The kingfisher is rather unique. You can hear his shrill cry almost any day as he flies up and down a river or creek. He is a good fisherman and can discover good places after the sportsman has decided that his luck is bad. It builds its nest by tunneling a hole in the bank; then this little tunnel is expanded into a small chamber, and here the young are raised. It will come back to the same hole year after year. One summer I found a nest and was able to trace the bird at this same place for three successive years. It is a little larger than a robin, with a very large head, the feathers standing up straight and maing it look larger than it really is. With its long, straight, very sharp bill, it is able to catch and hold the fish easily.
One of the most abused birds in this state is the Owl. Here you see the Killicott Screech Owl, the common screech owl of Oregon. It is about the size of a half-grown chicken. It is the one we often hear hooting at night, either in the country or about town where there is a big clump of trees. It lives largely upon mice and small rodents, of which it consumes an enormous quantity. Nests are built in hollow trees with no other lining than the soft, decayed wood, and in these they lay their four round whitish eggs. The male usually his in some crevice nearby or sits outside the nest while the mother is incubating the eggs. So great is the appetite of the fledglings that the mother and father have to spend the greater part of the night gathering and storing up enough food to feed the babies the next day. The Screech Owl seldom does any harm, but few of the larger owls are very harmful in their habits, as they never neglect a chicken yard whenever there is any chance for them to pillage.
This picture gives some idea of the thousands and thousands of birds that nest in this part of the country. These are Pelicans. They are large birds, with large bodies and long crooked necks. Their peculiarity is a funny bill with its great punch on the under jaw. These are fish eaters. They next on the ground and when the sound are hatched they wander about back and forth among these nests. The old birds go off every day to fish, and when they return they hunt around until they find their own youngsters. They seem to be able to tell their own as easily as a mother can identify her own child. How they do this, no one seems to know. When they feed the nestlings, they open this great mouth and allow the young bird to thrust his beak down the throat and help himself to whatever he finds. It is a rather curious sight—the young bird’s head and beak is thrust so far down the mother’s throat that it looks as though the mother was trying to swallow the young one.
The killdeer is everywhere too common to need description, and even its name, called to us from roadside puddles, barnyard and meadow in the shrill kill-dee, kill-dee, kill-dee, becomes sometimes almost tiresome. “Vociferous at all times, the plover becomes doubly so when the little downy striped young are trotting about in the short grass. Then the cries and frantic endeavors of the old birds to limping, falling over, fluttering the speed wings and tail, and uttering low notes of pain, would be ludicrous if not done in tragic earnest.” — Vernon Bailey.
The cormorant is abundant along the Pacific coast, breeding in large colonies on rocky islands. The Farralone, a smaller species, breeds abundantly on the Farralone Islands, California; also in the interior, nesting in extensive colonies in trees near some of the large lakes. A colony of this species has been reported at Tule Lake, Oregon. The young are hatched entirely naked, their skin resembling a greasy black kid glove. In this condition, and even after the down is on them, they are an irresistible morsel to the hungry gulls.
The Cross-bill belongs to the Finch family. It lives in the very high mountains. Only occasionally, during the fall and winter migrations, do we see it in the lower parts of the valley. Here in Eugene, which is practically at sea level, it sometimes appears during the early winter about the outskirts of town among the fir trees, or even around the farm buildings. The Cross-bill has many of the characteristics of the Purple Finch. The male is more or less reddish; the female is a greenish gold. Peculiarly characteristic is the fact that the lower and the upper bill do not meet as they do in ordinary birds, but cross each other, much like pruning shears. Its diet consists largely of seeds of pine cones, to the extracting of which this sort of bill is well-adapted. When feeding the bird gives out a sort of intermittent cry, sometimes called a titter; when in flight it emits a short clear whistle. A flock composed entirely of Cross-bills will make considerable noise as they fly by. It has no regular nesting time, but seems to nest whenever the whim takes it — sometimes in January or February, and sometimes as late as July. The communal instinct is very well developed among them. They live in large flocks. Occasionally, however, a few will leave the flock to take care of their nestlings.
This is one of the friendly birds you will meet in your walks out in the country. It lives by the roadside, in the brush, in the leaves, in the thick undergrowth of our hillsides. He likes to come out into a little rosebush thicket where the sun is shining, and into the leaves, and there you will hear him scratching around and making a terrific noise. He scratches with both feet, backwards, and throwing the leaves at a great rate. At the same time he chirps out three little guttural, shrill notes. He can easily be recognized by his black head, chestnut-brown sides, and white breast. He is not quite as large as a robin, but a little larger than a sparrow.