hopped about the nestling with tail up and crest raised, chattering to
it in low mysterious tones; and when I suspected her of giving her worm
to it, suddenly turned her head and looked away with a suspiciously
non-committal air. The lazuli, however, sat indifferently on a branch
and plumed her feathers, though when she did fly down toward the young
one, the wren-tit gave way. But even then the lazuli did not feed the
small bird. When she had gone, the wren-tit came back. She spoke low to
the nestling, and drew it down into the thick part of the tangle where I
could not see them, though there was a hint of tiny quivering wings, and
I was morally certain that the old bird was feeding it, especially when
she flew up in sight with the smart air of having outwitted me.
I was getting more and more bewildered. What did it all mean? Were there
two families of young down in the tangle? If not, why were two old birds
feeding one little one, and to which mother did the child belong? The
wisdom of Solomon was needed to solve the riddle.
The wren-tit simply devoted herself to the little bird, going and coming
for it constantly; while the lazuli, ordinarily the most nervous noisy
bird when her young are disturbed, sat around silently, or flew away
without remark. I became so impressed by the wren-tit side of the case
that I quite forgot the lazuli note and markings.
Just as I thought I had come to a decision in the case, a male lazuli
flew in, lighting atilt of an acacia stalk opposite the wren-tit. But
when he saw me he craned his neck and flew off in a hurry--no father,
surely, scared away at the first glimpse of me! However, I was not clear
in my mind, and sat down to puzzle the matter out.
At this juncture Madame Lazuli came with food; the young bird turned
toward her for it, and behold! she took to her wings with all she had
brought. I had hardly time to congratulate myself on this new piece of
testimony, when back came the lazuli with her bill full!
In my perplexity I moved so near the little one that, without meaning
to, I forced the old birds to show their true colors. The situation was
too dangerous to admit of further subterfuge. Both Madame Lazuli and her
handsome blue mate--whom I discovered at a safe distance up on a high
branch out of reach--flew down and dashed about, twitching their tails
from side to side as they cried "quit," in nervous tones; altogether
acting so much like anxious parents that I had to relinquish my theory
that the little bird belonged to the wren-tit. Like the mother whom
Solomon judged, she forgot all else when real danger threatened the
child. Having come to my decision from circumstantial evidence, I
remembered with a start that I had known it all the time, from the
wing-bars and the call note! Nevertheless, my riddle was only half
solved, for how about the wren-tit?
A young bird called from the sycamore at the corner of the adobe, and
when both old birds flew over to it, I thought I'd better follow. I got
there just in time to see a little bird light in the elbow of a limb,
totter as if going to fall, and save itself by snuggling up in the
elbow, where it sat in the sun looking very cozy and comfortable--winning
little tot. The mother lazuli started to come to it, but seeing me flew
away to another branch, where, well screened, she stretched up on her
toes to look at me over the top of a big sycamore leaf. Though the
fledgling called, the mother left without going to it.
The wren-tit had stayed behind at the well; but while the lazuli was
gone, who should come flying in but the foster mother! I was astonished.
Moreover, the instant the youngster set eyes on her, it started up and
flew to her--actually flew into her in its hurry. She admonished it
gently, in a soft chattering voice, for she could not scold it.
When the lazuli came back with food, it was only to see her little bird
flying off to the other side of the tree after the wren-tit! I thought
she seemed bewildered, but she followed in their wake--we all followed.
Here came a closer test. Both lazuli and wren-tit stood before the small
bird. Which would it go to? The lazuli kept silent, but the wren-tit
called softly and the little one raised its wings and flew toward her,
leaving its mother behind.
I watched and waited, but the wren-tit did not give over her kind
offices, and the last I saw of the birds, on riding away, the three were
flying in procession across the brush, the lazuli following its mother
and the wren-tit bringing up the rear.
I went home very much puzzled. Was the wren-tit a lonely mother bird who
had lost her own little ones, or was she merely an old maid with a warm
spot in her heart for other peoples' little folks?
XVIII.
A RARE BIRD.
WE may say that we care naught for the world and its ways, but most of
us are more or less tricked by the high-sounding titles of the mighty.
Even plain-thinking observers come under the same curse of Adam, and,
like the snobs who turn scornfully from Mr. Jones to hang upon the words
of Lord Higginbottom, will pass by a plain _brown chippie_ to study with
enthusiasm the ways of a _phainopepla_! Sometimes, however, in
ornithology as in the world, a name does cover more than its letters,
and we are duped into making some interesting discoveries as well as
learning some of the important lessons in life. In the case of the
phainopepla, no hopes that could be raised by his cognomen would equal
the rare pleasure afforded by a study of his unusual ways.
[Illustration: THE PHAINOPEPLAS ON THE PEPPER-TREE]
On my first visit to Twin Oaks I caught but brief glimpses of this
distinguished bird. Sometimes for a moment he lit on a bare limb and I
had a chance to admire his high black crest and glossy blue-black coat,
which with one more touch of color would become iridescent. He was so
slenderly formed, and his shining coat was so smooth and trim, he
made me think of a bird of glass perched on a tree. But while I gazed at
him he would launch into the air and wing his way high over the valley
to the hillsides beyond, leaving me to marvel at the white disks on his
wings, hidden when perching, but in air making him suggest a black ship
with white sails.
His appearance was so elegant and his ways so unusual that I went back
East regretting I had not given more time to a bird who was so
individual, and resolved that if I ever returned to California my first
pleasure should be to study him. When the time finally came, an
ornithologist friend who knew my plans wrote, exclaiming, "Do study the
phainopeplas!" and added that she felt like making a journey to
California to see that one bird.
From the middle of March till the middle of May I watched and waited for
the phainopeplas. There had been only a few of the birds before, and I
began to fear they had left the valley. When despairing of them,
suddenly one day I saw a black speck cross over to the hills. I wanted
to drop my work and follow, but went on with my rounds, and one bright
morning on my way home after a discouraging hunt for nests, a pair of
phainopeplas flew up right before my eyes almost within sight of the
house. I dropped down behind a bush, and in a moment more the birds flew
to a little oak by the road--a tree I had been sitting under that very
morning! The female seated herself on top of the oak, watching me with
raised crest, while her mate disappeared in a dark mat of leaves,
probably mistletoe, where he stayed so long that the possibility of a
nest waxed to a probability, and I made a rapid but ecstatic ascent to
the observer's seventh heaven. A phainopepla's nest right on my own
doorsill! I could hardly restrain my impatience, and was tempted to shoo
the birds away so I could go to the nest; when suddenly they opened
their wings and, crossing the valley, disappeared up a side canyon!
Pulling myself together and reflecting that I might have known better
than to imagine there would be a nest so near home, I took up my
camp-stool and trudged back to the house.
After that came a number of tantalizing hints. When watching the third
gnatcatcher's nest I had seen a pair of phainopeplas flying suggestively
back and forth from the brush to the various oaks, and thought the
handsome lover fed his mate as his relative the gentle high-bred waxwing
does. Surely the wooing of these beautiful birds should be carried on
with no less fine feeling, courtesy, and tenderness; and so it seems to
be. The black knight flew low over my head slowly, as if inspecting me,
and then came again with his lady, as if having said, "Dear one, I would
consult you upon this impending danger."
After that, something really delightful came about. Day by day, on
riding back to our ranch-house, I found phainopeplas there eating the
berries of the pepper-trees in our front yard. Before long the birds
began coming early in the morning; their voices were the first sounds we
heard on awakening and almost the last at night, and soon we realized
the delightful fact that our trees had become the feeding ground for all
the phainopeplas of the valley. Altogether there were five or six pairs.
It was a pretty sight to see the black satiny birds perched on one of
the delicate sprays of the willowy pepper-trees, hanging over the
grape-like clusters, to pluck the small pink berries. The birds soon
grew very friendly, and, though they gave a cry of warning when the cats
appeared, became so tame they would answer my calls and let me watch
them from the piazza steps, not a rod away.
When they first began to linger about the house we thought they were
building near, and when one flew into an oak across the road, almost
gave me palpitation of the heart by the suggestion. But no nest was
there, and when the bird flew away it rose obliquely into the air
perhaps a hundred feet, and then flew on evenly straight across to the
small oaks on the farther side of a patch of brush that remained in the
centre of the valley, known to the ranchmen as the 'Island.' The flight
looked so premeditated that the first thing the next morning, although
the phainopeplas were at the peppers, I rode on ahead to wait for them
at their nest. We had not been there long before hearing the familiar
warning call. Turning Billy in the direction of the sound, I threw his
reins on his neck to induce him to graze along the way and give our
presence a more casual air, while I looked up indifferently as if to
survey the landscape. To my delight the phainopepla did not seem greatly
alarmed, and, throwing off the assumed indifference that always makes an
observer feel like a wretched hypocrite, I called and whistled to him as
I had done at the house, to let him know that it was a familiar friend
and he had nothing to fear. The beautiful bird started toward me, but on
second thought retreated. I turned my back, but, to my chagrin, after
giving a few low warning calls, my bird vanished. Alas, for the
generations of murderers that have made birds distrust their best
friends--that make honest observers tremble for what may befall the
birds if they put trust in but one of the human species!
[Illustration: THE PHAINOPEPLA'S NEST IN THE OAK BRUSH ISLAND]
It was plain that if I would get a study of these rare birds I must make
a business of it. Slipping from the saddle, I sat down behind a bush and
waited. When the bird came back and found the place apparently deserted,
to my relief he seated himself on a twig and sang away as if nothing had
disturbed his serenity of spirit. But presently the warning call sounded
again. This time it was for a schoolgirl who had staked out her horse
on the edge of the island and was crossing over to the schoolhouse. A
few moments later the bell rang out so loudly that Billy stepped around
his oak with animation, but the phainopeplas were used to it and showed
no uneasiness.
Before long a flash of white announced a second bird, and then, after a
long interval in which nothing happened, the male pitched into a bush
with beak bristling with building material! My delight knew no bounds.
Instead of nesting in the top of an oak in a remote canyon, as I had
been assured the shy birds would do, here they were building in a low
oak not more than an eighth of a mile from the house, and in plain
sight. Moreover, they were birds who knew me at home, and so would
really be much less afraid than strangers, whatever airs they assumed.
In the photograph, the bare twigs of the perch tree show above the line
of the horizon; the nest tree is the low oak beside it on the right. One
thing puzzled me from the outset. While the male worked on the nest, the
female sat on the outside circle of brush as if having nothing to do, in
spite of the fact that her gray dress toned in so well with the brush
that she was quite inconspicuous, while his shining black coat made him
a clear mark from a distance. What did it mean? I invented all sorts of
fancies to account for it. Had she been to the pepper-trees so much
less than he that she was over-troubled by my presence, and therefore
the gallant black knight who sang to her so sweetly and was so tender of
her, seeing her fears, took the work upon himself? Perchance he had
said, "If you are timid, my love, I will build for you while she is by,
for I would not have you come near if it would disquiet you."
In any event, he built away quite unconcernedly not three rods from
where I sat on the ground staring at him. He would fly to the earth for
material, but return to the nest from above, pitching down to it as if
having nothing to hide. Once, when resting, he perched on the tree, and
I talked to him quite freely. That noon the phainopeplas were at the
house before me, and I went out to talk to them while they lunched to
let them know it was only I who had visited their nest, so they would
have new confidence on the morrow.
But on the morrow they flew to another part of the island, and when we
followed, although I hitched Billy farther away from the nest tree and
sat quietly behind a brush screen, they did not come back. A brown
chippie plumed his feathers unrebuked in their oak, making the place
seem more deserted than before. A lizard ran out from the grape cuttings
at my feet, and a little black and white mephitis cantered along over
the ground with his back arched and his head down. He nosed around under
the bushes, showing the white V on his back, exactly like that of our
eastern species. As I rode home, five turkey buzzards were flying low
over the edge of the island, and one vulture rose from a meal of one of
the little black and white animal's relatives, but I saw nothing more of
my birds that day.
The next day the phainopeplas came again to the pepper-trees and ate
their fill while I sat on the steps watching. The male was quite
unconcerned, but when his mate flew near me, he called out sharply; he
could risk his own life, but not that of his love. Again the pair flew
back to the high oaks on the far side of the island. All my hopes of the
first low inaccessible nest vanished. I had driven the birds away. My
intrusiveness had made me lose the best chance of the whole nesting
season. But I would try to follow them. It did not seem necessary to
take Billy. There were only a few trees on that side of the island, and
it would be a simple matter to locate the birds. I would walk over, find
in which tree they were building, and spend the morning with them. I
went. Each oak was encircled by a thick wall of brush, over which it was
almost impossible to see more than a fraction of the tree, and the high
oak tops were impenetrable to eye and glass. After chasing phantoms all
the afternoon I went home with renewed respect for Billy as an adjunct
to field work. In order to locate anything in chaparral, one must be
high enough to overlook the mass.
That afternoon I saw a pair of phainopeplas fly up a canyon on the east,
and another pair fly up another on the west. If I were to know anything
of these birds, I must not be balked by faulty observing; I must at
least do intelligent work. Riding in from the back and tying Billy out
of sight away from the old nest, I swung myself up into a crotch of a
low oak from which I could overlook the whole island. The phainopeplas
soon flew in, but to the opposite side, and I was condemning myself for
having driven them away when, to my amazement, the male flew over and
shot down into the little oak where he had been building before! My
self-reproach took a different form--I had not been patient enough.
Surely if I could wait an hour for an ordinary hummingbird, I could wait
a morning for an absent phainopepla.
From the nest the beautiful bird flew to the bare oak top behind it
which he used for a perch, and--alas! gave his warning call. I was
discovered. He dashed his tail, turned his head to look at me first from
one side and then from the other, and then flew to the top of the
highest tree in sight to verify his observations. Whether he recognized
the object as his pepper-tree acquaintance, I do not know; but to my
great relief he went back to his work. By this time the little tree
which had seemed such a comfortable chair had undergone a change--I felt
as if stretched upon the gridiron of St. Anthony. Climbing down stiffly,
I kneeled behind the brush and practiced focusing my glass on the nest
so that it would not catch the light and frighten the bird, when out he
flew from the nest and sat down facing me in broad daylight! He did not
say a word, but looked around abstractedly, as if hunting for material.
If he were so indifferent, perhaps it would be safe to creep nearer.
Following the paths trodden by the bare feet of the school children, and
spying and skulking, I crept into a good hiding-place about a rod from
the nest. The ground was covered with dead leaves, and I saw a
suggestive round hole--a very large rattlesnake had been killed a few
rods away the week before. I covered the hole with my cloak and then sat
down on the lid--nothing could come up while I was there, at all events.
The phainopepla worked busily for some time, flying rapidly back and
forth with material. Then came the warning cry. I drew in my note-book
from the sun so that it should not catch his eye, and waited. The hot
air grew hotter, beating down on my head. A big lizard wriggled over the
leaves, and I thought of my rattlesnake. Then Billy sneezed in a forced
way, as though to remind me not to go off without him. Growing
restless, I moved the bushes a little--they were so stiff they made a
very good chair-back if one got into the right position--when suddenly,
looking up I saw my phainopepla friend vault into the air from a bush
behind me, where, apparently, he had been sitting taking notes of his
own! What observers birds are, to be sure! The best of us have much to
learn from them.
But though the phainopepla was most watchful, he was open to conviction,
and he and his mate at last concluded that I meant them no harm.
Afterwards, when I moved, they both came and looked at me, but went
about their business quite unmindful of me.
As I had seen from the outset, the male did almost all the building.
When his spouse came in sight he burst out into a tender joyous love
song. She went to the nest now and again, but generally when she came it
was to sun herself on the bare perch tree, where she dressed her plumes
or merely sat with crest raised and her soft gray feathers fluffed about
her feet, while waiting for her mate to get leisure to take a run with
her.
When he had finished his stint and she was not about, he would take his
turn on the perch tree, his handsome glossy black coat shining in the
sun. If an unwitting neighbor lit on his tree he would flatten his
crest and dash down indignantly, but for the most part he perched
quietly except to make short sallies into the air for insects, sometimes
singing as he went; or he just warbled to himself contentedly, what
sounded like the chattering run of a swallow on the wing. One day we had
quite a conversation. His simplest call note was like the call of a
young robin, and while I answered him he gave his note seventeen times
in one minute, and eleven times in the next half minute.
The birds had a great variety of calls and songs, most of which were
vivacious and cheering and seemed attuned to the warmth and brightness
of the California sunshine. The quality of the love song was rich and
flute-like.
The male phainopepla seemed to enjoy life in general and his work in
particular. He frequently sang to himself when going for material; and
once, apparently, when on the nest. When he was building I could see his
black head move about between the leaves. Like the gnatcatchers, he used
only fine bits of material, but he did not drill them in as they did. He
merely laid them in, or at most wove them in gently. Now and then, as
the black head moved in front, the black tail would tilt up behind at
the back of the nest as if the bird were moulding; but there was
comparatively little of that. When completed, the nest was a soft felty
structure.
When working, the male would fly back and forth from the ground to the
nest, carrying his bits of plant stem, oak blossom, and other fine
stuff. He worked so rapidly that it kept me busy recording his visits.
He once went to the nest four times in four minutes; at another time,
seventeen times in a little over an hour. Sometimes he stayed only half
a minute; when he stayed three minutes, it was so unusual that I
recorded it. He worked spasmodically, however. One day he came seventeen
times in one hour, but during the next half hour came only five times.
The birds seemed to divide their mornings into quite regular periods.
When I awoke at half past five I would hear them at the pepper-trees
breakfasting; and some of them were generally there as late as eight
o'clock. From eight to ten they worked with a will, though the visits
usually fell off after half past nine. It was when working in this more
deliberate way that the male would go to his perch on an adjoining tree
and preen himself, catch flies, or sing between his visits. Once he sat
on the limb in front of the nest for nearly ten minutes. By ten o'clock
I found that I might as well go to watch other birds, as little would be
going on with the phainopeplas; and they often flew off for a lunch of
peppers.
Just as the island nest was about done--it was destroyed! I found it on
the ground under the tree. For a time I felt as if no nests could come
to anything; the number that had been destroyed during the season was
disheartening. It seemed as though I no sooner got interested in a
little family than its home was broken up. Sometimes I wondered how a
bird ever had courage to start a nest.
But though it was hard to reconcile myself to the destruction of the
phainopeplas' nest, I found others later. Altogether, I saw three pairs
of birds building, and in each case the male was doing most of the work.
Two of the nests I watched closely, watch and note-book in hand, in
order to determine the exact proportion of work done by each bird. One
nest was watched two hours and a half, during a period of five days, in
which time the male went to the nest twenty-seven times, the female,
only three. The other nest was watched seven hours and thirty-five
minutes, during a period of ten days, in which time the male was at the
nest fifty-seven times; the female, only eight. Taking the total for the
two nests: in ten hours and five minutes the male went to the nest
eighty-four times; the female, eleven. That is to say, the females made
only thirteen per cent of the visits. In reality, although they went to
the nest eleven times, the ratio of work might safely be reduced still
further; for in watching them I was convinced that, as a rule, they came
to the nest, not to build, but to inspect the building done by their
mates. Indeed, at one nest, I saw nothing to make me suspect that the
female did any of the work. Her coming was usually welcomed by a joyous
song, but once the evidence seemed to prove that she was driven away;
perhaps she was too free with her criticisms! In another case the work
was sadly interrupted by the presence of the visitor, for while she sat
in the nest her excited mate flew back and forth as if he had quite
forgotten the business in hand. Perhaps he was nervous, and wanted to
make sure what she was doing in the new house!