AT NESTING-TIME
"I pray you hear my song of a nest.
For it is not long."
In the preceding chapters we have said little about the female or
mother birds. In referring to a single individual we have used the
pronoun he, as if "he" and no other were worthy of affectionate
notice.
As apology, we refer our readers to the title of our book, "Birds of
Song and Story."
As it is mostly the male who sings, and also the male who wears the
more beautiful plumage, we have given him the first or greater space.
It is the male who figures in myth or legend, since it is he who
speaks or is known for conspicuous markings.
But always, at the right season, is the wife bird or the mother bird
loyal and true, sweet and modest of color and habit. It is she who
"lives for a purpose"--if purpose ever moves the heart of a bird. It
is she who sacrifices her own individual preferences and joys for the
sake of others. It is she, mostly, who makes the family fortunes. It
is she, save in a few instances, who builds the nest, and warms the
eggs when once she has placed them where they ought to be.
As it is the vocation or pleasure of her mate to sing, it is hers to
listen. And surely her family cares would be dreary enough were it
not for the song she hears. It is always for her that her lord makes
music, as if he knows her "mother term" is long and monotonous. Many
a time his eye is on her, when the keenest human spy fails to "see
where that nest is." No hiding the exact spot from old father bird.
Didn't he help select it? Wasn't he there at the start? Of course he
was!
[Illustration: SONG SPARROW.]
In early spring, before actual nesting-time, a male bird is seen
coaxing his mate to think of the conveniences of some certain spot.
He flies to a corner or a crotch and turns and twists and makes
signs, and grows excited, as if urging his mate to commence at that
very moment and at that very spot. Wife bird, coming to his side,
considers and accepts his suggestions, or laughs at them, as the case
may be. Should she accept the site of his choice, it is not then, not
just at that moment. It is as if she fears the noise and bustle of
her companion may have attracted attention. She returns in some quiet
hour, and all by herself begins her summer work.
We have seen a boisterous oriole lead his lady to a banana leaf and
do his best to coax her into immediate acceptance of the location.
It is not until the following day that we notice the first swinging
threads. And it is the same with many other birds which nest near the
house. Perhaps the linnet, or house-finch, is the most persistent in
choosing a nest site. He is sometimes seen at the business late in
the fall and early winter, turning about in corners and nest-boxes,
chattering to his mate, and "making himself so silly." His mate,
of more sense, looks on and lets him talk, seeming to smile at his
foolishness. Doesn't he know, at his age, that she will be on hand at
the proper time?
As a rule, it is the mother bird who does all the nest-work. We have
seen her closely followed by the male, in the case of the linnet
and many of the other finches; the song-sparrow and chippie and
towhee and mocker and oriole each keeps at the side of his dear
companion and follows her on the wing, singing, while her mouth is
full of grass or other stuff. When she alights at the threshold of
her nursery he alights too, on a near twig, to follow her back to
the material in a moment or two. By hiding in the shrubbery one
can see so much of interest at nesting-time. But first of all,
would bird-lovers induce parent birds to choose the home grounds,
preparation must be made some time in advance.
Trees must be planted and allowed to grow naturally, not in clipped
or distorted forms. Birds love natural growth. They recognize wild
things and nooks when these are planned and made to grow in private
grounds. Now and then a tree root upturned; a pile of boughs; a
heap of cuttings and prunings the gardener would have condemned to
the fire; a bit of space overlooked by the lawn-mower, moist and
grass-tangled; woodpiles and logs left where they are until moss
and toadstools have covered them, and bugs have housed in them--a
thousand things people, in their love of order and neatness, dispose
of at sight--would prove untold attraction to the birds. Too many
homes in city and country are not frequented by these visitors, who
really prefer our grounds to the woods when once they learn their
welcome. When induced for a single season to build in cultivated
places, a pair of birds will return, often bringing several other
pairs with them.
It seems as if certain birds are popular among their people, and "set
the pace," as it were, in the matter of nesting habits. The places
they frequent are sought after by the rest; and not only by their own
kind or species, but by birds of different character.
It is with birds as with humankind--many different sorts make up a
popular neighborhood. Bird families do not choose to wander away to
some remote part of the country and make a settlement. Indeed, as we
have studied them, birds delight in fraternal good-fellowship.
Within an area of two hundred feet square in our grounds we have
counted thirty-three varieties in this single season. Of these,
fifteen have nested--the linnet, two varieties of goldfinch,
chipping-sparrow, song-sparrow, humming-bird, towhee, mocker, pewee,
phœbe, oriole, thrush, black-headed grosbeak, yellow warbler, and
bush-tit. Some of these have nested twice or three times in our long
season. These birds are not seen to quarrel nor to disagree as to the
locations chosen. Each respects the other's rights, even to keeping
guard over one another's children. Be a single family or even one
little bird in trouble, each and all of these birds mentioned come
to the rescue. At such times the varying notes are a sound both
interesting and amusing. Food and water are always before these birds
in shady places or in the sunshine. Materials for nest-building are
spread before them the whole six months of the nesting-season, from
horsehair and strings to mud, paper, rags, bark, feathers, cotton,
dry grasses, lint, and a general assortment of lichens. The linnets,
goldfinches, hummers, orioles, yellow warblers, and bush-tits lose
their wits over the fluffy white cotton. Our song-sparrows and phœbes
are not seen to use other than material of dark color, like brown
rootlets and mud for phœbes, and old grass blades and dark horsehair
for the sparrows. Mention has been made as to most of the others.
The linnets are the easier suited. A black last year's sparrow's nest
put in the box under the eaves in place of a new white cotton one is
accepted, with no questions asked. We have substituted nest for nest
many times, and find there is no choice. Also, we have substituted
young birds of the same species, and each and all are adopted.
Sometimes we find an orphan birdling, which is sure to be cared for
provided it be placed in the nest of any kind, motherly bird. Of
course, in thus trading or causing to be adopted young birds, we are
careful not to give a seed-eater to a meat-eater, and vice versa.
An insect fare would hardly agree with nurslings accustomed to
regurgitated food, like the finches and hummers. Once we rescued a
tiny young hummer from a "wicked boy," who had come to the treasure
by theft. The little thing was nearly dead with cold and hunger. But
we knew exactly where to find a dear, motherly old soul in the person
of a humming-bird, who had just completed her nest. We placed the
orphan in the frail cradle, so weak it could scarcely open its beak.
The old bird came at once, cuddled and coddled the baby as only a
humming-bird can do, with her small, soft breast. In ten minutes the
wee one was having its supper, and it was raised by the foster-parent.
There seems to be something in the breast of mother birds at the
nesting-season akin to human instinct. All these interesting studies
go on with us at our door. No cats are allowed within certain bounds.
And any home may be the same if the dwellers will take the trouble.
An ideal corner in a school-yard would be one in which birds were
taught confidence and dependence. Birds are subject to cultivation
and encouragement.
If one is just making a start toward this, quick movement in the
shrubbery should not be indulged in. Loud, sudden noises and throwing
balls or other things, at the commencing of the nest season,
frighten the birds. One must learn to stand stock-still and listen
and look. Birds notice movement more than sound. Sidewise motions
disturb, where straight, go-ahead methods are not noticed.
By gradually accustoming birds to one's presence, and then to one's
voice, and then to the near approach, one may succeed in taming
wild birds at nesting-time. We have had the finches and linnets and
towhees and bush-tits and humming-birds perfectly trustful, even to
some of the males, whose presence at the nests is not absolutely
essential. We have had the parent birds feed the young from our
hands, we standing at the nest. As to nesting itself, the fun to be
had of a spring morning is beyond description. After learning this
familiarity the birds will go on without noticing us. The towhee
straggles across the grass, tugging a long rag much too heavy to fly
with. The mocker pulls straws from the torn end of a garden cushion.
The bush-tit gathers bits of lichen from the bough on which our
hands rest. The phœbe scarcely waits for us to step aside that she
may bite the shreds from the jute door-mat, to mix with her mud. The
sparrow, scratching away under the tree for a bug and a bit of leaf
at one and the same time, treads on our toes in her fearlessness. The
hummer fans our faces with her wings, should we happen to be near the
"cotton-counter."
When the young birds are just big enough to tumble out of the nest,
then nursery-times fairly begin. The ground is alive with them. Of
many sizes and features, more especially as to beak, they peep and
scream and coax. By sundown those not old enough to hop or flutter
to a safe place are the source of great anxiety. We are obliged to
go out and help "put the babies to bed." And these twilight times,
more than the whole day, are the "cat-times." Pussy understands the
turmoil. She skulks and prowls, and scarcely dares to breathe in her
silent hopes. It is then that we dare breathe, and many other things.
This incessant war on the feline tribe must be kept up would any one
have birds around his home.
There is one thing at nesting-time that puzzles us. Why do mother
birds pass carelessly by so much good material? They pick up this
grass or string or feather, to drop it for another. And then, why do
they pass by this or that fly or other insect and pick up another?
They probably have their reasons, the same as they choose between
equally good nest locations. It is on this account that we are
particular to have a variety of everything in their way.
It is at nesting-time that we take especial care of the garden table.
We furnish everything we imagine acceptable. As soon as the young
of finches or sparrows are out of the nest they are brought to the
table by their parents. All the birds have a sweet tooth. They like
cookies and pie and sugar and (as will be remembered in the case of
the sparrows) good molasses. It was when the tourist robins were
here that we thought about the molasses. The robins wouldn't take it
_clear_, as the sparrows did, so we mixed it with meal. They came and
looked at it and tasted, and liked it very well. Thinking to score a
point for the temperance people, we mixed some old bourbon with the
pudding. A tipsy robin would be a funny sight! But not a morsel of
the meal would they ever touch. We kept up the game several days, it
resulting at last in all the robins leaving the grounds in disgust.
Then we tried it on the sparrows, but to no purpose. Every bird grew
suspicious, and we had to give it up. This proved to us that birds
cultivate the sense of smell.
Birds in general are like the donkey before whose nose is suspended
a wisp of hay tied to the end of a pole, "to make him go." Of course
in the case of the donkey the pole goes in advance of the nose, and
it's a long while before the wisp and the appetite have a passing
acquaintance. With the birds at our home the "wisp" is always out, so
they are in no hurry to migrate. They do not leave us for so much as
a short visit to their folks in Mexico until the molt is well under
way. Some summer visitants even molt completely with us, and it is a
sorry season. By the time a young bird is able to hustle for himself
he wouldn't know his own mother. She has shed the feathers around
the beak, leaving her nose or mouth so grotesque one has to laugh.
Seeming to understand the joke is at their expense; some of our birds
at this time keep well hidden, and come only to the edges of the
shrubbery for food, or if overtaken in the open, they run as fast as
their legs can carry them. A song-sparrow without a bit of tail is
hopping now under the window, chirping her happy note, but hiding if
we look at her.
A hummer, which yesterday took honey from the flowers we held in our
lips, sits on a tiny twig, the picture of despair because her neck
feathers are so thin. A mocker who has drank all summer from the dish
with the bees, peeps at her shadow and preens imaginary quills. Half
of them are on the ground by the table.
A phœbe sits alone on the housetop, wailing, thinking no doubt she is
singing, and looking the picture of distress, with one tail-feather,
and not enough of her ordinary neckerchief around her neck to cover
the bare skin of it. And the nests, where are they? Just where they
were. But they are faded and old and deserted. Never does a young
bird go back to the nest after it has once left it, though some
people believe they use it for a bed until long into the autumn.
We have not seen them do so. They scorn the old thing! Isn't it as
full of mites as it can hold? Of course it is, especially if it be
a linnet's nest. When the third brood came out in the same nest we
found it so infested with mites, almost invisible, that we could
not touch it. And the poor little birdlings had to bide their time
in getting away. It is supposed to be on account of these parasites
that some birds compose their nests of strong-smelling weeds.
However, we have not known any of the nests near us to be disturbed
by these parasites save those in which several broods are reared.
We have a seven-story flat, on each successive floor of which a
linnet and a phœbe have nested. Phœbe's nest is mud, linnet's is
straw and hair. Each builds atop of the others. It may grow to be a
sky-scraper yet. Many of the mother birds sing at nesting-time. The
house-finch, or linnet, keeps a continual twitter while incubating.
So also the goldfinches. These notes are low and very musical and
happy. The phœbe speaks her mournful note under the eaves while on
the nest. By close listening, when other things are noiseless, one
may detect the almost inaudible note of some of the hummers. The
ear of a nature-lover grows keen by practice. There are low, nearly
inarticulate whisperings among the birds in summer days never heard
by those who have not learned the art of listening. The nest of the
summer yellowbird may be within six feet of a person on the hunt for
it, who, though of keen eye, may never find it, for lack of as keen
an ear to hear the low note of the mother bird behind the foliage.
By close observation one may come to disprove many things said
against the birds. For instance, a neighbor told us to be careful how
we encouraged the orioles and phœbes to nest in our grounds if we
didn't want them to eat up all our honey-bees. As usual with us in
such cases, we accepted the warning "with a pinch of salt," and took
to making observations on our own account.
Locating ourselves behind an open window near the beehives, we
watched. A vine trellis with top bar uncovered offered safe footing
to phœbe; on she came with five young phœbes hatched on the
fourth-floor flat under the eaves. The young birds were whining for
food. As plain as any words can be, they cried, "Bees, bees, please!"
And bees they were to have for dinner! The mother led them to the
trellis bar, where they squatted in a row, peeping their longings.
Bees were flying thicker than hail. The mother canted her head
from side to side, the black eye of the upward cant searching the
homeward-bound insects. "Why don't you help yourself?" we wondered.
In a few minutes the bum, bum, of the drones was heard. Then mother
phœbe darted, and darted, and darted; each time she snapped a big,
sting-less, bumming drone, which she killed by banging its head
against the bar. Then it was taken by a little phœbe, or more often
by two phœbes, who tugged at the creature until it came in two
parts, or was cunningly appropriated as a whole by one of them. This
meal-time went on until all were, for the time being, appeased, and
the family flew off. By the middle of next day they returned and went
through the same performances, very amusing to the witnesses inside
the window. Now, not a single worker-bee was touched! And the mother
phœbe knew the exact hour for the flying of drones. These lazy,
shiftless, bumming fellows never leave the hives until the day is far
advanced and the sun has warmed things up. So, not breakfast, but
dinner, was made of the drones.
As for the orioles, we were willing to give them a chance to speak
for themselves. They appeared about April 10th, as usual. And
straight for the bee corner of the garden they went. "I told you
so!" said the neighbor. We watched. There were rose-bushes and vines
in that part of the grounds, and to these the orioles hastened as
fast as their wings could take them. The beehives sit under a row of
moss-roses so thickly covered with spines that one cannot take hold
of them without gloves. But this pair of orioles ran up and down
and in and out without fear. These and many other rose-bushes did
they examine minutely, pecking away as fast as they could move their
beaks. Right at the entrance to the hives they went, on straggling
briers, but not a bee did they touch. We were as close to them as
we wished to be. Suddenly we scared them away before they should
have devoured every secret, and there was retreat for our neighbor!
The orioles had been eating the little green plant-lice that infest
rose-bushes early in the spring.
Later they took to watching the bees, and we resumed our watch of the
orioles. It was midsummer, and the young birds were all about, crying
for bread, or rather for "bees," though their pronunciation was not
so distinct as that of the young phœbes. The parent orioles took
their stand right on the doorstep of the hives, and waited with head
slightly turned, alert, ready for "a bite." Not a worker did they
touch, but when a drone came bumming along he was nabbed as quick
as a wink. All drone-time (which lasts about two months with us)
did the orioles patronize the beehives. Unmolested did the tireless
workers come, pollen-loaded, and run in at the entrance.
When the summer yellowbirds have three or four hungry mouths to feed,
just watch at the open window behind the snowball-bush and "see what
you see." Little green caterpillars make nourishing food for baby
yellowbirds. The parents might be running up and down amid the green
and white of the bush, just for effect of color, but they are not.
Those little, soft, green biscuits are the objects of their ramble.
It has been an open question as to whether old birds carry water
to the young. In the case of tame canaries they have been seen to
regurgitate a whole cropful of the liquid into waiting "parched
throats." So we may conclude that young birds require water.
In the case of a very young humming-bird who was deprived of its
mother, we raised it for a while, at least, on milk sweetened with
honey, feeding it with an eye-dropper such as surgeons use. The milk
was a good substitute for such animal food as the young of hummers
are accustomed to. When young humming-birds come out of the nest, and
for many weeks, they are either very fearless or their sight is not
good. Surely it is not the latter, unless it be atoned for by greater
sense of smell; for they come to flowers we hold up to them, and even
light on our hands and faces, following us in the shrubbery.
As a rule, young birds are suspicious and wary. They know by instinct
how and where to hide. After sundown is the time to see interesting
events connected with supper and bedtime. By close and quiet watching
one may see for one's self where and how young birds sleep. Some
retire to the same bough or bush each night. A family of bush-tits
slept in a row on an orange twig every night for two weeks, in plain
sight of us, and as near as six feet from our hands. The parents had
been blessed with unusual success in this particular brood, bringing
off six. These all slept in a row, "heads and tails," whispering the
softest of notes until quite dark.
We have never been able to account for all the egg-shells that
disappear in nesting-times. Now and then cracked bits are found in
fields and woods, but only bits. One might get some information from
the ants that are always prowling about for detached morsels of
animal life. The birds themselves may eat or hide them, lest they
tell tales. We have found shells far away from any nests, as if they
had been carried on purpose. Sometimes they lie in the nest bottom in
powder.
It is worth while to take a peep into every nest, just to get
"pointers"--but never to get birdlings! And one's peeps should not
be too frequent. It disturbs family order and confidence. Besides,
if one takes to peeping when the birds are nearly fledged they often
become frightened, and leave the nest too immature to warrant freedom
and safety. Young birds are seen to sit or cling to the edge of the
nest long before they are able to fly. At night they snuggle down
into the warmth--and warmth as much as food is essential to young
birds. But nesting-time has an end, like all good times.
When the late peaches turn their rosiest cheek to the autumn sun, and
the husk of the beechnut opens its pale lips, then are the nests that
were so lately the center of attraction tenantless and neglected. Old
birds, in passing, take no notice of them, and the hungry juveniles
pay no visible heed. What care they for cradles, now that the
universal cry is "Bread and butter, please"?
Baby zephyrs nap on the worn-out linings, and the rain runs its slim
fingers through the fading meshes. Even the domestic feline, who
was wont to peep into the heart of every one of them, no longer is
discovered inquiring into the nesting habits of birds. Forsaken are
the nests. Naked are the boughs. We will leave them for the winter
winds to question--and the winter winds will ravel more bark for
next year's nests, and they will make the meadow-grasses molt their
softest wrappers for linings. And it is the winter winds that will
swirl the dead leaves into lint, and pull the weed stalks into fiber.
Therefore, long live the winter winds!