Jack Miner And The Birds, And Some Things I Know About Nature

credit

JACK MINER HIMSELF Photo by his friend Frank Scott Clark, Detroit...

22 minute read

Read Chapter

Jack Miner and the Birds AND SOME THINGS I KNOW ABOUT NATURE

NOTE—This volume is copyrighted, as noted below. Parties are warned against the unwarranted reproduction of photographs or articles from it. Application for permission for such reproduction should be made to Manly F. Miner, Kingsville, Ontario, Canada....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

PREFACE

Long and intimate acquaintance with the author of this book must be my apology for attempting to write a brief introduction. Meeting Jack Miner for the first time in 1888, I was at once impressed with his striking personality. I found myself instinctively attracted to him, and a cordial friendship sprang up between us, which grew in intimacy as the years passed. Although lacking in academic culture, his manner was decidedly urbane, and it was not long before I discerned beneath his rough exterio

9 minute read

Read Chapter

INTRODUCTION

My reason, dear reader, for writing this book, I will assure you is not to expose my A, B, C education, but simply because my many friends have requested me to put into book form at least a portion of my interesting experiences. For years I have simply ignored such requests; but the more I thought about it, the more seriously it appealed to me. So this morning I loaded up chair, stove, tent, etc., and made my way to the woods, where I am at home, and away from the wires of communication and the

2 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER I. Who is Jack Miner?

Now, as you have this book in your hands and have looked at the name of the writer, and possibly flipped over a few pages, glancing at the interesting illustrations, etc., I imagine I can see you raise your head, as your eyelids come down for an instant. “Who is Jack Miner? Who is Jack Miner?” This thought repeatedly flashes through your mind. Well, let me assure you of this fact, that Jack Miner is not Old Bill Miner, nor Jesse James, and although I have been raised in the woods, that is no evi

3 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER II. My First Pets.

Well, the first pet I can remember having was a young blue jay. I was, of course, very anxious that he should live, so I filled him to the top with fish worms. The next morning the blue was there, but the jay was silent. The next I have any recollection of was when father took our pet ’possum by the handle and wound it around the corner of the old stable, to settle a quarrel which arose between my brother and myself over its ownership. I remember I started one spring with a pair of white rabbits

2 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER III. Market Hunting.

As quail and grouse were so very plentiful and good warm clothes were scarce, the second fall we were here my brother and I started to hunt for the market. This caused us to study the nature of game. I soon found myself practising the call of Bob White. I would call early in the morning, when the country was silent, and listen to the echo come back from the woods, until I could call Bob right up to me from as far as he could hear the faintest sound of my imitative note. Yes, many a time during t

3 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER IV. Our Faithful Dogs.

While I would not advise any person to keep a dog unless he needs one, yet one of the most faithful animal friends man can have is an educated dog. Our two bird-dogs were full brothers, and though my brother and I were always together, yet the dogs knew us apart. If I went to the barn alone, my dog would follow me; yet if we boys walked to the road together, both dogs would follow us and would not come farther unless they were invited. If we threw our coats down, each dog would lie on or near hi

2 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER V. Bob White Quail.

Now as I had grown from boyhood to man and had become the father in a little “home, sweet home,” my responsibilities naturally caused me to take life a little more seriously. But, as a boy loves to go bare-foot and play marbles in the spring of the year, when fall came my whole body and soul seemed to reach out for just one sup of pure, unadulterated nature, and many and many a morning, after I have been over to the factory and built a fire under the boiler, have I taken a stroll by twilight, be

13 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VI. Raising English or Ring-necked Pheasants in Canada.

Having often heard father speak of the English pheasant as a beautiful game bird, and as I was overly anxious to pay Canada back some of the birds I had murdered in my younger days, I decided to try these pheasants. In 1895 I sent to Pleasant Ridge, Ohio, for two or three settings of English pheasants’ eggs. I felt sure this climate would agree with them as they were exactly the same breed as I was, English buck-eyes! However, I was smart enough not to ignore my mother’s kind offer, and I let he

4 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VII. The Natural Enemies of Our Birds.

Now we come to the most serious question that the bird-lovers of America are up against; and until this great question is settled, we shall continue to pull against each other. At a sportsmen’s show in Michigan I once saw one-half dozen mounted hawks in a glass case, and there were thousands of school children looking at them. The label read: “These are all valuable hawks.” Another man will say, “Protect the cat-owl, or great horned owl,” and possibly this same man will advocate the destruction

7 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VIII. Some Things I have Known Cannibal Birds to Do.

Now, dear reader, I am well aware of the fact that my book would be more popular if I left these questions out. I am like yourself, I wish I had nothing to say but good about every bird, for I love to see them. But remember, what I am telling in this book is what I know about nature, so please don’t jump on me with both feet for telling the truth. First of all let me say that the larger the hawk, the more anxious the majority are to shoot him. This is a mistake. It is the medium-sized hawk that

14 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER IX. Weasels, and How to Destroy Them.

Now, as a field-mouse destroyer we have come to the king of them all. I have found as high as twenty-seven adult field mice stored in a weasel’s winter home. Yet of all the four-legged enemies our birds have, I know of none to compare with the weasel. But if I were to ask the experienced hunters of America if they know the weasel all would be disgusted, because the weasel is so common throughout this country. I was once in that class myself; I thought I knew all there was to be known about them.

8 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER X. Robins.

Now I have tested your staying qualities, giving you the worst first, and we have come to the bright side of what the birds have taught me. After all, I have a lot to thank the cannibal birds for, as there are about thirty acres in this piece of second-growth woods where I am now sitting, and during the summer months I take a stroll down here at least once a week. This is the most perfect place for robins to build that one could find in a day’s travel, yet the last four or five years I haven’t s

8 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XI. The Bluebirds.

To the average middle-aged person of America, this bird needs little or no introduction, but to the young people they are now quite rare. In fact I was speaking to a young lady quite recently, and she has camped out every summer for the longer part of her life (but of course, like all other girls at her age, she has just passed sixteen; passed it coming back, of course) and she told me she had never seen a bluebird. They have decreased over ninety-five per cent. the last forty years, but when I

5 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XII. Woodpeckers.

Near where this tent is pitched is a soft maple tree with a decayed limb in its top, and about one-half dozen downy woodpeckers are making their home there. This morning there is about four inches of snow, and the air is still, so that I could hear these little God-given helpers at work. So I took the ax and went and cut some samples to show you just what they are doing, cutting these little trees off three inches above and below the gimlet holes made by the birds; then I split the blocks and ph

3 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XIII The Swallow Family.

This is, to my notion, the most valuable family of birds we have in America, as they live entirely on winged insects. And while I am writing on their value, I want you to keep your eye on their intelligence. Over twenty-five years ago we built an extra large drying shed at our tile factory. It is two hundred feet long, and two stories high; then with the addition of one hundred feet of machine shed, we have over three hundred feet of the very choicest place for the old-fashioned, fork-tailed bar

7 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XIV. Wild Duck Hunting.

The following, I know, will sound strange to most readers. But the fact is, duck hunting is the one sport above all others for me. Yes, it is true I have hunted the swift, ruffed grouse, which is sometimes called partridge, and as this beautiful bird darted through the undergrowth I have downed eleven of them without a miss. In northern Ontario I have time and again got the wind in my face and slipped up and peeped over a hill at a doe and fawn that were quietly feeding there. I have stood with

12 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XV. Knowledge and Ways of the Wild Duck.

In the previous chapter I have just given you a faint taste of some of the enjoyable hunts Providence has permitted me to have. If it were possible I would like to throw in a whiff of the home-grown savory dressing, when mother opened the old-fashioned elevated-oven door. But as I grew older, ducks, like all migratory birds, got scarcer until I seldom ever went to hunt them. Yet I have always liked to see wild ducks, both on the table and in the air. In April, 1902, I secured some wild duck eggs

10 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XVI. Do Birds Return to Their Same Homes?

“Do birds return to their same homes, year after year?” This is a question that has been put to me more than any one along the bird line, and it is usually followed by: “How do you know?” Then I have had to take father’s advice, “drop it,” and talk about the weather or some other side line. For while I was sure of this in my own mind, yet I had no proof. On August 5th, 1909, a wild black duck lit with my ducks in the north pond. I started cozening around her, not by me going closer to her, but b

8 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XVII. Birds as Missionary Messengers.

Since 1915 I have more than doubled the interest of my bird-tracing system by stamping a selected verse of Scripture on what previously was the blank side of the tag. Now whoever is lucky enough to get a bird with my tag on it also gets a personal verse of Scripture, whether he needs it or not. Safety first! No harm done. I said “personal,” but of course there are exceptions. In case you are bald-headed and when out shooting you bring down a good fat goose wearing a tag, and on investigation you

6 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XVIII. How Wild Ducks Conceal Their Nests.

Possibly there is none of our birds that can conceal its nest better than the wild duck. This may be due to the fact that she has to be father and mother both. In the first place she selects a spot where the foliage, dry sticks or weeds, are exactly the same color as herself. I once found a black duck’s nest right beside an oak stump that was charred black by being partly burned away, and really if you weren’t careful you might look at her all day and not see her, as she was exactly the same col

3 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XIX. My Last Distinguished Family of Pet Ducks.

At the present time I have only one grey duck of my own. She is pinioned and lives in the park. In the spring of 1919 she paired off with one of the wild drakes that came here, built a nest and laid eleven eggs. I have a pair of Egyptian geese in the park, and of all the web-footed devils I know of on earth, these Egyptian geese are the worst. I knew full well I must not let this duck hatch her young there, so a few days previous to their hatching I stole the eggs and put them under a domestic f

6 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XX. Ducks’ Love Soon Ceases.

During the last few years I have received letters from different men in America questioning about wild ducks’ ways, and I have promised to answer in this book. Yes, wild ducks, as well as geese, all go through an annual moult, their wing feathers all dropping out within a few days, leaving them unable to fly for from four to six weeks, according to the healthy condition they are in to produce new wing feathers. The drakes have nothing else to do for the summer months, and they moult the latter p

2 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXI. The Migration of Ducks.

Ever since I started tagging birds, my desire for this never-tiring sport has been constantly increasing, and to-day I have carloads of unsatisfied ambition flying all over America just because I cannot get my tag on them all. Altogether, I have tagged four hundred and forty ducks since starting, and I am well pleased with the amount of interest the sportsmen have displayed in writing me from different shooting grounds of America where these tagged birds have fallen. It is remarkable how these l

7 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXII. Can Birds Smell?

This is a thought that all bird lovers will come face to face with, sooner or later, and though we may not be able to steal bases like Ty Cobb, yet if we study the game and watch the fowls , balls of interest are sure to fly our way. There are very few people living in the country that haven’t seen crows make some queer manœuvres when they are hunting food. One hot July day, many years ago, as brother and I were nearing the house for dinner, one of these old black murderers went quietly flying a

7 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXIII. The Canada Goose.

Now I have told you that by protecting the one swallow’s nest at our tile shed there were twenty-five nests the fifth year: and how the sweet bluebird became so well acquainted with the members of our family as to permit us to remove the roof of her house while she would sit there within eight inches of our eyebrows, with her beautiful head turned sidewise looking us square in the eyes, and then permit us to put the cover back on, and she would not fly out. I have explained how the robins fairly

25 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXIV. Nesting Canada Geese.

In 1907, the third year I had my clipped Canadas, one pair nested, and every season since I have had one to three pairs raise young. This is the very time these old ganders especially expose their incomparable, clean, noble ways which even we human beings might well envy them. One spring I had a painter from town out here brightening things up a little, so one day I told him to paint the cornice of the bird house, which is about seven feet high. I paid no more attention to him, but went on with

4 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXV. Our Model Canada Goose.

While I am writing as plainly as I dare, yet I want you to keep an eye between the lines. For two springs in succession, two pairs of my geese nested on the bank of the north pond, just one hundred and twenty feet apart, each gander always guarding and never going thirty feet away. An old goose I had in my flock apparently couldn’t control nature and she went and built a nest on the bank right between these two pairs of geese, or about sixty feet from each nest. These ganders did not interfere w

9 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXVI. Do Birds Have a Language?

This is a question I have to answer, and I am fully prepared to say “Yes; yes, I know they do.” As proof of this statement, one could shut me in and blindfold me, and if I can hear the wild geese I will tell you a certain portion of their actions, while if I were to hear a Chinaman talking I wouldn’t know whether it was cleaned windows, dirty laundry, or ham and eggs he wanted me to have. One evening last spring, after the wild geese had gone to the lake, I strolled back to the north pond to vis

10 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXVII. The Career of Jack Johnson.

In the spring of 1907, after I had had these seven wing-tipped geese three years, this old gander and his sweetheart started housekeeping near the west bank of the north pond, about two hundred feet north of the north door in our factory. The nest was built on the bare ground near the remnant of an old rail fence, giving me a good, clear view of it from the door of the factory at an elevation of about seven feet. It was evident she was an old goose, for she laid six eggs. And many an interesting

13 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXVIII. The Migration of Our Canada Geese.

As to the regularity of the migration of our Canada goose which is pointed out on this map, I must say I am greatly indebted to the kind assistance of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s agents and those of the Revillon Fur Company, and I have a great ambition to lay aside all home cares and enjoyments and in the near future treat myself to a three months’ trip to the nesting grounds of our Canada geese, where I will have the great pleasure of grasping the hands of all classes of these men whom the geese

15 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXIX. Catching and Tagging the Wild Goose.

This was a proposition that tested my staying qualities to a standstill, although it is true I had tagged lots of smaller birds, including the wild ducks; but that was like coaxing candy from a baby, too easy to be interesting. Yes, some one has said, “the silly old goose!” But bear in mind that it is through this silly old goose’s ability to outwit the human race that there is one living; we would have killed and eaten them all, long ago, but they outwitted us and went over the top. So if they

6 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXX. Game Protection.

This, a sportsmen’s problem, may appear to you as being entirely out of place in a book like this; yet I want you to read, for I feel fully qualified to discuss this matter in a conscientious, fair and square, look-you-in-the-face manner, as I have the itching of my own trigger-finger fairly well harnessed, and have no desire to shoot any bird other than the cannibals; but on the other hand my boy, Ted, who is twenty-three years of age, and for whom I would willingly lie down and give up the gho

6 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXI. Creating a Bird Sanctuary.

A bird sanctuary is a suitable area of ground set aside for the birds to congregate in for shelter, food and protection, where their natural enemies are destroyed, and where neither rich nor poor dare molest them, “nor thieves break through and steal.” Here the birds will congregate in countless numbers, especially during their migration, and hold their great annual picnic and vocal contest, which enables each to select the best sweetheart. As soon as she consents to fly in a double harness with

7 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXII. Our Native Swans.

The swans we usually see in our parks throughout America are not natives of this country, and a great many people are not acquainted with the fact that we still have hundreds of real, beautiful, wild swans at large in this country. Now in North America there are only two varieties of native swans, the trumpeter and the whistling swans. They are both pure white. Often we hear of a flock of swans being seen with some dark ones among them; these are young birds; swans do not get pure white the firs

3 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXIII. The Line of Migration.

A great many writers that come here report this place as being on the line of bird migration. That is a mistake, for this is no more the migrating line for the birds than Chicago, Detroit or Toronto. Very true, I am only fifteen miles west of Point Pelee, the most extreme southern part of mainland in Canada, and where thousands of small birds come to cross Lake Erie. But what does a duck or a goose care about hunting a short water flight across Lake Erie, when the latter can rise up and go one t

1 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXIV. Inquiries and Answers.

As I am a very poor writer and cannot afford a stenographer I am answering, right now, a storm of questions so that I trust I will prevent our female mail-sorters from overloading my mail box. 1. How can I get the wild geese to come to my pond? If you can get them to alight within a mile, or any reasonable distance away, feed them there, scattering the food while they are absent. After they have been coming regularly for a week or so, go sidling near them with a team of horses as if you were wor

18 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXV. Sportsmanship.

My book would not be complete without giving you a handful of the material that built the foundation for my enjoyable life. Now, as I see it, there is a great difference between a sport and a sportsman. As to the sport, I think the less said the better. But the word Sportsman spells a great many great words; first of all it spells others and self-sacrifice , for to be a real sportsman one cannot stand alone. When I was a lad eight years of age and slept with my two brothers, I was awakened one m

6 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXVI. Conclusion.

In closing, I wish to say to my many friends that I have done as you requested: I have written the book. And have made many mistakes, often repeating myself when I had volumes of untouched material; yet I have done the best I could. And to the purchaser, don’t think your money is thrown away; for if I get a profit it will surely go towards helping our migratory birds over the top. On going to the publisher I expect to order a few thousand copies. If I see that these are appreciated by the public

1 minute read

Read Chapter