lose my morning entertainment, for all these things took place between
four and six A. M.--so I made a trip to the village, and bought
a bag of the much desired dainty, some handfuls of which I scattered
every night after birds were abed, ready for the sunrise show.
Blackbirds were not the only guests at the feast; there were the
doves,--mourning, or wood-doves,--who dropped to the grass, serene as a
summer morning, walking around in their small red boots, with mincing
steps and fussy little bows. Blue jays, too, came in plenty, selected
each his grain and flew away with it. Robins, seeing all the excitement,
came over from their regular hunting-ground, but never finding anything
so attractive as worms, they soon left.
The corn feast wound up with a droll excitement. One day a child from
the house took her doll out in the grass to play, set it up against a
tree trunk, and left it there. It had long light hair which stood out
around the head, and it did look rather uncanny, but it was amusing to
see the consternation it caused. Blue jays came to trees near by, and
talked in low tones to each other; then one after another swooped down
toward it; then they all squawked at it, and finding this of no avail,
they left in a body.
The robins approached cautiously, two of them, calling constantly, "he!
he! he!" One was determined not to be afraid, and came nearer and
nearer, till within about a foot of the strange object and behind it,
when suddenly he started as though shot, jumped back, and both flew in a
panic.
Soon after this a red-headed woodpecker alighted on the trunk of the
elm, preparatory to helping himself to a grain of corn. The moment his
eyes fell upon madam of the fluffy hair, he burst out with a loud, rapid
woodpecker "chitter," gradually growing higher in key and louder in
tone. The blue jay flew down from the nest across the yard, and another
came from behind the house; both perched near and stared at him, and
then began to talk in low tones. A robin came hastily over and gazed at
the usually silent red-head, and apparently it was to all as strange a
performance as it was to me, or possibly they recognized that it was a
cry of warning against danger.
After he had us all aroused, the bird suddenly fell to silence, and
resumed his ordinary manner, but he did not go after corn. I suppose the
harangue was addressed to the doll.
That was the last scene in the first act of the corn feast, for the
blackbirds had become so numerous and so noisy that they made morning
hideous to the whole household, and I stopped the supplies for several
days, till these birds ceased to expect anything, and so came no more,
and then I spread a fresh breakfast-table for more interesting guests,
whose manners and customs I studied for weeks.
I was invariably startled wide awake on these mornings by a bird note,
and sprang up, to see at one glance that
"Day had awakened all things that be,
The lark and the thrush, and the swallow free,"
and that my party was already assembled; one or two cardinals--or
redbirds, as they are often called--on the grass, with the usual
attendance of English sparrows, and the red-headed woodpecker in the
elm, surveying the lawn, and considering which of the trespassers he
should fall upon. It was the work of one minute to get into my wraps and
seat myself, with opera glass, at the wide-open window.
My first discovery made, however, during the blackbird reign, was that
four o'clock is the most lovely part of the day. All the dust of human
affairs having settled during the hours of sleep, the air is fresh and
sweet, as if just made; and generally, just before sunrise, the foliage
is at perfect rest,--the repose of night still lingering, the world of
nature as well as of men still sleeping.
The first thing one naturally looks for, as birds begin to waken, is a
morning chorus of song. True bird-lovers, indeed, long for it with a
longing that cannot be told. But alas, every year the chorus is
withdrawing more and more to the woods, every year it is harder to find
a place where English sparrows are not in possession; and it is one of
the most grievous sins of that bird that he spoils the song, even when
he does not succeed in driving out the singer. A running accompaniment
of harsh and interminable squawks overpowers the music of meadow-lark
and robin, and the glorious song of the thrush is fairly murdered by it.
One could almost forgive the sparrow his other crimes, if he would only
lie abed in the morning; if he would occasionally listen, and not
forever break the peace of the opening day with his vulgar brawling. But
the subject of English sparrows is maddening to a lover of native birds;
let us not defile the magic hour by considering it.
The most obvious resident of the neighborhood, at four o'clock in the
morning, was always the golden-winged woodpecker, or flicker. Though he
scorned the breakfast I offered, having no vegetarian proclivities, he
did not refuse me his presence. I found him a character, and an amusing
study, and I never saw his tribe so numerous and so much at home.
Though largest in size of my four o'clock birds, and most fully
represented (always excepting the English sparrows), the golden-wing was
not in command. The autocrat of the hour, the reigning power, was quite
a different personage, although belonging to the woodpecker family. It
was a red-headed woodpecker who assumed to own the lawn and be master of
the feast. This individual was marked by a defect in plumage, and had
been a regular caller since the morning of my arrival. During the
blackbird supremacy over the corn supply he had been hardly more than a
spectator, coming to the trunk of the elm and surveying the assembly of
blue jays, doves, blackbirds, and sparrows with interest, as one looks
down upon a herd with whom he has nothing in common. But when those
birds departed, and the visitors were of a different character, mostly
cardinals, with an occasional blue jay, he at once took the place he
felt belonged to him--that of dictator.
The Virginia cardinal, a genuine F. F. V., and a regular attendant at my
corn breakfast, was a subject of special study with me; indeed, it was
largely on his account that I had set up my tent in that part of the
world. I had all my life known him as a tenant of cages, and it struck
me at first as very odd to see him flying about freely, like other wild
birds. No one, it seemed to me, ever looked so out of place as this
fellow of elegant manners, aristocratic crest, and brilliant dress,
hopping about on the ground with his exaggerated little hops, tail held
stiffly up out of harm's way, and uttering sharp "tsips." One could not
help the feeling that he was altogether too fine for this common
work-a-day existence; that he was intended for show; and that a gilded
cage was his proper abiding-place, with a retinue of human servants to
minister to his comfort. Yet he was modest and unassuming, and appeared
really to enjoy his life of hard work; varying his struggles with a
kernel of hard corn on the ground, where his color shone out like a
flower against the green, with a rest on a spruce-tree, where
"Like a living jewel he sits and sings;"
and when he had finished his frugal meal, departing, if nothing hurried
him, with a graceful, loitering flight, in which each wing-beat seemed
to carry him but a few inches forward, and leave his body poised, an
infinitesimal second for another beat. With much noise of fluttering
wings he would start for some point, but appear not to care much whether
he got there. He was never in haste unless there was something to hurry
him, in which he differed greatly from some of the fidgety, restless
personages I have known among the feathered folk.
The woodpecker's way of making himself disagreeable to this
distinguished guest, was to keep watch from his tree (an elm overlooking
the supply of corn) till he came to eat, and then fly down, aiming for
exactly the spot occupied by the bird on the ground. No one, however
brave, could help "getting out from under," when he saw this tricolored
whirlwind descending upon him. The cardinal always jumped aside, then
drew himself up, crest erect, tail held at an angle of forty-five
degrees, and faced the woodpecker, calm, but prepared to stand up for
his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of his breakfast. Sometimes
they had a little set-to, with beaks not more than three inches apart,
the woodpecker making feints of rushing upon his _vis-a-vis_, and the
cardinal jumping up ready to clinch, if a fight became necessary. It
never went quite so far as that, though they glared at each other, and
the cardinal uttered a little whispered "ha!" every time he sprang up.
The Virginian's deliberate manner of eating made peace important to him.
He took a grain of hard corn in his mouth, lengthwise; then working his
sharp-edged beak, he soon succeeded in cutting the shell of the kernel
through its whole length. From this he went on turning it with his
tongue, and still cutting with his beak, till the whole shell rolled out
of the side of his mouth in one long piece, completely cleared from its
savory contents.
The red-head, on the contrary, took his grain of corn to a branch, or
sometimes to the trunk of a tree, where he sought a suitable crevice in
the bark or in a crotch, placed his kernel, hammered it well in till
firm and safe, and then proceeded to pick off pieces and eat them
daintily, one by one. Sometimes he left a kernel there, and I saw how
firmly it was wedged in, when the English sparrow discovered his store,
fell upon it, and dug it out. It was a good deal of work for a
strong-billed, persistent sparrow to dislodge a grain thus placed. But
of course he never gave up till he could carry it off, probably because
he saw that some one valued it; for since he was unable to crack a grain
that was whole, it must have been useless to him. Sometimes the
woodpecker wedged the kernel into a crevice in the bark of the trunk,
then broke it up, and packed the pieces away in other niches; and I have
seen an English sparrow go carefully over the trunk, picking out and
eating these tidbits. That, or something else, has taught sparrows to
climb tree trunks, which they do, in the neighborhood I speak of, with
as much ease as a woodpecker. I have repeatedly seen them go the whole
length of a tall elm trunk; proceeding by little hops, aided by the
wings, and using the tail for support almost as handily as a woodpecker
himself.
The red-head's assumption of being monarch of all he surveyed did not
end with the breakfast-table; he seemed to consider himself guardian and
protector of the whole place. One evening I was drawn far down on the
lawn by a peculiar cry of his. It began with a singular performance
which I have already described, a loud, rapid "chit-it-it-it-it,"
increasing in volume and rising in pitch, as though he were working
himself up to some deed of desperation. In a few minutes, however, he
appeared to get his feelings under control, and dropped to a single-note
cry, often repeated. It differed widely from his loud call, "wok! wok!
wok!" still more from the husky tones of his conversation with others of
his kind; neither was it like the war-cries with which he intimated to
another bird that he was not invited to breakfast. I thought there must
be trouble brewing, especially as mingled with it was an occasional
excited "pe-auk!" of a flicker. When I reached the spot, I found a
curious party, consisting of two doves and three flickers, assembled on
one small tree, with the woodpecker on an upper branch, as though
addressing his remarks to them.
As I drew near the scene of the excitement, the doves flew, and then the
golden-wings; but the red-head held his ground, though he stopped his
cries when he saw help coming. In vain I looked about for the cause of
the row; everything was serene. It was a beautiful quiet evening, and
not a child, nor a dog, nor anything in sight to make trouble. The tree
stood quite by itself, in the midst of grass that knew not the clatter
of the lawn-mower.
I stood still and waited; and I had my reward, for after a few minutes'
silence I saw a pair of ears, and then a head, cautiously lifted above
the grass, about fifteen feet from the tree. The mystery was solved; it
was a cat, whom all birds know as a creature who will bear watching when
prowling around the haunts of bird families. I am fond of pussy, but I
deprecate her taste for game, as I do that of some other hunters, wiser
if not better than she. I invited her to leave this place, where she
plainly was unwelcome, by an emphatic "scat!" and a stick tossed her
way. She instantly dropped into the grass and was lost to view; and as
the woodpecker, whose eyes were sharper and his position better than
mine, said no more, I concluded she had taken the hint and departed.
IX.
THE LITTLE REDBIRDS.
When the little redbirds began to visit the lawn there were exciting
times. At first they ventured only to the trees overlooking it; and the
gayly dressed father who had them in charge reminded me of nothing so
much as a fussy young mother. He was alert to the tips of his toes, and
excited, as if the whole world was thirsting for the life of those
frowzy-headed youngsters in the maple. His manner intimated that nobody
ever had birdlings before; indeed, that there never had been, or could
be, just such a production as that young family behind the leaves. While
they were there, he flirted his tail, jerked himself around, crest
standing sharply up, and in every way showed his sense of importance and
responsibility.
As for the young ones, after they had been hopping about the branches a
week or so, and papa had grown less madly anxious if one looked at them,
they appeared bright and spirited, dressed in the subdued and tasteful
hues of their mother, with pert little crests and dark beaks. They were
not allowed on the grass, and they waited patiently on the tree while
their provider shelled a kernel and took it up to them. The cardinal
baby I found to be a self-respecting individual, who generally waits in
patience his parents' pleasure, though he is not too often fed. He is
not bumptious nor self-assertive, like many others; he rarely teases,
and is altogether a well-mannered and proper young person. After a
while, as the youngsters learned strength and speed on the wing, they
came to the table with the grown-ups, and then I saw there were three
spruce young redbirds, all under the care of their gorgeous papa.
No sooner did they appear on the ground than trouble began with the
English-sparrow tribe. The grievance of these birds was that they could
not manage the tough kernels. They were just as hungry as anybody, and
just as well-disposed toward corn, but they had not sufficient strength
of beak to break it. They did not, however, go without corn, for all
that. Their game was the not uncommon one of availing themselves of the
labor of others; they invited themselves to everybody's breakfast-table,
though, to be sure, they had to watch their chances in order to secure a
morsel, and escape the wrath of the owner thereof.
The cardinal was at first a specially easy victim to this plot. He took
the whole matter most solemnly, and was so absorbed in the work, that if
a bit dropped, in the process of separating it from the shell, as often
happened, he did not concern himself about it till he had finished what
he had in his mouth, and then he turned one great eye on the ground, for
the fragments which had long before been snatched by sparrows and gone
down sparrow throats. The surprise and the solemn stare with which he
"could hardly believe his eyes" were exceedingly droll. After a while he
saw through their little game, and took to watching, and when a sparrow
appeared too much interested in his operations, he made a feint of going
for him, which warned the gamin that he would better look out for
himself.
It did not take these sharp fellows long to discover that the young
redbird was the easier prey, and soon every youngster on the ground was
attended by a sparrow or two, ready to seize upon any fragment that
fell. The parent's way of feeding was to shell a kernel and then give it
to one of the little ones, who broke it up and ate it. From waiting for
fallen bits, the sparrows, never being repulsed, grew bolder, and
finally went so far as actually to snatch the corn out of the young
cardinals' beaks. Again and again did I see this performance: a sparrow
grab and run (or fly), leaving the baby astonished and dazed, looking
as if he did not know exactly what had happened, but sure he was in some
way bereaved.
One day, while the cardinal family were eating on the grass, the mother
of the brood came to a tree near by. At once her gallant spouse flew up
there and offered her the mouthful he had just prepared, then returned
to his duties. She was rarely seen on the lawn, and I judged that she
was sitting again.
Sometimes, when the youngsters were alone on the ground, I heard a
little snatch of song, two or three notes, a musical word or two of very
sweet quality. The woodpecker, autocrat though he assumed to be, did not
at first interfere with the young birds; but as they became more and
more independent and grown up, he began to consider them fair game, and
to come down on them with a rush that scattered them; not far, however;
they were brave little fellows.
At last, after four weeks of close attention, the cardinal made up his
mind that his young folk were babies no longer, and that they were able
to feed themselves. I was interested to see his manner of intimating to
his young hopefuls that they had reached their majority. When one begged
of him, in his gentle way, the parent turned suddenly and gave him a
slight push. The urchin understood, and moved a little farther off; but
perhaps the next time he asked he would be fed. They learned the lesson,
however, and in less than two days from the first hint they became
almost entirely independent.
One morning the whole family happened to meet at table. The mother came
first, and then the three young ones, all of whom were trying their best
to feed themselves. At last came their "natural provider;" and one of
the juveniles, who found the grains almost unmanageable, could not help
begging of him. He gently but firmly drove the pleader away, as if he
said, "My son, you are big enough to feed yourself." The little one
turned, but did not go; he stood with his back toward his parent, and
wings still fluttering. Then papa flew to a low branch of the
spruce-tree, and instantly the infant followed him, still begging with
quivering wings. Suddenly the elder turned, and I expected to see him
annihilate that beggar, but, to my surprise, he fed him! He could not
hold out against him! He had been playing the stern parent, but could
not keep it up. It was a very pretty and very human-looking performance.
A day or two after the family had learned to take care of themselves,
the original pair, the parents of the pretty brood, came and went
together to the field, while the younglings appeared sometimes in a
little flock, and sometimes one alone; and from that time they were to
be rated as grown-up and educated cardinals. A brighter or prettier trio
I have not seen. I am almost positive there was but one family of
cardinals on the place; and if I am right, those youngsters had been
four weeks out of the nest before they took charge of their own food
supply. From what I have seen in the case of other young birds, I have
no doubt that is the fact.
X.
THE CARDINAL'S NEST.
While I had been studying four o'clock manners, grave and gay, other
things had happened. Most delightful, perhaps, was my acquaintance with
a cardinal family at home. From the first I had looked for a nest, and
had suffered two or three disappointments. One pair flaunted their
intentions by appearing on a tree before my window, "tsipping" with all
their might; she with her beak full of hay from the lawn below; he,
eager and devoted, assisting by his presence. The important and
consequential manner of a bird with building material in mouth is
amusing. She has no doubt that what she is about to do is the very most
momentous fact in the "Sublime Now" (as some college youth has it). Of
course I dropped everything and tried to follow the pair, at a distance
great enough not to disturb them, yet to keep in sight at least the
direction they took, for they are shy birds, and do not like to be spied
upon. But I could not have gauged my distance properly; for, though I
thought I knew the exact cedar-tree she had chosen, I found, to my
dismay and regret afterward, that no sign of a nest was there, or
thereabout.
Another pair went farther, and held out even more delusive hopes; they
actually built a nest in a neighbor's yard, the family in the house
maintaining an appearance of the utmost indifference, so as not to alarm
the birds till they were committed to that nest. For so little does
madam regard the labor of building, and so fickle is she in her fancies,
that she thinks nothing of preparing at least two nests before she
settles on one. The nest was made on a big branch of cedar, perhaps
seven feet from the ground,--a rough affair, as this bird always makes.
In it she even placed an egg, and then, for some undiscovered reason, it
was abandoned, and they took their domestic joys and sorrows elsewhere.
But now, at last, word came to me of an occupied nest to be seen at a
certain house, and I started at once for it. It was up a shady country
lane, with a meadow-lark field on one side, and a bobolink meadow on the
other. The lark mounted the fence, and delivered his strange sputtering
cry,--the first I had ever heard from him (or her, for I believe this is
the female's utterance). But the dear little bobolink soared around my
head, and let fall his happy trills; then suddenly, as Lowell
delightfully pictures him,--
"Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops,
Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink,
And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops,
A decorous bird of business, who provides
For his brown mate and fledglings six besides,
And looks from right to left, a farmer mid his crops."
Nothing less attractive than a cardinal family could draw me away from
these rival allurements, but I went on.
The cardinal's bower was the prettiest of the summer, built in a
climbing rose which ran riot over a trellis beside a kitchen door. The
vine was loaded with buds just beginning to unfold their green wraps to
flood the place with beauty and fragrance, and the nest was so carefully
tucked away behind the leaves that it could not be seen from the front.
Whether from confidence in the two or three residents of the cottage, or
because the house was alone so many hours of the day,--the occupants
being students, and absent most of the time,--the birds had taken no
account of a window which opened almost behind them. From that window
one could look into, and touch, if he desired, the little family. But no
one who lived there did desire (though I wish to record that one was a
boy of twelve or fourteen, who had been taught respect for the lives
even of birds), and these birds became so accustomed to their human
observers that they paid no attention to them.
The female cardinal is so dainty in looks and manner, so delicate in all
her ways, that one naturally expects her to build at least a neat and
comely nest, and I was surprised to see a rough-looking affair, similar
to the one already mentioned. This might be, in her case, because it was
the third nest she had built that summer. One had been used for the
first brood. The second had been seized and appropriated to their own
use by another pair of birds. (As this was told me, and I cannot vouch
for it, I shall not name the alleged thief.) This, the third, was made
of twigs and fibres of bark,--or what looked like that,--and was
strongly stayed to the rose stems, the largest of which was not bigger
than my little finger, and most of them much smaller.
On my second visit I was invited into the kitchen to see the family in
the rosebush. It appeared that this was "coming-off" day, and one little
cardinal had already taken his fate in his hands when I arrived, soon
after breakfast. He had progressed on the journey of life about one
foot; and a mere dot of a fellow he looked beside his parents, with a
downy fuzz on his head, which surrounded it like a halo, and no sign of
a crest. The three nestlings still at home were very restless,
crowding, and almost pushing each other out. They could well spare their
elder brother, for before he left he had walked all over them at his
pleasure; and how he could help it in those close quarters I do not see.