_Creating a Bird Sanctuary._
A bird sanctuary is a suitable area of ground set aside for the birds to
congregate in for shelter, food and protection, where their natural
enemies are destroyed, and where neither rich nor poor dare molest them,
“nor thieves break through and steal.”
Here the birds will congregate in countless numbers, especially during
their migration, and hold their great annual picnic and vocal contest,
which enables each to select the best sweetheart. As soon as she
consents to fly in a double harness with him and he says “I will, so
help me Sun, Moon and Stars,” they are off together, some for life,
others for one season only. Now as soon as God’s wireless says to them
“The weather is O.K. at your nesting grounds,” they join in a sort of a
God-be-with-you-till-we-meet-again chorus and rise high on the evening
air, and before the stars close their eyes again, these winged creatures
are one thousand miles farther on, and the rising sun finds them singing
on the same old perch of last year, right near their nesting place. I
said evening air, because most birds migrate during the night.
The non-migratory birds will winter in this same sanctuary. Last winter,
the eighth winter my sanctuary was set out, I fed over one-half bushel
of wheat daily to the Bob White quail that wintered in there. As soon as
spring came, these quail all left, and are now scattered over at least a
two-mile area of the very best farming country, breeding on nearly every
farm. And best of all, I have wheat ready to feed a bigger flock next
winter.
The sanctuary plan is the only way I know of to control the two-legged
cannibal, he who apparently will not allow his heart nor brain to act at
all, but simply lets his murderous trigger-finger control his whole
carcass. It may sound strange to the reader that I speak so harshly of
this class of being, but it is personal knowledge that causes it. Being
in the woods so much through life, depending as a hunter does, largely
on my hearing, my ear drums have been kept exceptionally active, and up
until the last few years I could almost hear a gnat-fly sneeze; the
result is I have heard a whole lot of things that would have sounded
better had I been totally deaf.
[Illustration:
The pictures above of geese in flight are taken at the North Pond.
Notice the evergreens in the distance which run around the pond,
forming a windbreak and a shelter during storms.]
[Illustration:
The pictures above show the birds at the South Pond, with houses and
tile plant in the background. These four prints give a fair idea of
the kind of pictures presented in the 1,500 feet of motion picture
films of geese which have been taken on the property.]
One day a man came here with two or three younger fellows, including one
of his own boys. After showing them around, I came to the park and
called the pheasants, and three beautiful Golden Pheasants came out and
just spread their gorgeous plumage. As they strutted across the green
lawn, all fairly held their breath at such an eye-feast. I turned to go
to the house, made a few steps and changed my mind. The boy said, “Oh
father, just wouldn’t they look nice in our woods?” The father switched
his cud over and said. “I’d like to see them in the woods when I had my
old No. 10 shotgun.”
Years ago I stocked this township with Ring-necked pheasants, and all
the power I had was “Please don’t shoot the pheasants.” A hunter got on
the street car three miles north of my house, and as he quieted down he
slapped his hand on his game-sack and remarked, “I’ve got five of them
in here the red-headed blank-blank will never see again!” Now this man
is hardly acquainted with me and I know he has nothing particular
against me; only he just wanted to curse the man that had given him such
a good day’s sport.
There is another man in this township that apparently sent word to me in
a roundabout way that he had three duck-tags, and if I would give him a
dollar each for them, as I did the Esquimaux, I could have the tags. Now
these tags were put on young ducks that I raised here, and owing to the
water drying up in the north pond that summer, they left early in
September and went to this nearby water. But if this man lives until I
give him a dollar each for the three tags off these hand-raised pets, he
will sure hold the world’s record for longevity.
One of the common questions asked around my home is: “How do you
understand the birds so well?” Really, the birds are an open book. The
question is how to understand humanity. Seventy-five per cent. of the
hunters that shoot the overflow of birds from my bird sanctuary can
easily be called my enemies, while the fact remains they would never see
a goose, let alone shoot one, if I did not feed, pet and harbor them
here. But I have this consolation: If I met with their approval—Well,
’nuff said!
This makes me think of Ikie and Jakie. Jakie had apparently been imposed
upon. Ikie, trying to console him, said, “Jakie, don’t worry. Our
Saviour had enemies.” “Yes,” replied Jakie, “but my Got, look vat they
done to him!”
A sanctuary where one expects to entertain water fowl should, of course,
be quite a large area of land and water; the reader can plainly see this
point; and a natural marsh is, of course, the proper place. But a
sanctuary for the non-water birds can be made anywhere in the country or
suburbs of a town; possibly a ravine with a small stream running through
it would be preferable. A great many sites can be chosen where the trees
and shrubbery are already grown. Personally, I prefer growing my own
trees, it is such a pleasure. Five acres makes a nice sanctuary. I would
sooner have two five-acre sanctuaries, a mile or a mile and a half
apart, on three thousand acres, than one fifteen-acre sanctuary, for the
same area of land. These sanctuaries should be on or near the public
highway so that the gamekeeper could drive to and from them, the same as
the mail carrier to the country mail box. This would enable him to visit
an almost unlimited number of them every three days. What an enjoyable
occupation this certainly would be for him, knowing that during the
severe storms every bird in the country was in there, safely under his
care. “I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to
dwell in the tents of wickedness.” Or I would sooner be a gamekeeper,
caring for the birds in these little sanctuaries, than I would dwell in
the Waldorf Astoria, free of charge.
If you contemplate planting one, first summer-fallow the land for one
year. Plant evergreen trees, seven feet apart, eight rods wide all
around the outside, leaving twelve to fifteen rods square in the centre.
Here you will build your feed-racks and feed-bungalows. Set this out
with all kinds of fruit-bearing shrubs and vines. Now, with a
dog-and-cat-proof fence around the outside, your eyes will be opened as
to what you can do with the birds.
I got my trees from the Ontario Forestry Department, costing me less
than one dollar per thousand; I cultivated them for five years. The
eighth year my trees were so thick you couldn’t see a box-car a rod from
you.
The fifth year one pair of mourning doves came and built; the ninth
year, doves nested by the hundreds, and their sweet, cooing voices
continue from early daybreak until the stars appear again.
Of course, to grow a sanctuary from seedlings—trees that are no bigger
than ordinary tomato-plants—takes time; but remember, the Great
Provider, Himself, couldn’t make a four-year-old jackass in ten minutes.
All of these things take a little time, but time well spent. Every golf
course in America should be a bird sanctuary; just a small clump of
shrubs here and there does the trick and brings the songs that you
golfers cannot afford to be without.
“Oh, but how can we get the birds to come?” is the great cry. Please
leave this to the birds. Don’t you worry about them, nor don’t run all
over America to take care of them. Just build the sanctuary and let them
come to you to be taken care of. My experiments here have proven that
they will come clear across the continent to be cared for, and that the
sanctuary plan is a sure preventive of our birds becoming annihilated by
their enemies. Just the other day as I walked through my jungle four
beautiful woodcocks flushed from under the boughs that I pressed back.
After an absence of over forty years the dear old woodcock is back on
the same soil!
[Illustration:
SCOTCH PINES, PLANTED MAY, 1914
Photograph taken July, 1922.]
Yes, the sanctuary plan will permit us to have Bob White quail all along
southern Canada. Quail in such a place will stand almost any kind of
winter. It is simply up to us to take more pleasure in doing such
things. It is no longer a question of what can we have, but a question
of what will we have.
Remember, you can sit in your parlor with the best piano in America, and
if some one doesn’t reach out and touch the keys, that instrument will
remain, dormant, and you will be deprived of the lovely music it is
capable of producing.