. The birds of California : a complete, scientific and popular account of the 580 species and subspecies of birds found in the state. Birds; Birds. The Rock Wren. admirable sounding-board, and the bird stops midway of whatever task to sing a hymn of wildest exultation. Whit'tier, whit'tier, whit'tier, is one of his finest strains; while ka-whee, ka-whee, ka-whee, is a sort of challenge which the bird renders in various tempo, and punctuates with nervous bobs to enforce attention. For the rest his notes are so varied, spontaneous, and un- trammeled as hardly to admit of precise description. Onc
. The birds of California : a complete, scientific and popular account of the 580 species and subspecies of birds found in the state. Birds; Birds. The Rock Wren. admirable sounding-board, and the bird stops midway of whatever task to sing a hymn of wildest exultation. Whit'tier, whit'tier, whit'tier, is one of his finest strains; while ka-whee, ka-whee, ka-whee, is a sort of challenge which the bird renders in various tempo, and punctuates with nervous bobs to enforce attention. For the rest his notes are so varied, spontaneous, and un- trammeled as hardly to admit of precise description. Once, in February, I caught a Rock Wren near San Diego, rehearsing in an undertone for the coming concert season. The bird was only twenty feet away from me (and I had eight-power glasses), but by no visible indication could one guess the source of the music, save as the score now and then led up to the whittier note, which obliged the bird to part the mandibles slightly. The Wren was really singing through his nose, a ventriloquist, as well as a vocalist of no mean order. Another Rock Wren, held under full survey on Santa Cruz Island, was producing an extraordinary series of squeaking and rubbing notes, which I should have attributed to the Anna Hummer. In fact, a moment later an indubitable Anna did tune up in practically the same fashion, only a good deal better, and I could see that the Wren had been taking a lesson in this music of the fairies. Save in the vicinity of his nest, the Rock Wren is rather an elusive sprite. If you clamber to his haunts, he will remove, as a matter of course, a hundred yards along the cliff; or he will flit across the mesa with a nonchalance which discourages further effort. Left to himself, how- ever, he may whimsically return—near enough perhaps for you to catch the click, click of his tiny claws as he goes over the lava blocks, poking into crevices after spiders here, nibbling larvae in vapor holes there, or scaling sheer heights yonder witho
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1923
