_Some Things I have Known Cannibal Birds to Do._
Now, dear reader, I am well aware of the fact that my book would be more
popular if I left these questions out. I am like yourself, I wish I had
nothing to say but good about every bird, for I love to see them. But
remember, what I am telling in this book is what I know about nature, so
please don’t jump on me with both feet for telling the truth.
First of all let me say that the larger the hawk, the more anxious the
majority are to shoot him. This is a mistake. It is the medium-sized
hawk that is the worst. The sparrow-hawk is the smallest, and he is hard
on fledglings such as bobolinks and song sparrows. Yes, I know they will
eat grasshoppers, but these are usually eaten by the young birds; the
adult sparrow-hawk lives chiefly on mice and small birds.
When I raised pheasants I always made a “hide” where I could lay for the
little chicks’ enemies. One day I fed my chicks at one p.m., when I
returned at four-thirty I tapped the tin to call them and only seven out
of the seventeen little beauties came and they were on their tiptoes,
shy and frightened. My first thought was, “a weasel,” but when I saw
Mrs. Hen turn her head sidewise and look up, I called to my boy to bring
the shotgun and a couple of loads of No. 6. I soon was in the “hide,”
and the boy had scarcely got to the house when I heard the old hen say
“k-tt-tt-tt,” meaning “lie low,” so I took her advice, and in about five
seconds a sparrow-hawk came down out of the heavens like a bullet—too
fast for me. Before I could get the gun on him he was on the ground. He
saw me and missed his bird; and when he was about four feet in the air
again I just lifted him with a load of shot. The next morning we went
over to the woods and destroyed the other old one and the young, and
found remnants of some of the young pheasants. Now this hawk killed and
carried away ten of these little chick pheasants in less than four
hours. These little pheasants were about ten days old. After pheasants
get to be the size of a small quail or mourning dove, sparrow-hawks will
not take them. Many a small hawk have I fooled by taking a little dead
pheasant and running a wire through him, standing up in a natural
position on a steel trap, letting Mr. Hawk come down out of the air and
help himself. I have often caught owls in this same way.
I could go on and on, relating such experiences until you got hungry.
But remember, the sparrow-hawk is only one. The worst are yet to come,
the Cooper’s, the sharp-shinned, and the goshawk; these three are just
like bullets in the air. But while the pheasants are tiny the
sparrow-hawk is the worst, because it is more numerous. To any person
who might think of raising pheasants for profit let me say that unless
you first study how to destroy weasels, barn rats, stray house cats and
cannibal birds you had better give up the business a week or so before
you start. Remember, when hawks are driven to it by hunger they will
kill and eat each other, and owls will do the same; I have known dozens
of cases of this in my life.
There are two large hawks I never destroy, the Red Tail and the Red
Shoulder. They are too big and clumsy to be very destructive on our
birds. When these two varieties get in my traps I usually label them
with an aluminum band and let them go; but, strange to say, I have never
heard from one of these in my life. I know they will kill a clumsy
barnyard fowl or so, and they will also kill snakes; so I say of them as
Pilate said, “I find no fault” with these fellows.
I spend a lot of my life burning brick and drain-tile at night, and
during the summer months it is very interesting to see the toads come
before the light of the fires and catch insects. The snakes that these
big hawks eat, kill the toads; and I don’t like snakes, even if they are
not in my boots.
Now this innocent-looking little screech-owl! Just last summer I went
over to the martin house one morning to see what was wrong with them,
and here were three or four helpless fledglings flapping on the ground,
and the old ones hovering at the house as if it were a bees’ nest. Well,
to be brief, we killed nine screech-owls in less than two weeks, but not
until they had killed and driven all our martins away for that year. At
a screech-owl’s nest I once found my hat-full of remnants of bluebirds’
wings, young robins’ wings and feet, and quail, song-sparrow and English
sparrow feathers. In another case a screech-owl went through the
two-inch mesh wire netting and killed a golden pheasant hen for me and
ate her throat out. This owl only weighed three and one-half ounces. A
doctor in the town of Leamington once called me in to see what had
killed his golden pheasant hen that was setting on twelve eggs. The pen
was made of two-inch mesh netting. I at once said it was a screech-owl
and showed him how I knew. He then told me he harbored screech-owls in
and around his barns to kill the English sparrows. Another man I knew
kept a screech-owl in his barn to kill the sparrows, and he was puzzled
to know what killed his tame pigeons.
The screech-owl is just a miniature horned owl, both in looks and
habits. But I have never had my wits tried more with any bird than I
have with the Great Horned Owl. On one occasion one of these winged
brutes came and apparently just got his toes pinched in a trap; and
night after night he sprung the traps and took a hen pheasant. This went
on until he had taken twelve. Then I put on fur coat and made a bed of
robes out in the “hide” which I always kept ready in the enclosure; and
there I lay in that bright moonlit, stinging-cold, zero night. At last I
saw an owl hovering over the ground, and fortunately for me he got
fooled; he came to examine the decoys near me and while his attention
was rivetted on them I raised up and fired, and he never knew what hit
him. When I went to the house it was three a.m. I usually catch twelve
to fifteen of these owls every winter.
Remember, when he comes and gets a bird he will eat what he wants of it,
and come back the following night for a new one.
But how these cannibals locate other birds for miles and miles across
the country is a mystery. Yet if we go down in the field and kill a beef
on a hot summer’s day, the turkey buzzards will be here in less than
one-half hour. Where did these vultures come from? You perhaps have not
seen one for a month. How did they know you were killing a beef? This
question may be just as much in place as: How do the hawks and owls find
their prey?
The great horned owl nests in the winter or early, early spring,
building in a cavity of a tree or a crow’s or hawk’s nest. They lay two
pure white eggs, round like a turtle’s eggs, about the size of an
ordinary barnyard fowl’s or a shade smaller. I have got the nest as
early as the first day in February, when old Mrs. Owl was setting. The
female horned owl is larger than the male; she will weigh about four
pounds and has a wing-spread of fully fifty inches.
Now I know there are a lot of people who protect these cannibal birds
because they kill mice. Yes, they do kill mice. But it takes dozens and
dozens of our insectivorous and weed-destroying birds to raise one owl.
I claim that the good one robin or quail does, in one day, overbalances
the harm a dozen mice will do.
Now we come to the crow and bronze grackle, the largest blackbird. These
two birds raise their young chiefly on the eggs of other birds. Why this
is, I won’t pretend to say, nor will I attempt to throw a ray of light
upon it, but will frankly confess I do not understand. Possibly it has
come about through man’s interference with their natural habits.
The crow was the first bird I hunted in Canada, as we thought they
pulled our corn. I went to the woods and located their nests, and soon I
became wise enough to imitate the call of the young; then I had Mr. Crow
beaten. I would first destroy the young if possible, then hide in the
green bushes and caw quietly as I had heard the young do, and dozens of
crows have brought their food to the wrong baby. Yes, I have even gone
so far as to call them right down into the small trees so as to make a
very light load of ammunition do the work, as it cost money to buy
powder and shot in those days. Now comes more of what we don’t want to
hear. What were these crows feeding their young on? Crawfish, pollywogs,
small frogs, grubs, etc.; but seventy-five per cent. of the food that
these old crows would vomit up as they struck the ground was eggs. It
was these old black rascals that taught me what to raise fledglings on,
and it is just as easy for me, now, to raise a young bird on custard as
it would be to raise a row during a political campaign.
I am going to tell you some pitiful things. I have seen young, unhatched
robins spued out of a dying crow’s mouth, and the little things were
still alive. Whether the eggs were broken in her throat before I shot
her or not, I do not know, but they were broken when thrown up. Yes,
they will take blackbirds’ eggs just as quick as they will the robins’,
and other, weaker birds’ if they have the opportunity; but the robin
does seem to be their choice, possibly because he does not conceal his
nest better. Yet I was hunting the crows because they pulled our corn!
In all my life I never knew a crow to bring corn to her young. Yes, I
have shaken as high as seven little, unhatched birds out of a gasping
crow’s mouth, and any one of these creatures, if left to mature, would
do as much good as a crow. If you want to trap a crow use hens’ eggs for
bait, but bear in mind he is cute, and you must conceal the trap very
carefully.
The bronze grackle is nothing only a small crow; his habits are exactly
the same. He will drop on a tree and look around; seizing an opportunity
he will come down and go through a bush where there is likely to be a
song-sparrow’s nest just like a ferret will go through a stone-pile
after a rabbit. I have known him to take the young birds after they were
hatched. But so many men who know the habits of these birds will say
they think they do as much good as they do harm! Why they make this
statement I don’t understand. And if you throw this book across the room
and never pick it up, I cannot help it, for I am telling you the truth:
These crows and grackles are the worst nest-robbers in America. They do
ten times more harm than good. Remember I am not writing just to please
the reader, but to give you facts gathered from personal experience and
observation, and my beliefs founded thereon; and I am sure that fifty
per cent. of the eggs and young of our song, insectivorous and game
birds in Ontario are devoured by these cold-blooded, nest-robbing
cannibals, the crow being the worst of all. He will take young mourning
doves out of the nest when they are as large as sparrows; the quail, and
kildeer, and dozens of other such beautiful mothers are perfectly
helpless and can no more keep him off than a human mother’s naked hands
could keep a vicious lion from tearing her baby into fragments.
By the way, I am now perfecting a trap whereby I can catch crows by the
hundreds during the winter months. These crows will be handed over to
gun clubs for trap-shooting purposes. And although he is a black
murderer we must treat him fair, and give him a chance for his life;
therefore, my request will be to shoot them from five unknown traps at
twenty-five to thirty yards rise. The shooter will not be charged for
the crows he kills, but will be fined for every one he allows to escape;
in addition to the above fine he will be liable to any other punishment
a good, cheerful bunch of trap-shooters see fit to impose upon him, such
as rail-riding him around the club-house for allowing one of these black
murderers to get away. The shooters will be fined according to their
shooting ability. These fines will be used for buying up old, faithful
horses which will be humanely destroyed and used for bait to decoy more
of these old, black Pharaohs to their just doom. Thus what is now the
crow nuisance will be turned into a sport.
The hawks and owls are worst on the adult birds, the screech-owl is not
so innocent as he looks, but there is none can compare with the great
horned owl, and I just wish you knew the annoyance he has caused me by
taking my choicest pets. Yes, it seems he delights in taking the nearest
and dearest. But now let me give my horn a toot: Never did a horned owl
take a bird from me but what paid the penalty.
About the only argument you hear in favor of the hawks and owls is
“mice.” But when a bunch of successful farmers meet at my tile factory,
never in my life have I heard them complain about mice, and I know mice
seldom bother clean, shrewd farmers. But I have heard them complain
about worms until I could almost feel myself crawling. The cut-worms
were cutting their corn, or the wire-worms were destroying their oats,
the army worm was working north, and so forth. Personally I have never
had any experience with worms, but field mice I have often carried in my
pockets, and if it wasn’t for some youth practising the same sport, how
I would like to tell you some of the fun I have had with them when I was
a lad. For the death of each mouse by hawks and owls possibly we lose
several birds which would destroy thousands and thousands of worms each
year. I know there is a type of farmer who is much more easily annoyed
by mice than others. You will usually find him down town, sitting on a
soap box, smoking in the time, now and then getting up and moving his
seat around and possibly turning it end for end to keep it from getting
tired; his stock at home are of the rainbow variety, with long whiskers,
and when they see him coming they don’t know whether to come or go, and
the one or two razor-backed, South Carolina, thistle-digger hogs don’t
care whether or not they get out of the steaming manure heap, to be
disappointed; the remnant of scrubby apple trees in the field, which
some one else planted, have been fleece-grown with cut grass ever since
he got possession of the farm, that, of course, was handed down to him.
If your orchard is stubble or clover sod, go through it in the early
fall. By being careful you can determine whether there are any fieldmice
there by their little runways that criss-cross on the ground. If so,
take about one-half bushel of grain and thirty or forty bundles of corn
fodder; throw a handful or two of grain on the ground and two bundles of
fodder side by side over it, making a nice mouse cover. Refuse hay, or
clover chaff will do, but I prefer the corn fodder. Fifteen or twenty of
these little harbors are sufficient in an ordinary orchard. In ten days
or two weeks all the mice in the orchard will be under these covers. Now
take the six- or eight-pronged pitch-fork, scratch around these little
harbors to destroy their road of retreat, then throw the cover off
quickly; the light striking their eyes so suddenly, they are apparently
blinded for a second, giving you just time enough to give them a side
whack with your fork; if you study what you are doing, you will kill
seventy-five per cent. of them the first time ’round, always placing the
cover back ready for next time. If you don’t care for this sport, just
introduce a bunch of school boys to your plan and you will soon find
your annoyance turned into sport and education for the neighbor boys.
In case you haven’t the above-mentioned material to make these mouse
covers, old junk lumber thrown on the ground will answer the same
purpose. But if you leave these mice and depend on the hawks and owls to
destroy them, some of your trees will be girdled, as the mice seem to
have a sort of human appetite, and appear to like the apple tree bark
equally as well as the human race likes the apple tree juice.
The mouse question always reminds me of a story told on the other
fellow. It is said that he saw an advertisement: “How to kill potato
bugs! Full directions sent on receipt of one dollar.” This of course was
a cheap opportunity, and he enclosed a dollar at once. In reply he
received a small box containing a little block and mallet; the
directions were: “Put him on No. 1, and hit him with No. 2.”