W.L. Dawson

Ornithologist, Poet.

[wldawson]

A GENTLE MELANCHOLY possesses the soul of all Pewees, and Sayornis sayns is the most desponding of the lot. It is impossible to guess what ancestral hardship could have stamped itself so indelibly upon any creature with wings. Perhaps the bird is haunted by the memory of that northern Eden once obliterated by the ice-sheet. Perhaps alkaline waters are bad for little livers. I do not know. Your guess is as good as mine. Choooory kuteew. This “choory” note, heard on a gray day in December, puts one in the same mental attitude as that induced by the modest mewing of a cat. I want to stop and stroke its head, and say in sympathetic falsetto, “Poor little kittens!”

WL Dawson Birds of California Vol 2, The Say Pheobe

[wldawson]

As a noise-maker T. verticalis has few rivals and no peers. Blatting calves and motherless puppies may be more constant to their woes, but they lack the Kingbird’s variety and expressiveness. They lack, too, his opportunity, for the eye of the Kingbird beholds all things, all comings and goings, all threatenings and alarms, all occasions for comment, be they real or imaginary.

WL Dawson Birds of California Vol 2, Western Kingbird

[wldawson]

The surmise that the Wren-Tit is of remote Asiatic origin is probably a correct one. Somewhere among the Timeliidce, that dump-heap of despairing taxonomists, will be found the nearest of kin to these long absent but most contented waifs. One almost dares to dream of some ancient shipwreck, a tree-top, wrested by flood, blown over from far Formosa, or a Chinese junk stranded at Monterey, but with all hands saved down to the occupants of a gilded bird-cage.

WL Dawson Birds of California Vol 2, Wrentit

[wldawson]

You have won my heart, little piper; and I'll tell the governor that you are not to be shot except by glass-eyed guns. But now, good-bye, little piper. It's a shame to leave you; but you know, really, I can't put you into my pocket

WL Dawson, Birds of California Vol 3, Baird’s Sandpiper

[wldawson]

His aspect is anything but ferocious — benevolent, rather — and he looks for all the world like some patriarchal gnome disturbed at his slumbers, yet not resentful. We vote him handsome at the first breath, and admiration grows as we dwell upon the sleekness, the mellow rotundity, and the exquisite harmony of the figure, and especially of the costume before us.

W.L. Dawson, Birds of California vol 3, Spotted Owl

[wldawson]

The Rock Wren is the presiding genius of the Farallons, fearless,  inquisitive, thrifty, and always happy. Not a secret on the island  which the Rock Wren does not know, for she pokes and pries into every crevice, examines every movable fragment of rock, stick, or bone with a view to appropriation, scrutinizes every form of insect life with a view to assimilation, bugles from every rock crest, greets the descending light-keeper in the cool gray of the morning, chirrups at “Snoozer,” the island mascot, as she passes in her go-cart, titters at the Cassin Auklet brooding in her gloomy cell, mocks at the dignified Sea Parrot, and stirs things up generally.

WL Dawson, Birds of California

[wldawson]

Heard alone, the Auklet chorus reminds one of a frog-pond in full cry. As one gives attention to an individual performer, however, and seeks to locate him in his burrow, the mystery and strangeness of it grows. The vocalist is complaining bitterly of we know not what wrongs. We must be within three feet of the noise as we stoop at the burrow's mouth ; the volume of it is ear- filling; yet its source seems furlongs off. Now it is like the squealing of a pig in a distant slaughter pen. We lift our heads and the stock yards are reeling with the prayers and cries of a thousand victims. And now the complaint falls into a cadence, "Let meee out, let meee out, let me out." A thousand dolorous voices take up the chorus. The uproar gets upon the nerves. Is this a bird lunatic asylum? Have we stumbled upon an avian mad-house here in the lone Pacific? And are these inmates appealing to the moon, their absent mistress?

WL Dawson Birds of California Volume 3

[wldawson]

“Call him a ghoul, rather, for the Western Gull is cruel of beak and bottomless of maw”  #WLDawson #BirdsofCalifornia vol3 https://archive.org/details/birdsofcaliforni03daws

[wldawson]

Black and white are recognized as the colors of gentility, and our Phoebe is punctilious in the matter of clothes.  He always wears his dress suit, whether his task be that of a mason building a mud house, or of a gallant presenting a butterfly bouquet to his lady love

WL Dawson, Birds of California. p869 Black Pheobe

[wldawson]

And that bovine object, the public, when it does condescend to notice anything so tiny as a Wood Warbler, dubs this bird a 'Wild Canary'--and is done. Wild Canary, forsooth! Why, if I had my way, anyone who insulted one of these woodland exquisites by such an epithet should be sentenced to hard labor--reading bird-books for thirty days, or else tethered solitary besides some brook whose mossy banks rang vocal with a hundred strains of woodland music--music such as never came from cage-wired throats. The name as applied to one of our Goldfinches might be barely tolerated, for the Canary (Serinus canarius) is a Finch (Family Fringillidae), but in the case of the Warbler, it is quite inappropriate, since the bird has nothing in common with the canary except littleness and yellowness.

WL Dawson, Yellow “Summer” Warbler, Contributed by Lauren Harter, http://phainopeplafables.com/

[wldawson]

How the waiting countryside thrills with joy when Bluebird brings us the first word of returning spring. Reflecting heaven from his back and the ground from his breast, he floats between sky and earth like the winged voice of hope.

WL Dawson, Birds of Ohio, 1903

[wldawson]

Without question the most deplorable event in the history of American ornithology was the introduction of the English Sparrow.

WL Dawson, The birds of Ohio

[wldawson]

But above all, they are here to add zest to the enjoyment of life itself; to please the eye by a display of graceful form and piquant color; to stir the depths of human emotion with their marvelous gift of song; to tease the imagination by their exhibitions of flight; or to goad aspiration as they seek in their migrations the mysterious, alluring and ever insatiable Beyond.

WL Dawson Birds of Washington, Preface

[wldawson]

A gentle melancholy possesses the Pewee. The memory of that older Eden once blotted by the ruthless ice-sheet, still haunts the chambers of the atavistic soul and she goes mourning all her days. Or she is like a Peri barred from Paradise, and no proffer of mortal joys can make amends for the immortal loss ever before her eyes. Kuteéw, kuteéw

WL Dawson, Birds of Washington, “Say’s Pewee”

[wldawson]

Ornithology is the furthest refined of the systematic sciences. So zealous have been her devotees and so sagacious her high priests, that no shade of difference in size, form or hue of a bird is allowed to pass unnoticed, or its owner unnamed. It is unquestionably annoying to the novice to be confronted with such subtleties, and the recognition of subspecies in the vernacular names of our birds is of doubtful wisdom; but the fashion is set and we will all be foolish together—so that none may laugh

WL Dawson, Birds of Washington, “Grinnell’s Jay”

[wldawson]

Mischief and the “Blue Jay” are synonymous. Alert, restless, saucy, inquisitive, and provoking, yet always interesting, this handsome brigand keeps his human critics in a perpetual see-saw between wrath and admiration. As a sprightly piece of Nature, the Steller Jay is an unqualified success. As the hero-subject of a guessing contest he is without a peer, for one never knows what he is doing until he has done it, and none may predict what he will do next.

WL Dawson, Birds of Washington, “Steller’s Jay”

[wldawson]

It is an age of specialists. The man who could do anything—after a fashion—has given place to the man who can do one thing well. And in this we have but followed Nature’s example. The birds are specialists. The Loon is a diver; the Cormorant a fisher; the Petrel a mariner, and so on until we come to Swallows, who are either masons or mining engineers; and to Catbird and Thrush, who are trained musicians.

WL Dawson, Birds of Oregon, “Bush-tit”