I have heard crying in the nursery; it is the most babyish and
plaintive repetition of the old birds’ note, but it grows daily
stronger, more importunate. The parent birds utter six notes, dwelling
on the fourth in long musical appeal, the babies have learned only
the fourth, the one that really tells when you are hungry; it is a
little pipe, ridiculous to tears. The pretty little warbler pursues his
gambols more energetically than ever before the door of our Eastern
bungalow now, his wife comes with him and they are more punctual than
we are at meals, always in the verandah, on the impatient hop, for
breakfast and lunch and tea, though dinner-time finds them reluctantly
in bed. I will go so far as to say that if I am late in the morning the
father bird comes to my window and asks whether I am aware that I am
keeping two families waiting--if that is not his idea why does he so
markedly whistle there? Further I expect to be believed when I say that
I whistle him my apologies and he replies, and we frequently have quite
long conversations through the window before I actually appear. They
are such a young couple and so absorbed in their domestic affairs that
we take a great interest in them. It is a delight to find out a bird’s
doings and plans, and his nest is the only clue. At other times how
private they are, the birds! We know that they are about, and that is
all.
One real service I have been able to render the robins--in throwing
stones at the crows. The crow has a sleek and clerical exterior, but
inside he is as black-hearted a villain as wears feathers. He is a
killer and eater of other people’s offspring. Early in the season he
marks the nest, but eggs are not good enough for him, he waits until
hatching time is well over and then descends upon it with his great
sharp jaws ravaging and devouring. The other day a young bird took
refuge from a crow in my bath-room. It was huddled up in a corner and
I thought it a rat, but closer approach revealed it a baby mina, and
through the open door I saw the enemy’s impudent black head peering in.
He sailed away with imprecations on his beak and the mina was restored
to its family; Atma fortunately knew where they lived. Two crows have
marked our robins for their next dinner, and I am much interrupted by
the necessity for disappointing them. I must say one is not disposed
by such a circumstance as a nest to an over-confident belief in those
disguising arrangements of nature that are so much vaunted in books
of popular science. What could betray a nestful to the marauder more
quickly than this perpetual treble chorus? Nothing, I am sure, unless
the valiant declamation of its papa, who sometimes takes an exposed
perch and tells the world exactly what he would do to a crow, if he
could only catch him. Why are not young birds taught the wisdom of
silence and old ones the folly of vaunting? Because birds and lizards
and insects and things are not taught half as much as we imagine, and
as to the protective colour of a robin I believe it only happens to be
brown. In this Thisbe agrees with me; the amount of popular science
which is not in Thisbe’s possession would make many a humble home
happy. The small events of a garden, as I must apologize for pointing
out once more, become important to any one who lies all day, warm or
cold, awake or sleepy there, and I went in to tea lately bursting
with the information that the tits had come. “The Titts,” said Thisbe
meditatively. “Did we know them last year?” “I rather think we did,”
I replied, “Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Titt. I saw them this morning, but
they didn’t leave cards.” At which I was obliged to dodge a suddenly
illumined, perfectly undeserved sofa-cushion.
The garden is full of birds just now; they are for ever wanting to make
new introductions, it is almost impossible to pursue the simplest train
of thought. None of them are very constant except the robins and the
woodpeckers and a pair of minas that have built in a disused chimney
and squeal defiance at the crows all day long from the eavestrough,--no
crow was ever yet bold enough to go down a chimney after his prey. The
rest come and go, I never know what they are at, or even, to tell the
truth, how to address them. They appear suddenly out of nowhere and fly
in companies from tree to tree, or settle down to an industrious meal
all together under the rose-bushes, as if by common consent they had
decided to picnic there; perhaps I shall not see them again for two
or three days. Among the branches they take one direction, the tiny
tree-climbers with yellow-green breasts are like young leaves flying.
They add to life a charming note of the unexpected, these sudden
flights of little birds; I wish I knew them to speak to....
It must be explained that this is the following day, and that an event
of a very disturbing kind has taken place in the mean time. The rain
was coming down in sheets this morning as Tiglath-Pileser and I stood
by the window after breakfast. From the nest in the banksia came the
most keen and mournful protest. For an instant it would stop when the
old birds came and filled the little throats; then the plaint against
life and circumstances, quite heartbreaking in accents so youthful,
would begin again, and go on until it seemed to us too grievous to be
borne. Heavily and heavily fell the rain. “I wonder the little beasts
aren’t drowned out,” said Tiglath-Pileser. The close-cut roof of the
banksia seemed a very poor protection to persons standing in the house.
“Couldn’t we do something?” I suggested “An umbrella?” but
Tiglath-Pileser thought an umbrella would be too difficult to fix. He
went away, however, and out of his own wisdom and understanding he
produced a mackintosh. This with a walking-stick and infinite pains
and precautions he spread over the banksia, the rain descending upon
his devoted head, I admonishing from the window. The crying ceased
instantly, and though we waited for some minutes it did not recommence.
Evidently the little things were more comfortable, perhaps they had
gone to sleep. “That,” said I to Tiglath-Pileser as he turned away,
“was a real kindness.”
Half an hour later I was still at the window. No sound from the nest.
At a little distance the mother bird hopped about anxiously, something
evidently on her mind. I watched her for a long time and she did not
go up to the nest. “The old birds,” thought I, “are afraid of the
mackintosh. It is better to drown than to starve,” and I picked my way
out among the puddles with a chair in one hand and an umbrella in the
other and managed to get the thing off. And there at the foot of the
trellis sat a little helpless bunch of feathers with round bright eyes
and a heart beating inside,--a baby robin tumbled out.
I picked the adventurer up and took him into the house. He regarded me
without distrust, comfortable in the warmth of my hand, but when I put
him down he sent out no uncertain sound to say that he was unfriended.
I have often tried to feed fledgelings, it is an impossible charge;
and my advice as to this one was to put him on the window-ledge where
his mother might do it. There he sat up with his back to the world
and, looking at me with confidence, unexpectedly opened wide his
preposterous futile yellow beak. It was as if a gnome had suddenly
spoken--before the gaping demand I was helpless, full of consternation.
“You pathetic little idiot,” I reflected aloud, “what can _I_ do for
you!” and of course by the time bread and water arrived the beak was
hermetically sealed, as usual. I sat down with confidence, however, to
await events, and presently the small brown mother, saying all sorts of
things in an undertone, came slipping in and out among the rose-stems
below; and with much relief I saw the wanderer drop over the sill and
join her. They made off together very quietly, and again I watched,
uneasily, the nest. No sound, no parent birds, and as time went on
still silence and abandonment. I decided that the young ones had been
drowned or chilled to death before we thought of protecting them,
that the friendly mackintosh had come too late; and in some depression
I went out to see. By standing on a chair I could just reach, and
thrusting my hand through the wet leaves I felt for the little corpses.
The nest was empty!
It is a novel and rather a laughable sensation to be taken
in--completely sold--by a bird. How she managed it I cannot imagine,
for it all happened under my eyes and I saw nothing, but one by one she
must have enticed her family out into a most unattractive world some
days before their time, alarmed at the shrouding mackintosh. The last
had got only as far as the foot of the trellis when I found it. She
had out-witted Providence. I sent for Atma and together we prowled and
searched about the garden in the lessening rain. Presently he paused
beside the closest tangles of the potato-creeper, “_Chupsie!_”[3] said
he--the word was half a whisper, half a soft whistle--and bent down.
I looked too, and there they sat in a row, three soft, surprised,
obedient little feather-balls, well hidden, and waiting no doubt to
see what in this astonishing wilderness would happen next. I got back
to the window in time to receive the parent birds’ opinion of me,
full-throated, unabridged. They poured it out from perches commanding
the banksia, from which they could see the Thing removed and their
premature flitting quite foolish and futile. Plainly they connected me
with the horrid dream that for an hour had cloaked all their horizon,
and it _was_ a murderous scolding. Ten days of steady rain and then
this misfortune! Every other bird was silent in shelter, only these
two poured forth their tale of dolorous injustice. What weather to be
obliged to fledge in--pretty accommodation for a young family in a
potato-creeper! Was I not aware that they had been brought up in the
rains themselves, hatched exactly this time last year? Could I not
conceive that they might be able to mind their own business? “When
you have quite finished,” I whistled humbly, “I’ll explain,” but I
couldn’t get a word in, as the saying is, edgeways, and finally I fled,
leaving them still expressing their opinion of well-intentioned people.