 |
| Florence Merriam - pioneering American ornithologist |
Although now almost unknown outside North America, Florence Merriam (1863-1948) was a pioneer of amateur ornithology in her homeland. Despite suffering poor health, she was an enthusiastic field naturalist who kept notebooks of her encounters with birds - their plumage, their behaviour, their sounds. At college, she persuaded her fellow-students not just to join her on nature walks but also to cease wearing hats adorned with feathers from exotic birds slaughtered in their millions for the taxidermy industry. Unlike her male colleagues, she deplored the use of guns to kill birds prior to the identification of corpses in the hand. Instead, many years before the roll-out of binoculars as we know them today, she was an early advocate of opera-glasses as an aide for watching and identifying birds. Below is the introduction to her book, Birds Through An Opera-Glass, published in 1890 and now acknowledged as one of the first field guides to American birds.
WHEREVER there are people, there are birds.
It makes comparatively little difference where you live if you are in earnest about getting acquainted with your feathered neighbours.
Even in a Chicago backyard, 57 kinds of birds have been seen in a year, and, in a yard in Portland, Connecticut, 91 species have been recorded.
At least 26 kinds are known to nest in the city of Washington, while in the parks and cemeteries of San Francisco in winter, I have found 22 kinds.
Further afield, 76 are recorded for Prospect Park, Brooklyn, and 142 for Central Park, New York.
There are especial advantages in beginning to study birds in the cities, for, by going to the museums, you can compare the bird skins with the birds you have seen in the field.
Moreover, you can get an idea of the grouping of the different families which will help you materially in placing the live bird when you meet him at home.
If you do not live in the city, shrubby village dooryards, the trees of village streets, orchards, roadside fences, overgrown pastures, and the borders of brooks and rivers are among the best places to look for birds.
When going to watch birds, provided with opera-glass and notebook, and dressed in inconspicuous colours, proceed to some good birdy place - the bushy bank of a stream or an old juniper pasture - and sit down in the undergrowth or against a concealing tree-trunk with your back to the sun, to look and listen in silence.
You will be able to trace most songs to their singers by finding which tree the song comes from, and then watching for movement, as birds are rarely motionless long at a time when singing.
It will be a help if, besides writing a careful description of both bird and song, you draw a rough diagram of the bird’s markings, and put down the actual notes of his song as nearly as may be.
If you have time for only a walk through the woods, go as quietly as possible and stop often, listening to catch the notes which your footsteps have drowned.
Timid birds may often be attracted by answering their calls, for it is very reassuring to be addressed in one’s native tongue!
Birds’ habits differ in different localities, and, as this book was written in the East, many birds are spoken of as common which western readers will find rare or wanting, but nearly the same families of birds are found in all parts of the United States, so that, if not able to name your bird exactly, at least you will be able to tell who his relatives are.
Boys who are interested in watching the coming of the birds from the south in spring, and their return from the north in the fall, can get blank migration schedules by applying to the Biological Survey, Department of Agriculture, Washington DC, while teachers and others who want material for bird work can get, free on application, the publications of the Biological Survey which show how the food of birds affects the farm and garden.
Much additional information can be obtained from the secretaries of the State Audubon Societies, and their official organ, Bird-Lore.
Photography is coming to hold an important place in nature work as its notes cannot be questioned, and the student who goes afield armed with opera-glass and camera will not only add more to our knowledge than he who goes armed with a gun but will gain for himself a fund of enthusiasm and a lasting store of pleasant memories.
For more than all the statistics is the sanity and serenity of spirit that comes when we step aside from the turmoil of the world to hold quiet converse with Nature.
We are so in the habit of focusing our spyglasses on our human neighbours that it seems an easy matter to label them and their affairs, but when it comes to birds - alas, not only are there legions of kinds, but, to our bewildered fancy, they look and sing and act exactly alike.
Yet though our task seems hopeless at the outset, before we recognize the conjurer a new world of interest and beauty has opened before us.
The best way is the simplest.
Begin with the commonest birds, and train your ears and eyes by pigeon-holing every bird you see and every song you hear.
Classify, roughly at first, the finer distinctions will easily be made later.
Suppose, for instance, you are in the fields on a spring morning.
Standing still a moment, you hear what sounds like a confusion of songs.
You think you can never tell one from another, but by listening carefully you at once notice a difference.
Some are true songs, with a definite melody - and tune (if one may use that word) - like the song of several of the sparrows, with three high notes and a run down the scale.
Others are only monotonous trills, always the same two notes, varying only in length and intensity, such as that of the chipping bird, who makes one’s ears fairly ache as he sits in the sun and trills to himself like a complacent prima donna.
Then there is always plenty of gossiping going on, chippering and chattering that does not rise to the dignity of song, though it adds to the general jumble of sounds.
Yet this should be ignored and only the loud songs listened for.
When the trill and the elaborate song are once contrasted, other distinctions are easily made.
The ear then catches the quality of songs.
On the right, the plaintive note of the Meadowlark is heard, while out of the grass at the left comes the rollicking song of the Bobolink.
Having begun sorting sounds, you naturally group sights, and so find yourself 'parcelling out' the birds by size and colour.
As the Robin is a well-known bird, he serves as a convenient unit of measure - an ornithological foot.
If you call anything from a Hummingbird to a Robin small, and from a Robin to a crow large, you have a practical division line of use in getting your bearings.
And the moment you give heed to colours, the birds will no longer look alike.
To simplify matters, the Bluebird, the Oriole with his orange and black coat, the Scarlet Tanager with his flaming plumage, and all the other bright birds can be classed together; while the sparrows, flycatchers, thrushes, and vireos may be thought of as the dull birds!
When the crudest part of the work is done, and your eye and ear naturally seize differences of size, colour, and sound, the interesting part begins.
You soon learn to associate the birds with fixed localities, and once knowing their favourite haunts, quickly find other clues to their ways of life.
By going among the birds, watching them closely, comparing them carefully, and writing down, while in the field, all the characteristics of every new bird seen - its locality, size, colour, details of marking, song, food, flight, eggs, nest and habits - you will come easily and naturally to know the birds that are living about you.
The first law of field work is exact observation, but not only are you more likely to observe accurately if what you see is put in black and white, but you will find it much easier to identify the birds from your notes than from memory.
With these hints in mind, go to look for your 'friends'.
Carry a pocket note-book, and above all, take an opera or field glass with you.
Its rapid adjustment may be troublesome at first, but it should be the 'inseparable article' of a careful observer.
If you begin work in spring, do not start out before seven o’clock in the morning, because the 'confusion of the matins' is discouraging - there is too much to see and hear.
But go as soon as possible after breakfast, for the birds grow quiet and fly to the woods for their nooning earlier and earlier as the weather gets warmer.
You will not have to go far to find your first bird.
No comments:
Post a Comment