I
recognize honor innocent complimentary
assassin retorts bugaboo apparently
suspect thrush social intolerable
How surely the birds know their enemies! See how the wrens and robins and
bluebirds pursue and scold the cat, while they take little or no notice of
the dog! Even the swallow will fight the cat, and, relying too confidently
upon its powers of flight, sometimes swoops down so near to its enemy that
it is caught by a sudden stroke of the cat’s paw. The only case I know of
in which our small birds fail to recognize their enemy is furnished by the
shrike; apparently the little birds do not know that this modest-colored
bird is an assassin. At least, I have never seen them scold or molest him,
or utter any outcries at his presence, as they usually do at birds of prey.
But the birds have nearly all found out the trick of the jay, and when he
comes sneaking through the trees in May and June in quest of eggs, he is
quickly exposed and roundly abused. It is amusing to see the robins hustle
him out of the tree which holds their nest. They cry, “Thief! thief!” to
the top of their voices as they charge upon him, and the jay retorts in a
voice scarcely less complimentary as he makes off.
The jays have their enemies also, and need to keep an eye on their own
eggs. It would be interesting to know if jays ever rob jays, or crows
plunder crows; or is there honor among thieves even in the feathered
tribes? I suspect the jay is often punished by birds which are otherwise
innocent of nest robbing.
[Illustration]
One season I found a jay’s nest in a cedar on the side of a wooded ridge.
It held five eggs, every one of which had been punctured. Apparently
some bird had driven its sharp beak through their shells, with the sole
intention of destroying them, for no part of the contents of the eggs had
been removed. It looked like a case of revenge--as if some thrush or
warbler, whose nest had suffered at the hands of the jays, had watched its
opportunity, and had in this way retaliated upon its enemies. An egg for
an egg. The jays were lingering near, very demure and silent, and probably
ready to join a crusade against nest robbers.
The great bugaboo of the birds is the owl. The owl snatches them from
off their roosts at night, and gobbles up their eggs and young in their
nests. He is a veritable ogre to them, and his presence fills them with
consternation and alarm.
One season, to protect my early cherries, I placed a large stuffed owl
amid the branches of the tree. Such a racket as there instantly began
about my grounds is not pleasant to think upon. The orioles and robins
fairly “shrieked out their affright.” The news instantly spread in every
direction, and apparently every bird in town came to see that owl in the
cherry tree, and every bird took a cherry, so that I lost more fruit than
if I had left the owl indoors. With craning necks and horrified looks the
birds alighted upon the branches, and between their screams would snatch
off a cherry, as if the act was some relief to their feelings.
The chirp and chatter of the young of birds which build in concealed or
inclosed places, like the woodpeckers, the house wren, the high-hoe, the
oriole, etc., is in marked contrast to the silence of the fledgelings of
most birds that build open and exposed nests. The young of the sparrows,
warblers, flycatchers, thrushes, etc., never allow a sound to escape them;
and on the alarm note of their parents being heard, sit especially close
and motionless, while the young of chimney swallows, woodpeckers, and
orioles are very noisy.
The owl, I suspect, thrusts its leg into the cavities of woodpeckers and
into the pocket-like nest of the oriole, and clutches and brings forth the
birds in its talons. In one case, a screech owl had thrust its claw into a
cavity in a tree, and grasped the head of a red-headed woodpecker; being
apparently unable to draw its prey forth, it had thrust its own round head
into the hole, and in some way became fixed there, and had thus died with
the woodpecker in its talons.