little pocket makers were not through with it, even if it was on the
ground; so I brought a piece of it back and tied it with a grass stem to
a twig below the nest they were at work on, to save them as much
trouble as might be. When my bird came, her bright eyes were quick to
espy the old nest. She looked around, bewildered, as if wondering
whether she was really awake, and making sure that this strange looking
affair were not her second nest, come to grief in her absence. Being
reassured by her examination, she came back and hopped from twig to twig
inspecting the old piece of nest. At last she caught sight of a feather.
That, apparently, was just what she wanted. She quickly flew over,
pulled out the white plume, and went straight to the new house with it!
I was not able to watch any of my bush-tits through the season, that
year, but five years later, when again in southern California, to my
delight I found the tits building in almost the same tree where they had
been before.
One day an interesting brood was out in the brush, and I took notes on
their proceedings: "A family of young were abroad this morning filling
the leaves with their little moving forms, and the air with their
fledgling cry of _schrit_. As nearly as I could judge, there were ten in
the family--eight young tagging after two old birds. While I watched, a
droll thing happened, proving that a family of eight may affect a
parent's breakfast as well as his nerves. One of the family, which I
took to be the father bird, had some goody in his bill, and one of the
young, presumably, followed him for it, flying up on his twig. The old
bird turned his back upon the little one and went on shaking the grub.
Presently a second one flew down on the other side of him,--he was
between two fires; they touched him on both sides. I watched with
interest to see what he would do about it, and was much amused when he
opened his wings and flew up over their heads out of reach! Would he
come back to feed them after his food was properly prepared? No,--he sat
up on the branch and ate the morsel himself! I was rather shocked by
such a deliberate proceeding, but then it occurred to me that parent
birds have to take a bite themselves once in a while; though of course
their business is to feed the children!"
IX.
THE BIG SYCAMORE.
BEFORE going home from my morning sessions with the little lover and
other feathered friends, I often took a gallop at the foot of the hills
to visit a gigantic old tree, the king of the valley. One such ride is
especially marked in my memory. It was on one of California's most
perfect mornings. When the sun had risen over the valley, the fog
dissolved before it, sinking away until only small white clouds were
left in the tender blue of the notches between the red hills; while the
bared vault overhead had that pure, deep, satisfying color peculiar to
fog-cleared skies; and the cool fresh air was full of exhilaration. It
put Mountain Billy so in tune with the morning that, when I chirrupped
to him, shaking the reins on his neck, he quickly broke into a lope and
his ringing hoofs beat time to my song as we sped down the valley, past
vineyards and orchards and yellow fields of ripening grain. The free
swift motion was a delight in itself, and after days and weeks given to
the details of nest-making, shut away from the world in our little
remote valley at the foot of the mountains, now, when we came to a
break in the hills and our nostrils were greeted by the cool salt breeze
coming from the Pacific, suddenly the whole horizon broadened; the
inclosing valley walls were overlooked; we were galloping under the high
arching heavens in a wind blowing from far over the wide ocean.
Here stood the great sycamore, with branches swaying; for the tree faced
this break in the hills. It seemed as if the old monarch, with roots
firmly planted, had battled for its ground; and now, as a conqueror,
stood with arms uplifted to meet the ocean gales. I had never before
appreciated the dignity of those straight upreared shafts, the vital
strength of those deep grappling roots, the mighty grandeur of this old
battle king.
When one of the trunks fell, I had to hunt the sycamore over to find
where it came from, not missing it in the massive framework that was
left. The giant measured twenty-three feet and a half in circumference,
three feet from the ground. Its enormous branches stretched out
horizontally so far that, between the body of the tree and the tips that
hung to the earth, there was a wide corridor where one could promenade
on horseback. In fact, the tree spanned, from the tip of one branch to
the tip of the other, one hundred and fifty-eight feet. In the
photograph, the figure of a person is almost lost in the complicated
network of the frame of the tree. The treetop was a grove in itself. A
flock of blackbirds flying up into it was lost among the branches.
[Illustration: THE BIG SYCAMORE]
The ranchman knew the sycamore as the 'swallow tree,' because in former
years, before the valley was settled, swallows that have since taken to
barns built there. Between three and four hundred of them plastered
their nests on the underside of the big limbs, about half way up the
tree, where the bark was rough. They built so close together that the
nests made a solid mass of mud. For several seasons, it was said, "they
had bad luck." They began building before the rainy season was over, and
all but a few dozen nests which were in especially protected places were
swept away. The number of nests was so enormous that the ground was
covered several inches deep with mud.
Billy used to improve his time by nibbling barley while I watched birds
in the sycamore corridor. We had not been there long before I discovered
a bee's nest in the hollow of one of the trunks. The owners were busily
flying in and out, and a pair of big bee-birds flew down from their nest
in the treetop and saved themselves trouble by lunching at this
convenient ground floor restaurant. As I sat on Billy, facing the nest,
one of the pair swept down over the mouth of the hole, caught a bee and
settled back on the branch to swallow it. This seemed to be the regular
performance, and was kept up so continuously, even when we were
standing close by, that if, as is supposed, the birds eat only drones,
few but workers would be left in that hive.
The flycatchers seemed well suited to the sycamore; they were birds of
large ideas and sweeping flights. Their nest was at the top of the tree;
probably eighty feet from the ground, but when one of them flew down,
instead of coming a branch at a time, he would set his wings and, giving
a loud cry,--as a child shouts when pushing off his sled at the top of a
steep hill,--he would sail obliquely down from the treetop to the foot
of the hillside beyond. When looking for his material he would hover
over the field like a ph[oe]be. Then, on returning, unlike the other
birds who lived in the tree and used the branches as ladders, he would
start from the ground and with labored flights climb obliquely up the
air to the treetop. Once his material dangled a foot behind him. The
birds seemed to enjoy these great flights.
Their nest was not finished, and while one went for material, the
other--presumably the male--guarded the nest. As there was nothing to
guard as yet, it often seemed a matter of venting his own spleen! When
not occupied in arranging his plumes, he would shoot down at every small
bird that came upstairs; a cowardly proceeding, but perhaps he thought
it necessary to keep his hand in against meeting bigger boys than he!
When coming with material, one of the bee-birds got caught in a heavy
rope of cobweb that dangled from the nest, and had to flutter hard to
extricate itself. About their nests these birds seemed as home-loving as
any others. Their domesticity quite surprised me; they had always seemed
such harsh, scolding, aggressive birds! When one of them sat among the
green leaves, pluming the soft sulphur yellow feathers of its breast, it
looked so gentle and attractive that it was a shock when the familiar
petulant screams again jarred the air. The birds often hunted from the
fence beyond the sycamore, and flew from post to post with legs
dangling, shaking their wings as they lit, with a shrill _kit'r'r'r'r'_.
The sycamore was a regular apartment house; so many birds were moving
among the boughs it was impossible to tell where they all lived. One day
I found a pair of doves sitting on a sunny branch above me. The one I
took to be the male sat perched crosswise, while his mate sat facing
him, lengthwise of the limb. He calmly fluffed out his feathers and
preened himself, while his meek spouse watched him. She fluttered her
wings, teasing him to feed her, but he kept on dressing out his plumes.
Then she edged a little closer, and almost essayed to touch his majesty
with her pretty blue bill, but he sat with lordly composure quite
ignoring her existence till a blackbird bustled up, when they both
started nervously, and turning, sat demurely side by side on the limb,
the wind tilting their long tails.
A pair of bright orange orioles had a nest in the sycamore, though I
never should have known it had I not seen them go to it to feed their
young. It was a well shaded cradle surely, with its canopy of big green
leaves.
There were a good many hints to be had, first and last. A song sparrow
appeared and stood on a branch with its tail perked up in a
business-like way as if it had been feeding a brood. A wren came to the
tree,--a mere pinch of feathers in the giant sycamore,--and though I
lost sight of it, many a hollow up in the fourteenth story might have
afforded a home for the pretty dear without any one's being the wiser,
unless it were the bee-bird in the attic. A family of bush-tits flew
about in the sycamore top, looking like pin-heads in a grove of trees. A
black ph[oe]be sometimes lit on the fence posts under the branches--it
wanted to find a nesting place about the windmill in the opposite field,
I felt sure, though a boy had told me that the bird sometimes plastered
its nest onto the branches of the big tree itself. Besides all the rest,
rosy linnets and blue lazuli buntings made the old tree ring with their
musical roundelays.
One day when I rode down to the sycamore, the meadow bordering it was
full of haycocks, and a rabbit ran out from under one of them,
frightened by the clatter of Billy's hoofs. That morning the tree was
fairly alive with blackbirds and doves--what a deafening medley the
blackbirds made! In the fields near the sycamore flocks of redwings went
swinging over the tall gleaming mustard. This was a great place for
blackbirds, for the big tree was on the edge of the one piece of marsh
land in the valley, and they were quick to take advantage of its reeds
for nesting places.
The cienaga--as they called the swamp--was used as a pasture. It was
pleasant to look out upon, from under the branches of the great tree. A
group of horses stood in the shade of a cluster of oaks on the farther
side of it, while the cows, a beautiful herd of buff and white
Guernseys, waded through the swamp grass to drink near the sycamore, and
the blackbirds wound in and out among them. I had been in a dry land so
long it was hard to believe there was actual water in the marsh till I
saw it drip from their chins and heard the sucking sound as they
laboriously dragged their feet out of the mud--a noise that took me back
to eastern pastures, but sounded strangely unfamiliar here in this
rainless land. One of the pretty Guernseys with a white star in her
forehead strayed up under the tree, and the shadows of the leaves moved
over her as she raised her sensitive face to see who was there.
The son of the ranchman who owned the dairy--the one who invited me down
to see the play between his dog Romulus and the burrowing owl--said that
when herding cows by the sycamore he once caught sight of a coyote wolf.
He clapped his hands to send his dog, Romulus, after the wolf; and the
noise frightened the wild creature so that he started to run up the hill
across the road from the sycamore. Romulus followed hard at his heels
till they got well up the hillside, when the coyote felt that he was on
his own ground and turned on the dog, who fled back to his master with
his tail between his legs. The lad, clapping his hands, set the dog on
the coyote again, and this animated but bloodless performance was
repeated and kept up till both were tired out, the animals chasing each
other back and forth from the sycamore to the hillside with as much
energy and perhaps as much courage as was displayed by that historic
king of France who had five thousand men and--
"... marched them up a hill and then
He marched them down again."
On one side of the sycamore was a great wall of weeds higher than my
head when on horseback; a dense mass of yellow mustard, and fragrant
wild celery which was covered with delicate white bloom. I saw
blackbirds carrying material into this thicket, but as I had known of
neighbors' horses getting bitten by rattlesnakes among the high weeds,
did not think it worth while to wade around in it much for such common
birds as they. But one day, seeing a pair of rare blue grosbeaks fly
down into the tangle, I turned Billy right in after them, though holding
his head well up in consideration of the snakes. The birds vanished, so
we stood still to wait. Suddenly I heard a slight sound as of something
slipping through the weeds at Billy's feet, and looking down saw a snake
marked like a rattler; and as it slid by Billy's hoof I noticed with
horror that the end of its tail was blunt--the harmless gopher snake
that resembles the rattler has a tapering tail! I gazed at it
spellbound, but in the dim light could not make out whether it had
rattles or not. I had seen enough, however, and whipping up Billy was
out of those weeds in a hurry. Safely outside, I looked at my little
horse remorsefully--what if my desire to see a new nest had been the
cause of his getting a rattlesnake bite!
The next day when I went down to the sycamore a German was mowing there
with a pair of mules. He was a typical Rhinelander, with blue eyes and
long curling hair and beard, and as he drove he sang in a deep rich
voice one of the beautiful melodies of his fatherland. Screened by the
branches, I listened quite unmindful of my work till my reverie was
interrupted by the man's giving a harsh cry to his mules. It was only an
aside, however, for he dropped back into his song in the same rich
sympathetic voice.
In riding out from the tree on my way home, I saw that he was mowing
just where the snake had been, and warned him to be careful lest the
horses get bitten. At the word rattlesnake his blue eyes dilated, and he
assured me that he would be on his guard. Seeing my glasses and
note-book, he asked if I were studying birds. When told that I was, from
his seat on the mowing-machine he took off his hat and bowed with the
air of a lord, saying in broken English, "I am pleased to meet you!"--a
pleasant tribute to the profession. A few days later, on meeting him, he
asked if I had found the rattlesnake--he had killed it under the
sycamore and hung it on a branch for me to see.
As the memory of my morning rides down to the sycamore brings to mind
the wonderful freshness of California's fog-cleared skies, so my sunset
rides home from the great tree recall the peacefulness of the quiet
valley at twilight. One sunset stands out with peculiar distinctness. As
Mountain Billy turned from the sycamore marsh its leaning blades gleamed
in the evening light, and the sun warmed the sides of the line of buff
Guernseys wading in procession through the high swamp grass to their
out-door milking stand. Beyond, a load of hay was crossing the meadows
with sun on the reins and the pitchforks the men carried over their
shoulders; and beyond, at the head of the valley, the western canyons
were filled with golden haze, while the last shafts of yellow light
loitered over the apricot orchards below, where the tranquil birds were
singing their evening songs. Slowly the long shadows of the mountain
crept over orchard and vineyard until, finally, the sun rounded the last
peak and left our little valley in darkness.
X.
AMONG MY TENANTS.
THE first year I was in California the thought of the orchards that were
to be set out on my ranch appealed to me much less than what the place
already possessed. As an inheritance from the stream that came down in
spring through the Ughland canyon--past the homes of the little lover,
the gnatcatchers, the little prisoners, and the lazulis and blue
jays--there was a straggling line of old sycamores, full of birds'
nests; and a patch of weeds, wild mustard, and willows, which was a
capital shelter for wandering warblers; and a bright sunny spot always
ringing with songs.
So many houses were being put up without so much as a by-your-leave that
it was high time for an ornithological landlady to bestir herself and
look to her ornithological squatters; so, day after day I turned my
horse toward the ranch and spent the morning getting acquainted with my
tenants, riding along the shady line and making friendly calls at each
tree.
Half of the blackbirds who worked in the vineyard must have been
beholden to me for rent, I should judge by the jolly choruses of the
sable hordes moving about my treetops. There was a bee's nest in one of
the sycamores, and one day the buzzing mob 'took after me' so madly that
I had to whip up Canello and beat about with my hat to get clear of
them.
[Illustration: ALONG THE LINE OF SYCAMORES]
Another day, when we stopped under a sycamore, such a loud shrill
whistle sounded suddenly overhead that the horse started. A big bird in
black sat with feathers bristled up about him like a threatening raven,
croaking away sepulchrally directly overhead, bending down gazing at us
out of his yellow eyes as if to see how we took it. It was a laughable
sight. Blackbirds seem such human, humorous birds one can almost fancy
them playing such pranks just for the fun of it.
The blackbird colony was a busy one nesting-time. The builders would fly
down to the road to get material, stepping along quickly, looking from
side to side with an alert, business-like air, as if they knew just what
they wanted. Some of them used the button-balls to line their nests.
A pair had built in one of the round mats of mistletoe at the end of a
branch, and while looking at the nest one day I was amazed to see a
butcherbird come flying in a straight line toward it. He did not reach
his destination, for while still in air both blackbirds darted down at
him and drove him back faster than he had come. The guardian of the nest
escorted him almost home, and when the victorious pair were returning
they were joined by a noisy band of indignant members of the blackbird
clan.
I watched this attack with great interest, not knowing that shrikes were
concerned in blackbird matters, and also because it was welcome news
that one of these strange characters had rented a lot of me. I made a
note of the direction my outlaw tenant took when driven ignominiously
home, and at my earliest convenience called. Such cruel tales are told
of his cold-blooded way of impaling birds and beasts upon thorns and
barbed wires that one naturally looks upon him as a monster; but I found
that he, like many another villain, turns a gentle face to his nest.
He had pitched his tent on the farthest outpost of my ranch in a little
bunch of willows, weeds, and mustard--long since converted into a
well-kept prune orchard. The nest, which was a big round mass of sticks,
was inside the willows in a clump of dry stalks about six feet from the
ground. I had hardly found it before one of the builders swooped down to
it right before my eyes, with the hardihood of one who fears no man;
though it must be acknowledged that the shrikes, like other birds on the
ranch, were so used to grazing horses they quite naturally took me for a
cattle herder.
In this case Canello did not act as my ally. He had been quiet and
docile most of the morning, but now was hungry and saw some grass he
was bent on having, so took the bit in his teeth and made such an
obstinate fight that, before I had conquered him, the shrikes had left
the premises and my call was finished without my hosts.
On my next visit Canello behaved in more seemly manner, and permitted me
to see something of the ways of the maligned birds. You would not have
known them from any one else except for the remarkable stillness of
their neighborhood. Some finches flew overhead as if meaning to stop,
but saw the shrike and went on. I could hear the merry songs of the
assembly down in the sycamores, but not a bird lit while we were
there--the shrikes certainly have a bad name among their neighbors. They
had a proud bearing and an imperative manner, but seemed so gentle and
human in their domestic life that my prejudices were softened, as one's
generally are by near acquaintance, and I became really very fond of my
handsome tenants.
It looked as if the shrike fed his mate. At any rate, they worked
together and rested together, perching in lordly fashion high on the
willows overlooking their home. They did not object to observers when at
work. One day, when Canello's nose appeared by the nest, the builder
looked at him over her shoulder and then quietly slid off the nest,
flying up on her perch to wait till he should leave. It was a temptation
to keep her waiting some time, for the shrike's corner was a pleasant
place to linger in. The sea-breeze was so strong it turned the willow
leaves white side out, and the beautiful glistening mustard grew so high
there that when Canello walked into it, the golden blossoms waved over
our heads. We haunted the premises till the birds had finished their
framework, put in a lining of snow-white plant cotton, and had laid four
eggs.
But when getting to feel like an old friend of the family, on riding
down one day I found the nest lying in the dust of the road broken and
despoiled. It made me as unhappy as if the outlaws had been
unimpeachable bird citizens--which comes of knowing both sides of a
person's character! Do birds hand down traditions of ill luck? However
it may be, five years later I found the nest of a pair in a dark mat of
mistletoe at the end of a high oak branch, which was a much safer place
than the low willow.
While I was watching the first shrike family, Canello had two scares.
Once when we were standing still by the willow we heard what sounded
like a rattlesnake springing its rattle. The nervous horse pricked up
his ears, raised his head, and looked in the grass as if he saw snakes,
and though I succeeded in quieting him, when we went home he started at
every stick and was ready to shy at every shadow. Another morning he saw
a Mexican riding along by the vineyard, a man with a very dark face and
a red shirt. Canello acted much as he had when hearing the rattlesnake,
and did not quiet down till horse and rider were out of sight. The
ranchman told me he had been cruelly treated by the Mexican who broke
him, so perhaps it was another case of association of ideas.
East of the willows, and separated from them by the dark green mallows
and bright yellow California forget-me-nots, was the sycamore where the
shrike was driven off by the blackbirds. Here a little brown wren had
taken up her abode. The nest was in a dead limb with a lengthwise slit,
and a scoop at the end like an apple-corer, so when one of the wrens
flew down its hole with a stick, the twig stuck out of the crack as she
ran along with it. She quite won my heart by her frank way of meeting
her landlady. Instead of flying off, she looked me over and then quietly
sat down in her doorway to wait for her mate.
On the road to my sycamores was a deserted whitewashed adobe. The place
had become overgrown with weeds, vines, and bushes, and was taken
possession of by squirrels and birds. Nature had reclaimed it, covering
its ugly scars with garlands, and making it bloom under her tender
touch. One morning, as I rode by, a black ph[oe]be was perched on the
old adobe chimney of the little house, while his mate sat on the board
that covered the well, in a way that made it easy to jump to a
conclusion. When she flew up to the acacia beside the well and looked
down anxiously, I put the pair on my calling list. It did not take many
visits to prove my conclusion--there was a nest down in the well with
white eggs in it. The ph[oe]bes were most trustful birds, and not only
let Canello tramp around their yard, but when a pump was put down the
well, and water pumped up day by day, the brave parents, instead of
deserting their eggs, went on brooding as if nothing had happened.
[Illustration: Black Ph[oe]be.
(One half natural size.)]