Bird Neighbors
by Neltje Blanchan
Etext prepared by Gerry Rising of Buffalo, NY. Notes [in brackets] are theAmerican Ornithologists Union bird names as of 1998.
BIRD NEIGHBORS. An Introductory Acquaintance With One Hundred and Fifty Birds
Commonly Found in the Gardens, Meadows, and Woods About Our Homes
By NELTJE BLANCHAN
INTRODUCTION BY JOHN BURROUGHS1897, 1904, 1922
PREFACE
I. BIRD FAMILIES: Their Characteristics and the
Representatives of Each Family included in "Bird
Neighbors"
II. HABITATS OF BIRDS
III. SEASONS OF BIRDS
IV. BIRDS GROUPED ACCORDING TO SIZE
V. DESCRIPTIONS OF BIRDS GROUPED ACCORDING TO COLOR
Birds Conspicuously Black
Birds Conspicuously Black and White
Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored Birds
Blue and Bluish Birds
Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy
Birds
Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish O1ive Birds
Birds Conspicuously Yellow and Orange
Birds Conspicuously Red of any Shade
I write these few introductory sentences to this volume only to second soworthy an attempt to quicken and enlarge the general interest in our birds.The book itself is merely an introduction, and is only designed to place a fewclews in the reader's hands which he himself or herself is to follow up. I cansay that it is reliable and is written in a vivacious strain and by a realbird lover, and should prove a help and a stimulus to any one who seeks by theaid of its pages to become better acquainted with our songsters. The variousgrouping of the birds according to color, season, habitat, etc., ought torender the identification of the birds, with no other weapon than an operaglass, an easy matter.
When I began the study of the birds I had access to a copy of Audubon, whichgreatly stimulated my interest in the pursuit, but I did not have the operaglass, and I could not take Audubon with me on my walks, as the reader maythis volume.
But you do not want to make out your bird the first time; the book or yourfriend must not make the problem too easy for you. You must go again andagain, and see and hear your bird under varying conditions and get a good holdof several of its characteristic traits. Things easily learned are apt to beeasily forgotten. Some ladies, beginning the study of birds, once wrote to me,asking if I would not please come and help them, and set them right aboutcertain birds in dispute. I replied that that would be getting their knowledgetoo easily; that what I and any one else told them they would be very apt toforget, but that the things they found out themselves they would alwaysremember. We must in a way earn what we have or keep. Only thus does it becomeours, a real part of us.
Not very long afterward I had the pleasure of walking with one of the ladies,and I found her eye and ear quite as sharp as my own, and that she was in afair way to conquer the bird kingdom without any outside help. She said thatthe groves and fields, through which she used to walk with only a languidinterest, were now completely transformed to her and afforded her the keenestpleasure; a whole new world of interest had been disclosed to her; she felt asif she was constantly on the eve of some new discovery; the next turn in thepath might reveal to her a new w