_The Bluebirds._
To the average middle-aged person of America, this bird needs little or
no introduction, but to the young people they are now quite rare. In
fact I was speaking to a young lady quite recently, and she has camped
out every summer for the longer part of her life (but of course, like
all other girls at her age, she has just passed sixteen; passed it
coming back, of course) and she told me she had never seen a bluebird.
They have decreased over ninety-five per cent. the last forty years, but
when I was a boy they were as common as the robin is to-day. They
usually arrive the same day in the spring, bringing with them their
beautiful note that no musician has ever been able to imitate correctly.
In 1908 I put up three or four nests for them and in 1909 a pair came
and built in one. These nests were made of wood; so it occurred to me
possibly they would build in tile houses, and I set to work and made six
or eight different varieties of drain-tile, and to my surprise and
delight the wrens and bluebirds both took to the tile houses and have
never built in the frame one since. Last summer I put a wren house up on
Monday and the very next morning Mrs. Wren had her nest half built; or
in other words, the tile house had hardly gotten cold before she started
carrying in sticks.
I had one pair of bluebirds raise their first family for three
successive years in the same house. So last summer I made about two
hundred bluebird houses, taking this, their choice house, as a pattern.
This pair of birds I know raised three families one summer, but they
usually raise two. The same house does for both wrens and bluebirds; if
the wrens use it, they will stop the large hole up with sticks so the
English sparrows cannot get in, but of course leaving door-room enough
to get in themselves, as they are so much smaller. This is my
experience, but whether these birds will take to tile houses away from
here, where they are not accustomed to seeing red tile and a red man,
remains to be proven.
In case they do not, there are several remedies. The houses could be
painted any color in order to get them coming. But first of all, leave
it to the birds, as they seem to know whom it was put there for. So,
knowing that the birds prefer them, and as the tile house can be made
for about one-fourth of the cost of the wood and, like Pat said about
the stone coffin “Sure it will last a lifetime,” I know I have secured a
home run for the birds.
[Illustration:
TILE BIRD HOUSES
The house to the right is the old original that the birds picked out,
and the one to the left is the duplicate I made with the removable
top.]
The removable top can be left off all winter if preferred. The wet and
frost will rid the house of mites and so forth, which sometimes kill
fledglings. By the use of these little fireproof bird dwellings around
our home, the wrens have become far more plentiful than English
sparrows, as the latter know they are not wanted. Although we have four
or five pairs of bluebirds each year, yet they do not seem to multiply
as rapidly as the wrens; I believe this is due to the wrens’ cunningness
in barring the door against these cruel “flying rats.” This experience
has compelled me to believe that the sparrows are responsible for the
decrease of our lovable bluebird. I say “lovable,” and so will any
person who is acquainted with the bluebird, for they expose their love
for humanity by preferring to build their nests near our dwellings so
they can rely on our protection.
We usually toe-nail their houses on top of the fence-posts around our
premises. I have never tagged the bluebirds, therefore I have no
positive proof the same one returns year after year; yet I am like the
Scotchman who said he was open to conviction but he would like to see
the man who could convince him otherwise, for we have several old birds
any one of which will permit us to climb up the fence post and remove
the roof from her house, and when we peep in she will sit there on her
eggs, within eight inches of our eyebrows, and, turning her head
sidewise she will cover our whole face with her one little eye as much
as to say “Beg your pardon, sir, but you should have rapped before you
opened the door.” If a stranger is permitted to do this, she will fly
out, every time, though after I have taken the top off she will permit
him to look in and will not fly out.
[Illustration:
“WHY DIDN’T YOU KNOCK BEFORE YOU OPENED THE DOOR?”]
The chief cause of the decrease of the bluebird is English sparrows. One
of man’s great mistakes was when he introduced this little, domineering
Bolshevik into America. Not that he doesn’t destroy insects enough to
counterbalance the amount of grain he takes, but here is my charge
against him: He is doing all in his power to exterminate several
varieties of birds that God put here, and any one of these birds will
destroy more insects in a day than he will in a week.
Last summer when I awoke one Sunday morning I heard the voices of
sparrows and bluebirds fighting at the bluebird house, which was about
one hundred feet from my open window; but as I knew the young bluebirds
were hatched, I just rolled over and had another snooze. About an hour
later I saw that the English sparrows had possession. So I went over,
and found five young bluebirds lying dead at the foot of the post. Now I
did not see the sparrows throw them out. I only know that the old
bluebirds were chirping and hovering around the nest and were driven
back by the sparrows, and that the little dead birds were still warm. In
fact, one was just gasping its last when I picked them up, and each
showed marks where it had been pecked. I pinned the five little murdered
babies to a piece of cardboard and hung them out and took their picture,
which is shown herewith.
[Illustration:
THE ENGLISH SPARROWS’ VICTIMS]