “A Labrador Spring,” pp. 84-95. |
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