Page:The Overland Monthly, Jan-June 1894.djvu/268



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A Forest Songster of Western Washington.

[Feb.

A FOREST SONGSTER OF WESTERN WASHINGTON.

AMONG the birds that inhabit the dense forests of western Washington in the summer season, none is probably so abundant as the russet-backed thrush ( Turdiis nstulatus) ; and certainly none? save the rusty song sparrow, and possi- bly the dwarf hermit thrush, is so fine a songster. Though the artful music of the varied thrush, the tinkling falsetto of the tiny winter wren, the briefer, quaint notes of warblers, or the fresh, accentuated songs of vireos, may often, too, be heard by the listener, the song of the russet-backed thrush stands out distinct from all these.

Possibly a few stragglers of this species remain, here or there, through- out the winter in protected places along the coast, but few individuals are seen till May is well advanced. At Gray's Harbor by the first of May a few have arrived, and by the twentieth of the month the species is common. Soon its song and notes become the charac- teristic music of the woods.

The favorite haunts are along the courses of the streams, in the thick un- dergrowths that mantle their banks: here under the moss-draped boughs of the ponderous spruces and firs, and the tapering hemlocks, is the twilight and cover it so much loves.

On the lower course of the Humptu- lips River, a clear, swift, mountain stream, which rises in the Olympic Mountains and flows into the harbor from the north, this thrush is found in abundance ; but nowhere in all my tramps in the forests of Puget Sound and the coast was it seen in such num- bers as on the banks of the Upper Quin- iault River. On the thirteenth of June, 1891, returning in the late afternoon from a point four or five miles up the river, to our bivouac in a diminutive

clearing by the river-bank, it seemed as if at every turn of the tortuous foot-trail one or more of these thrushes flitted into the thick salmon-berry bushes at either hand, and from every direction came the familiar notes and song.

Often this timid bird ventures far out into the tall, rank fern which covers the occasional small prairies of that region.

The song of this enchanting songster forms, with its notes, a kind of back- ground to all the bird-music of the woods. Well through the summer its rippling, joyous, at times almost rollick- some, song is heard at every hand, morning and evening, and at intervals throughout damp or cloudy days. Nut- tall most aptly describes the caroling of this thrush as like the words, " wit, wit, fvillia, fvillia" Sometimes more than two fvillias go at one outburst. Each following fvillia chases, and seems to partly overtake, the one ahead ; and the notes are so rich and liquid, and the spirit of the song is so impetuous, that the listener's veins fairly tingle :

" Thro' my very heart it thnlleth When Silver-treble laughter trilleth."

This love-song is poured out from a rather low perch, and so great is its volume that the bird's little frame seems too frail and delicate for such effort.

The low, clear whistle, variously, "quoit" "tivoit," or "quit" is to the woodsman a most familiar sound, and in the deep forest shades is really sad and plaintive. The note is slightly held. By carefully imitating it I have brought the male bird to a perch near at hand, when all attempts to stalk one in the dense, noisy underwood and forest "trash " had failed, for the bird is gen- erally timid and seclusive, for all its loud singing.