If you meet Chickadee in May with a bit of rabbit fur in his mouth, or
if he seem preoccupied or absorbed, you may know that he is building a
nest, or has a wife and children near by to take care of. If you know
him well, you may even feel hurt that the little friend, who shared
your camp and fed from your dish last winter, should this spring seem
just as frank, yet never invite you to his camp, or should even lead
you away from it. But the soft little nest in the old knot-hole is the
one secret of Chickadee's life; and the little deceptions by which he
tries to keep it are at times so childlike, so transparent, that they
are even more interesting than his frankness.
One afternoon in May I was hunting, without a gun, about an old
deserted farm among the hills--one of those sunny places that the
birds love, because some sense of the human beings who once lived
there still clings about the half wild fields and gives protection.
The day was bright and warm. The birds were everywhere, flashing out
of the pine thickets into the birches in all the joyfulness of
nest-building, and filling the air with life and melody. It is poor
hunting to move about at such a time. Either the hunter or his game
must be still. Here the birds were moving constantly; one might see
more of them and their ways by just keeping quiet and invisible.
I sat down on the outer edge of a pine thicket, and became as much as
possible a part of the old stump which was my seat. Just in front an
old four-rail fence wandered across the deserted pasture, struggling
against the blackberry vines, which grew profusely about it and seemed
to be tugging at the lower rail to pull the old fence down to ruin. On
either side it disappeared into thickets of birch and oak and pitch
pine, planted, as were the blackberry vines, by birds that stopped to
rest a moment on the old fence or to satisfy their curiosity. Stout
young trees had crowded it aside and broken it. Here and there a
leaning post was overgrown with woodbine. The rails were gray and
moss-grown. Nature was trying hard to make it a bit of the landscape;
it could not much longer retain its individuality. The wild things of
the woods had long accepted it as theirs, though not quite as they
accepted the vines and trees.
As I sat there a robin hurled himself upon it from the top of a young
cedar where he had been, a moment before, practising his mating song.
He did not intend to light, but some idle curiosity, like my own, made
him pause a moment on the old gray rail. Then a woodpecker lit on the
side of a post, and sounded it softly. But he was too near the ground,
too near his enemies to make a noise; so he flew to a higher perch and
beat a tattoo that made the woods ring. He was safe there, and could
make as much noise as he pleased. A wood-mouse stirred the vines and
appeared for an instant on the lower rail, then disappeared as if very
much frightened at having shown himself in the sunlight. He always
does just so at his first appearance.
Presently a red squirrel rushes out of the thicket at the left,
scurries along the rails and up and down the posts. He goes like a
little red whirlwind, though he has nothing whatever to hurry about.
Just opposite my stump he stops his rush with marvelous suddenness;
chatters, barks, scolds, tries to make me move; then goes on and out
of sight at the same breakneck rush. A jay stops a moment in a young
hickory above the fence to whistle his curiosity, just as if he had
not seen it fifty times before. A curiosity to him never grows old. He
does not scream now; it is his nesting time.--And so on through the
afternoon. The old fence is becoming a part of the woods; and every
wild thing that passes by stops to get acquainted.
I was weaving an idle history of the old fence, when a chickadee
twittered in the pine behind me. As I turned, he flew over me and lit
on the fence in front. He had something in his beak; so I watched to
find his nest; for I wanted very much to see him at work. Chickadee
had never seemed afraid of me, and I thought he would trust me now.
But he didn't. He would not go near his nest. Instead he began hopping
about the old rail, and pretended to be very busy hunting for insects.
Presently his mate appeared, and with a sharp note he called her down
beside him. Then both birds hopped and twittered about the rail, with
apparently never a care in the world. The male especially seemed just
in the mood for a frolic. He ran up and down the mossy rail; he
whirled about it till he looked like a little gray pinwheel; he hung
head down by his toes, dropped, and turned like a cat, so as to light
on his feet on the rail below. While watching his performance, I
hardly noticed that his mate had gone till she reappeared suddenly on
the rail beside him. Then he disappeared, while she kept up the
performance on the rail, with more of a twitter, perhaps, and less of
gymnastics. In a few moments both birds were together again and flew
into the pines out of sight.
[Illustration]
I had almost forgotten them in watching other birds, when they
reappeared on the rail, ten or fifteen minutes later, and went through
a very similar performance. This was unusual, certainly; and I sat
very quiet, very much interested, though a bit puzzled, and a bit
disappointed that they had not gone to their nest. They had some
material in their beaks both times when they appeared on the rail, and
were now probably off hunting for more--for rabbit fur, perhaps, in
the old orchard. But what had they done with it? "Perhaps," I thought,
"they dropped it to deceive me." Chickadee does that sometimes. "But
why did one bird stay on the rail? Perhaps"--Well, I would look and
see.
I left my stump as the idea struck me, and began to examine the posts
of the old fence very carefully. Chickadee's nest was there somewhere.
In the second post on the left I found it, a tiny knot-hole, which
Chickadee had hollowed out deep and lined with rabbit fur. It was well
hidden by the vines that almost covered the old post, and gray moss
grew all about the entrance. A prettier nest I never found.
I went back to my stump and sat down where I could just see the dark
little hole that led to the nest. No other birds interested me now
till the chickadees came back. They were soon there, hopping about on
the rail as before, with just a wee note of surprise in their soft
twitter that I had changed my position. This time I was not to be
deceived by a gymnastic performance, however interesting. I kept my
eyes fastened on the nest. The male was undoubtedly going through with
his most difficult feats, and doing his best to engage my attention,
when I saw his mate glide suddenly from behind the post and disappear
into her doorway. I could hardly be sure it was a bird. It seemed
rather as if the wind had stirred a little bundle of gray moss. Had
she moved slowly I might not have seen her, so closely did her soft
gray cloak blend with the weather-beaten wood and the moss.
In a few moments she reappeared, waited a moment with her tiny head
just peeking out of the knot-hole, flashed round the post out of
sight, and when I saw her again it was as she reappeared suddenly
beside the male.
Then I watched him. While his mate whisked about the top rail he
dropped to the middle one, hopped gradually to one side, then dropped
suddenly to the lowest one, half hidden by vines, and disappeared. I
turned my eyes to the nest. In a moment there he was--just a little
gray flash, appearing for an instant from behind the post, only to
disappear into the dark entrance. When he came out again I had but a
glimpse of him till he appeared on the rail near me beside his mate.
Their little ruse was now quite evident. They had come back from
gathering rabbit fur, and found me unexpectedly near their nest.
Instead of making a fuss and betraying it, as other birds might do,
they lit on the rail before me, and were as sociable as only
chickadees know how to be. While one entertained me, and kept my
attention, the other dropped to the bottom rail and stole along behind
it; then up behind the post that held their nest, and back the same
way, after leaving his material. Then he held my attention while his
mate did the same thing.
Simple as their little device was, it deceived me at first, and would
have deceived me permanently had I not known something of chickadees'
ways, and found the nest while they were away. Game birds have the
trick of decoying one away from their nest. I am not sure that all
birds do not have more or less of the same instinct; but certainly
none ever before or since used it so well with me as Ch'geegee.
For two hours or more I sat there beside the pine thicket, while the
chickadees came and went. Sometimes they approached the nest from the
other side, and I did not see them, or perhaps got only a glimpse as
they glided into their doorway. Whenever they approached from my side,
they always stopped on the rail before me and went through with their
little entertainment. Gradually they grew more confident, and were
less careful to conceal their movements than at first. Sometimes only
one came, and after a short performance disappeared. Perhaps they
thought me harmless, or that they had deceived me so well at first
that I did not even suspect them of nest-building. Anyway, I never
pretended I knew.
As the afternoon wore away, and the sun dropped into the pine tops,
the chickadees grew hungry, and left their work until the morrow. They
were calling among the young birch buds as I left them, busy and
sociable together, hunting their supper.