at which was which--when I saw No. 2 go to the nest and No. 1
reluctantly make way as if not wanting No. 2 to meddle, I drew my own
conclusions, although they were not scientifically final. I did see one
thing that was satisfactory, as far as it went. One of the birds came
with big tufts of stiff moss sticking out from either side of its bill
like great mustachios, and going up to the nest, handed them to its
mate--actually something big enough for a person to see, once! Whatever
had been the birds' first feeling as to which should put the bricks in
the wall, it was all settled now, and the little helpmate flew off
singing out such a happy good-by it made one feel like writing a sermon
on the moral effect of renunciation. After that I was sure the little
helper fed his (?) mate on the nest, again singing out good-by as he
flitted away. Once when he (?) brought material he found her (?) busy
with what she had, and so went to the other end of the branch, and
waited till she was ready for it, when he flew back and gave it to her.
It was a real delight to watch the little blue-grays at their work. Once
as one of them started to fly away--I am sure this was she--she suddenly
stopped to look back at the nest as if to think what she wanted to get
next; or, perhaps, just to get the effect of her work at a distance, as
an artist walks away from his painting; or as any mother bird would stop
to admire the pretty nest that was to hold her little brood. Another
time one of the gnats,--I was sure this was he,--having driven off an
enemy, flipped his tail by the nest with a paternal air of satisfaction.
The birds made one especially pretty picture; the little pair stood
facing each other close to the nest, and the sun, filtering through the
green leaves over their heads, touched them gently as they lingered near
their home.
One morning when a gnat was in the nest a leaf blew down past it,
startling it so it hopped out in such a hurry that the first I knew it
was seated beneath the nest, flashing its tail.
Back and forth the dainty pair flew across the space of blue sky between
the oak and the brush. They went so fast and carried so little it seemed
as if they might have made their heads save their heels--they brought so
little I couldn't see that they brought anything; but I feel delicate
about telling what I know about nest-making, and it may be that this was
just the secret of the wonderfully compact solid walls of the nest; a
little at a time, and that drilled in to stay.
When one of the small builders flew down near me--within two yards--for
material, I felt greatly pleased and flattered. Her mate warned her, but
she paid no particular attention to him, and with jaunty twists and
turns hopped about on the dead limbs, giving hurried jabs at the cobwebs
she was gathering. Once she rubbed her little cheek against a twig as if
a thread of the cobweb had gotten in her eye. She dashed in among the
dead leaves after something, but flew back with a start as if she had
seen a ghost. She was not to be daunted, however, and after whipping her
tail and peering in for a moment, hopped bravely down again. Sometimes,
when collecting cobweb, the gnat would whip its tail and snap its bill
snip, snip, snip, as if cutting the web with a pair of scissors.
I was amused one day by seeing a gnat fly down from the oak to the brush
with what looked like a long brown caterpillar. The worm dangling from
the tip of his beak was almost as large as the bird, and the little
fellow had to crook his tail to keep from being overbalanced and going
on his bill to the ground.
As the nest went up, the leaves hid it; but I could still see the small
wings and tails flip up in the air over the edge of the cup and jerk
about as the bird moulded. I watched the workers so long that I felt
quite competent to build a nest myself, till happening to remember that
it required gnatcatcher tools.
Ornithologists are discouraging people to wait for, and Mountain Billy
got so restless under the gnat tree that he had to invent a new
fly-brush for himself. On one side of the oak the branches hung low to
the ground, and he pushed into the tangle till the green boughs rested
on his back and he was almost hidden from view. Meanwhile I sat close
beside the chaparral wall, where all sorts of sounds were to be heard,
suggestive of the industries of the population hidden within the brush
at my back. Hearing small footsteps, I peered in through the brown
twigs, and to my delight saw a pair of stately quail walking over the
ground, promenading through the brush avenues. Afterwards I caught sight
of a gray animal, probably a wood rat, running down a branch behind me,
and heard queer muffled sounds of gnawing.
Suddenly, looking back, I was startled to see a big ringed brown and
yellow snake lying like a rope at the foot of the gnat's tree, just
where I had sat. He was about four feet long, and had twenty-three
rings. He started to wind into the crotch of the oak as if meaning to
climb the tree, but instead, crept to a stump and festooned himself
about it worming around the holes as he might do if looking for nest
holes. Imagine how a mother bird would feel to have him come stealing
upon her little brood in that horrid way! When he crawled over the dead
leaves I noted with a shiver that he made no sound. Thinking of the
gnats, I watched his every movement till he had left the premises and
wormed his way off through the brush. Though quite engrossed with the
gnats, it was finally forced upon me that there is more than one family
in the world. The blue-gray's oak was a favored one. A pair of
hang-birds had built there before the gnats came, and now two more
families had come, making four for the big oak.
When first suspecting a house on the north side of the tree, I moved my
chair over there. Presently a vireo with disordered breast feathers flew
down on a dead twig close to the ground and leaned over with a tired
anxious look, and craning her neck, turned her head on one side, and
bent her eyes on the ground scrutinizingly. Then she hopped down, picked
up something, threw it away, picked up another piece and flew back to
her perch with it, as if to make up her mind if she really wanted that.
Then her mate came, raised his crown and looked down at the bit of
material with a puzzled air as if wishing he knew what to say; as if he
felt he ought to be able to help her decide. But he seemed helpless and
could only follow her around when she was at work, singing to her
betimes, and keeping off friends or enemies who came too near. When the
young hatched I noticed a still more marked difference between the
nervous manners of the gnats, and the repose of vireos. While the gnat
flipped about distractedly, the vireo sat calmly beside her nest, an
exquisite white basket hanging under the leaves in the sun, or walked
carefully over the branches looking for food for the young. Some days
before finding out the facts, I suspected that the wood pewee perching
on the old tree had more important business there, for the way he and
his mate flew back and forth to the oak top was very pointed. So again I
moved my chair. To my delight the wood pewee flew up in the tree, sat
down on a horizontal crotch, and went through the motions of moulding.
There were two birds, however, that simply used the tree as a
resting-place, as far as I ever knew. A hummingbird perched on the tip
of a twig, looking from below like a good sized bumblebee as he preened
his feathers and looked off upon the world below. At the other side of
the oak a pretty pink dove perched on a sunny branch that arched against
the blue sky. It sat close to the branch beside the green leaves and
dressed its feathers or dozed quietly in the sun. We had other visitors
that the house owners did not accept so willingly. The gnatcatchers up
the sand ditch whose nest had been broken up by the thief-in-the-night
did not object to brown chippies, but perhaps, if this were the same
pair, they had been made suspicious by their trouble. In any case, when
a brown chippie lit on a limb near the nest, quite accidentally I
believe, and turned to look at the pretty structure, quite innocently I
feel sure, the little gnats fell on him tooth and nail, and when he hid
under the leaves where they could not reach him they fluttered above the
leaves, and the moment he ventured from under cover were both at him
again so violently that at the first opportunity he took to his wings.
There was one curious thing about this attack and expulsion; the gnats
did not utter a word during the whole affair! I had never known them to
be silent before when anything was going on--rarely when there wasn't.
Another morning when I rode in there was a great commotion up in the
oak. A chorus of small scolding voices, and a fluttering of little wings
among the branches told that something was wrong, while a large form
moving deliberately about in the tree showed the intruder to be a blue
jay! Aha! the gossips would wag their heads. I disapprove of gossip, but
as a truthful reporter am obliged to say that I saw the blue jay pitch
down into the brush with something white in his bill--perhaps a
cocoon--and that thereupon a great weeping and wailing arose from the
little folk up in the treetop. A big brown California chewink stood by
and watched the--robbery(?), great big fellow that he was; and not once
offered to take the little fellows' part. I felt indignant. Why didn't
he pitch into the big bully and drive him off before he had stolen the
little birds' egg--if it was an egg. A grosbeak called _ick'_ from the
treetop, but thought he'd better not meddle; and--it was a pair of
wren-tits who looked out from a brush screen and then skulked off,
chuckling to themselves, I dare say, that some one else was up to their
tricks. It gave my faith in birds a great shock, this, together with the
pillage of the gnat's nest by the thief-in-the-night. My spleen was
especially turned against the brown chewink; he certainly was a good
fighter, and might at least have helped to clear the neighborhood of
such a suspicious character.
Where did the egg--if it was an egg--come from? The vireos and pewees
and gnats were still building, I reflected thankfully, though trembling
for their future; and fortunately the hangbird had young. Perhaps the
jay had found a nest that I could not discover.
After that, things went on quietly for several days. The gnats got
through with their building, and went off for a holiday until it should
be time to begin brooding. They flitted about the branches warbling, as
if having nothing special to do; dear little souls, at work as at play,
always together. One of them unexpectedly found himself near me one day;
but when he saw it was only I, whipped his tail and exclaimed "_Oh, it's
you'. I'm' not afraid._"
This peace and quietness, however, did not last. The gnats' house was
evidently haunted, and they did not like--blue--ghosts. One morning
when I got to the oak it was all in a hubbub, and the vireo was
scolding loudly at a blue jay. When the giant pitched into the brush the
wren-tit chattered, and I thought perhaps the jay was teaching him how
it feels to have a shoe pinch. A few moments later I was amazed to see a
gnat jab at the wall till it got a bill full of material and then fly
off to the brush with it! My little birds had moved! Evidently the
neighborhood was too exciting for them. More than ten days of hard
work--no one can tell how hard until after watching a gnatcatcher
build--had been spent in vain on this nest; and if, as suspected, this
was their second, how much more work did that mean? It was a marvel that
the birds could get courage to start in again, especially if they had
had two homes broken up already.
From my position at the big oak I could see that the gnats were carrying
the frame of the old house to a small oak in the brush. The wood pewee
had moved too, and to my surprise and pleasure I found it had begun its
nest on a branch under the gnats, so that both families could be watched
at the same time. I nearly got brushed off the saddle promenading
through the stiff chaparral to find a place where the nests could be
seen from the ground; but when at last successful, I too, like the rest
of the old oak's floating population, moved to pastures new. Hanging my
chair on the saddle, I made Billy carry it for me; then I buckled the
reins around the trunk of the oak and withdrew into the brush to watch
my birds. It was a cozy little nook, from which Billy could be heard
stamping his feet to shake off the flies. The little crack in the
chaparral was a pleasant place to sit in, protected as it was from the
wind, with the sun only coming in enough to touch up the brown leaves on
the ground and warm the fragrant sage, bringing out its delicious spicy
aromatic smell.
The pewee did not altogether relish having us established under its vine
and fig-tree. When it saw Billy under the tree it whistled, and the bit
of grass it had brought for its nest went sailing down to the brush
disregarded. It did not think us as bad as the blue jay, however, for it
came back with a long stem of grass in its bill, and, lighting on a high
branch, called _pee-ree_. To be sure, when it had gone to the nest and I
was inconsiderate enough to turn a page in my note-book, it dashed off.
But if murder will out, so will good intentions; and before long the
timid bird was brooding its nest with Billy and me for spectators.
The gnat's nest here was so much lower than the other one that it was
much easier to watch. The first day the birds built rapidly. One of them
got his spider's web from beside the pewee's nest, when the pewee was
away. He started to go for it once after the owner had returned, caught
sight of him, stopped short, and much to my amusement concluded to sit
down and preen his feathers! The pewee had one special bare twig of his
own that he used for a perch, and when the gnat seated himself there in
his neighbor's absence he looked so small that I realized what a mite of
a bird he really was. He sometimes sat there and talked while his mate
moulded the nest.
When the gnats got to brooding, many of the same pretty performances
were repeated that had marked the first nest of all, up in the sand
ditch. When the bird on the nest hopped out and called, "Come, come,"
its mate, who had been wandering around in the sunny green treetop,
called out in sweet tones, "Good-by, good-by."
When waiting for the gnats to do something, I heard a little sound in
the oak brush by my side, and, looking through the brown branches, saw a
wren-tit come hopping toward me. It came up within three feet of me,
near enough to see its bright yellow eyes. I began to wonder if it had a
nest near by, and felt my prejudices melting away and my heart growing
tender. Some thieves are very honest fellows; it is largely a difference
in ethical standards! I began to feel a keen interest in the bird and
its affairs, for the wren-tit was really a most original bird, and one I
was especially anxious to study.
My newly awakened interest was not chilled by any second tragedy; all
went well with the little blue-grays. The day the gnat's eggs hatched,
the old folks performed most ludicrously. Perhaps they were young
parents, and this being their first brood, maternal and paternal love
had not yet blinded their eyes to the ridiculous; so that they looked
down on these skinny, squirming, big-eyeballed prodigies with mingled
emotions. It looked very much as if they were surprised to find that
their smooth pretty eggs had suddenly turned into these ugly, weak,
hungry things they did not know what to do with. At first it seemed that
something must be wrong at the nest; the little gnat shook her wings and
tail beside it as if afraid of soiling herself; and when she hopped into
it, jerked out again and flitted around distractedly. Every time the
birds looked into the nest they got so excited that, had they been
girls, they surely would have hopped up and down wringing their hands. I
laughed right out alone in the brush, they acted so absurdly.
They began feeding the nestlings in the most remarkable way I had ever
witnessed. When the young mother was on the nest her mate came and
brought her the food, whereupon, instead of jumping off the nest and
feeding the young in the conventional way, she simply raised up on her
feet and, apparently, poked the food backwards into the bills of the
young under her breast! Even when the gnats got to feeding more in the
ordinary way, they did it nervously. They fed as if expecting the young
to bite them. They would fly up on the branch beside the nest, give a
jab down at the youngsters, whip tails and flee. You would have thought
the young parents had been playing house before, and their dolls had
suddenly turned into live hungry nestlings.
I watched this family till the house was deserted, and I had to ride
along a line of brush before finding them. The young were now pretty
silvery-breasted creatures who sat up in a small oak while the old birds
hunted through the brush for food for them. Though I rode Billy into the
chaparral after them, and got near enough to see the black line over the
bill of the father bird, they did not mind, but hunted away quite
unconcernedly; for we had been through many things together, and were
now old and fast friends.
V.
LITTLE PRISONERS IN THE TOWER.
I HAD not spent many days in The Little Lover's door-yard before
realizing that there was something in the wind. If an inoffensive person
fancies sitting in the shade of a sycamore with her horse grazing
quietly beside her, who should say her nay? If, at her approach,
a--feathered--person steals away to the top of the highest, most distant
oak within sight and, silent and motionless, keeps his eye on her till
she departs; if, as she innocently glances up at the trees, she
discovers a second--feathered--person's head extended cautiously from
behind a trunk, its eyes fixed on hers; or if, as she passes along
a--sycamore--street, a person comes to a window and cranes his neck to
look at her, and instantly leaves the premises; then surely, as the
world wags, she is quite justified in having a mind of her own in the
matter. Still more, when it comes to finding chips under a window--who
could do aught but infer that a carpenter lived within? Not I. And so it
came about that I discovered that one of the apartments in the back of
the wren sycamore had been rented by a pair of well-meaning but
suspicious California woodpeckers, first cousins of the eastern
red-heads.
[Illustration: California Woodpecker.
(One half natural size.)]
[Illustration: Red-headed Woodpecker--Eastern.
(One half natural size.)]
It is unpleasant to be treated as if you needed detectives on your
track. It strains your faith in human nature; the rest of the world must
be very wicked if people suspect such extremely good creatures as you
are! And then it reflects on the detectives; it shows them so lacking in
discernment. Nevertheless, "A friend should bear his friend's
infirmities," and I was determined to be friends with the woodpeckers.
One of them kept me waiting an hour one morning. When I first saw it, it
was on its tree trunk, but when it first saw me, it promptly left for
parts unknown. I stopped at a respectful distance from its tree--several
rods away--and threw myself down on the warm sand in the bed of the dry
stream, between high hedges of exquisite lemon-colored mustard. Patient
waiting is no loss, observers must remember if they would be consoled
for their lost hours. In this case I waited till I felt like a
lotus-eater who could have stayed on forever. A dove brooded her eggs on
a branch of the spreading sycamore whose arms were outstretched
protectingly above me; the sun rested full on its broad leaves, and bees
droned around the fragrant mustard, whose exquisite golden flowers waved
gently against a background of soft blue California sky.
But that was not the last day I had to wait. It was over a month before
the birds put any trust in me. The nest hole was excavated before the
middle of May; on June 15 I wrote in my note-book, "The woodpecker has
gotten so that when I go by she puts her head out of the window, and
when I speak to her does not fly away, but cocks her head and looks down
at me."[3] That same morning the bird actually entered the nest in my
presence. She came back to her sycamore while I was watching the wrens,
and flew right up to the mouth of the nest. She was a little nervous.
She poked in her bill, drew it back; put in her head, drew that back;
then swung her body partly in; but finally the tip of her tail
disappeared down the hole.
The next morning, in riding by, I heard weak voices from the woodpecker
mansion. If young were to be fed, I must be on hand. Such luxurious
observing! Riding Mountain Billy out into the meadow, I dismounted, and
settled myself comfortably against a haycock with the bridle over my
arm. It was a beautiful quiet morning. The night fog had melted back and
the mountains stood out in relief against a sky of pure deep blue. The
line of sycamores opposite us were green and still against the blue; the
morning sun lighting their white trunks and framework. The songs of
birds filled the air, and the straw-colored field dotted with haycocks
lay sunning under the quiet sky. In the East we are accustomed to speak
of "the peace of evening," but in southern California in spring there is
a peculiar interval of warmth and rest, a langorous pause in the growth
of the morning, between the disappearance of the night fog and the
coming of the cool trade wind, when the southern sun shines full into
the little valleys and the peace of the morning is so deep and serene
that the labor of the day seems done. Nature appears to be slumbering.
She is aroused slowly and gently by the soft breaths that come in from
the Pacific. On this day I watched the awakening. Up to this time not a
grass blade had stirred, but while I dreamed a brown leaf went whirling
to the ground, the stray stalks of oats left from the mowing began to
nod, and the sycamore branches commenced to sway. Then the breeze
swelled stronger, coming cool and fresh from the ocean; the yellow
primroses, around which the hummingbirds whirred, bowed on their stately
stalks, and I could hear the wind in the moving treetops.
Mountain Billy grazed near me till it occurred to him that stubble was
unsatisfactory, when he betook him to my haycock. Though I lectured him
upon the rights of property and enforced my sermon with the point of the
parasol, he was soon back again, with the amused look of a naughty boy
who cannot believe in the severity of his monitor; and later, I regret
to state, when I was engrossed with the woodpeckers, a sound of munching
arose from behind my back.
The woodpeckers talked and acted very much like their cousins, the
red-heads of the East. When they went to the nest they called
_chuck'-ah_ as if to wake the young, flying away with the familiar
rattling _kit-er'r'r'r'_. They flew nearly half a mile to their regular
feeding ground, and did not come to the nest as often as the wrens when
bringing up their brood. Perhaps they got more at a time, filling their
crops and feeding by regurgitation, as I have seen waxwings do when
having a long distance to go for food.
I first heard the voices of the young on June 16; nearly three weeks
later, July 6, the birds were still in the nest. On that morning, when
I went out to mount Billy, I was shocked to find the body of one of the
old woodpeckers on the saddle. I thought it had been shot, but found it
had been picked up in the prune orchard. That afternoon its mate was
brought in from the same place. Probably both birds had eaten poisoned
raisins left out for the gophers. The dead birds were thrown out under
the orange-trees near the house, and not many hours afterward, when I
looked out of the window, two turkey vultures were sitting on the
ground, one of them with a pathetic little black wing in his bill. The
great black birds seemed horrible to me,--ugly, revolting creatures. I
went outside to see what they would do, and after craning their long red
necks at me and stalking around nervously a few moments they flew off.
Now what would become of the small birds imprisoned in the tree trunk,
with no one to bring them food, no one to show them how to get out, or,
if they were out, to feed them till they had learned how to care for
themselves? Sad and anxious, I rode down to the sycamore. I rapped on
its trunk, calling _chuck'-ah_ as much like the old birds as possible.
There was an instant answer from a strong rattling voice and a weak
piping one. The weak voice frightened me. If that little bird's life
were to be saved, it was time to be about it. The ranchman's son was
pruning the vineyard, and I rode over to get him to come and see how we
could rescue the little prisoners.