*Reprinted by permission, from "Our Animal Friends," New York.
In a somewhat casual way, and without going into their natural history,
the last two chapters have indicated the method of making an
acquaintance with new species and of studying the habits of a few wild
birds. A few chapters will now be devoted to a fuller study of a
number of interesting birds. Not that I expect to write their complete
life histories, which, indeed, would not be necessary; but that I may
give you some idea of the large amount of knowledge that can be gained
of one species. If this were multiplied by the knowledge procurable
from the study of all the members of the feathered brotherhood, think
what an education the whole would give one. Let us begin with the
familiar little tomtit.
In his valuable manual, "Birds of Eastern North America," Dr. Frank M.
Chapman calls the little black-capped chickadee an "animated bunch of
black and white feathers." That is certainly a graphic and correct way
of putting it, for no bird is more active and alert than this little
major with the black skull cap and ashy-blue coat. Everybody knows
him, I take it, but if any more points are needed for his
identification, you must look for a little bird which, in addition to
his cap of glossy black, wears a bib of the same color, buckled up
close to his chin, with a wedge of white inserted on each side of his
neck between the black of his throat and crown to the corner of his
mouth.
If all birds were as sociably disposed as the little tomtit--for that
is also one of his names--bird study would be a delight, and almost a
sinecure. Trustful and fearless, he often comes within a few feet of
you, and fixes you with his keen little eyes, which dart out
innumerable interrogation points. Sometimes he calls his own name in a
saucy way, "Chick-a-dee-dee, chick-a-dee-dee," which, being
interpreted, means, "What is your business here, sir? Aren't you out
of your proper latitude?" Occasionally he will grow terribly excited
over your presence--or at least pretend to--scolding and shaming you
until you feel yourself a real interloper; at other times he will
salute you in the most affable way, as if bidding you welcome to his
haunts and inviting you to come often and make yourself at home. What
a pity it is he cannot talk, and let us know what he really thinks of
us and of the world in general! Dr. Chapman says that on two occasions
chickadees have flown down and perched on his hand, giving him the
feeling that he was being taken into their confidence.
Watch Master Tomtit as he performs some of his acrobatic feats, putting
the tilters and tumblers in the human circus to the blush. He often
hangs back downward from a slender twig or even a leaf, and daintily
picks the nits that have ensconced themselves in the buds or foliage.
Let his flexile perch sway in the wind as it will, he is safe, for if
the twig should break or his hold should slip, which seldom occurs, he
can recover himself at once by spreading his nimble wings, wheeling
about, and alighting on a perch below. Ah, yes! the tomtit is the
embodiment and poetry of nimbleness.
But he is more than a mere feathered gentleman; he is an extremely
useful citizen. Prof. E. D. Sanderson published a valuable article in
"The Auk" for April 1898, in which he proved that this bird serves a
most useful purpose as an insecticide. He examined the craws of
twenty-eight chickadees, nineteen of them secured in the winter and
nine in the spring. During the winter 70.7 per cent of the food found
in these stomachs was animal, while in the spring no vegetable matter
was found at all, the birds subsisting entirely on insects and their
eggs and larvae. By far the larger part of the insects thus destroyed
were of the noxious species that bore into the bark and wood of the
trees or sting the fruit. An orchard in which several chickadees had
taken up their abode one winter and spring was so well cleared of
canker worms that an excellent yield of fruit was grown, whereas the
trees of other orchards in the neighborhood were largely defoliated by
the destructive worms, and there was no yield of fruit.
Professor Sanderson made an interesting estimate of the economic value
of our little scavengers. In the state of Michigan, where his
observations were made, he thinks that a fair average is seven
chickadees to the square mile. If each bird should destroy fifty-five
insects per day, which is a very modest estimate, the seven birds would
consume three hundred and eighty-five every day, making about 137,500
per year in each square mile. In this way about eight billions of
insects would be destroyed annually in the state--an economic fact
whose importance cannot be overestimated.
The same investigator also thinks that it would be wise for farmers and
fruit-growers to encourage the chickadees to make their homes in
orchards, and this could be done, he says, "by placing food for them
till they feel at home, by erecting suitable nesting sites, and by
careful protection"; to which I would add, by leaving a few old snags
in the trees where the birds can find natural nesting places. Besides
the useful purpose the birds would serve, what pleasant companions they
would be, piping, both summer and winter, their sweet minor tunes!
No one can deny that the tomtit is a companionable little fellow. In
addition to his vigorous call of "Chick-a-dee-dee," he whistles, as has
been said, a sweet minor strain which may be represented by the
syllables, "Phe-e-be-e," repeated again and again. Often in midwinter,
when bland days come, and even in very cold weather, too, sometimes, he
will pipe his pensive air, which floats through the woods like a song
of chastened sadness.
Not infrequently two tits will engage in what may be called a
"responsive exercise," swinging their two-part song back and forth in
the woods like a silvery pendulum. Not soon shall I forget a winter
day on which I listened with delight to such an antiphonal duet. I was
standing in a road that wound along the foot of a steep, wooded bluff,
and the two minstrels were in the woods above me, one of them singing
very high in the scale, the other responding in the same tune, but
almost, if not quite, an octave lower. At first they were about twenty
rods apart, but as they swung back and forth, they gradually approached
each other until the distance between them was only a few feet. The
music seemed like a slender thread of silver which was being wound up
at both ends, gradually drawing the little fluters together. Sometimes
one of them would miss one note of his dissyllabic song, and at times
the refrains were repeated in a leisurely way, at times in quick
succession; but the performers never sang simultaneously, each waiting
until his fellow minstrel had given his reply. The pleasing duet
lasted for many minutes; indeed, it was kept up long after I left the
immediate neighborhood, for when I had gone quite a distance the sweet
cadenzas still fell rhythmically on my ear. To my mind the two-part
aria seemed like a voluntary performance, and I cannot doubt that it
was. There was too much of an air of purpose about it to permit of the
thought that it was a mere accident or coincidence; but whether it was
a musical contest between rival vocalists, or the love song of a tomtit
and his mate, I could not determine.
Cunning in other ways, it would be strange if the tomtits did not
display acuteness in the selection of nesting sites. A cosy hollow in
a dead snag or stump is especially acceptable. Sometimes it is a
deserted woodpecker's cavity made trig and clean, while quite often,
when the wood is soft enough, the tits themselves chisel out a little
hole in a tree or stump or fence post. I recall having once watched a
pair of chickadees hollowing the upper end of a truncated sassafras
tree that was half decayed. They would fly into the cavity, pick off a
chip, dash out and away a rod or two, drop the fragment, then dart back
to the hollow for another piece. In this way the busy couple worked
hour by hour without resting for an instant. Their reason no doubt for
carrying the chips some distance away from their nest was that they did
not want any telltale fragments to betray their secret to their enemies.
It would be impossible to tell how many chickadee nests I have found in
all the years of my bird study. One of them was in an old stump near a
path along which I was sauntering. My attention was attracted by the
little husband's flying from the stump and calling nervously, thus
unwittingly "giving away" his secret. Had he been quiet, my suspicions
would not have been aroused; but many birds, like a few people here and
there, find it very hard to keep a secret. And this, by the way, is
one of the strangest things about Nature--that she has not taught her
feathered children to go with apparent unconcern about their employment
when a nest is near, but impels them to chirp and flit about in such a
way as to excite the suspicion of an enemy.
Moralizing aside, however. On examining the stump, I found a deep
cavity just inside of the decaying bark. Though it was quite dusk
within, by slightly pressing the bark aside I could see the little
mother sitting on the nest, unwilling to leave it in spite of my
proximity. I almost touched her with my hand, and still she did not
move. Unwilling to disturb so brave a heroine, I stepped back and
walked quietly away a few rods to see what would happen, when she
popped out of the orifice like an arrow and, joined by her mate, set up
a loud chattering, which sounded as if they were saying that I was the
nosiest and most impudent man in the whole countryside.
No doubt they were right, for I went back, in spite of their protest,
and peeped into the nest, and found four gleaming white eggs studding
the bottom like pearls. Alas! when I visited the place two weeks
later, the little domicile had been raided, the half-decayed walls
having been broken down. A tuft of gray hair hanging to a splinter
proved the invader to have been a predatory animal of some kind,
probably a cat. The birds were nowhere to be seen--unless a pair
chirping in the woods on the other side of the valley were the same
couple, trying to rear a family in a safer place.
What a persistent sitter the female blackcap is! One day I discovered
a nest in a fence post by the wayside. Pressing the bark aside, I
could plainly see the little owner snuggling close to the bottom of the
cup. I thrust my finger through the aperture and gently stroked her
head and back. Still she hugged the nest, pressing her head close to
the grassy bottom, as if she thought she would be safe if her head were
hidden. Thinking she must have little ones, or she would not cling so
tenaciously to the nest, I pushed my finger under her and partly raised
her from her seat. Even this rude treatment she bore for a few
moments--but it was going too far even for her courageous little heart;
she lifted her head, glanced wildly at me for an intense moment, then
sprang from the cavity with a piercing cry.
Imagine my surprise to find the nest entirely empty, not even an egg
having yet been deposited. The brave little lady had doubtless just
entered the nest to lay her first egg, and was not going to be driven
off without knowing the reason why. The tomtit is game every time.
The entrance to most of the chickadee's nests is lateral, but I found
one nest whose doorway was in the top of a fence post, so that the
owners had to go down into it vertically. The hole was quite deep, and
the birds would drop down into it as you have seen swifts dropping into
a chimney, but whether they went down head first or tail first I could
not learn, their movements were so quick. Another feature of this nest
was that it had no roof, for the doorway was open to the sky, so that a
cloudburst would have filled up their little nursery and drowned its
inmates.