mishap tragedies desiccated vicinity
tragic vermin intolerable purgatory
comic couple cavity explosion
The life of birds is beset with dangers and mishaps of which we know
little. One day, in my walk, I came upon a goldfinch with the tip of one
wing securely fastened to the feathers of its back, by what appeared to be
the silk of some caterpillar. The bird, though uninjured, was completely
crippled, and could not fly a stroke. Its little body was hot and panting
in my hands as I carefully broke the fetter. Then it darted swiftly away
with a happy cry.
A record of all the accidents and tragedies of bird life for a single
season would show many curious incidents. A friend of mine opened his
box stove one fall to kindle a fire in it, when he beheld in the black
interior the desiccated forms of two bluebirds. The birds had probably
taken refuge in the chimney during some cold spring storm, and had come
down the pipe to the stove, from whence they were unable to ascend.
A peculiarly touching little incident of bird life occurred to a caged
canary. It laid some eggs, and was so carried away by its feelings that
it would offer food to the eggs, and chatter and twitter, trying, as it
seemed, to encourage them to eat. The incident is hardly tragic, neither
is it comic.
Certain birds nest in the vicinity of our houses and outbuildings, or even
in and upon them, for protection from their enemies, but they often thus
expose themselves to plague of the most deadly character.
I refer to the vermin with which their nests often swarm, and which kill
the young before they are fledged. In a state of nature this probably
never happens; at least I have never seen or heard of it happening to
nests placed in trees or under rocks. It is the curse of civilization
falling upon the birds which come too near man. The vermin is probably
conveyed to the nest in hen’s feathers, or in straws and hairs picked up
about the barn or henhouse. A robin’s nest will occasionally become an
intolerable nuisance from the swarms upon swarms of minute vermin with
which it is filled. The parent birds stem the tide as long as they can,
but are often compelled to leave the young to their terrible fate.
One season a phœbe bird built on a projecting stone under the eaves of the
house, and all appeared to go well till the young were nearly fledged,
when the nest suddenly became a bit of purgatory. The birds kept their
places till they could hold out no longer, when they leaped forth and fell
dead upon the ground.
After a delay of a week or more, during which I imagine the parent birds
purified themselves by every means known to them, the couple built another
nest a few yards from the first, and proceeded to rear a second brood;
but the new nest developed into the same bed of torment that the first
did, and the three young birds, nearly ready to fly, perished as they sat
within it. The parent birds then left the place.
I imagine the smaller birds have an enemy in our native white-footed
mouse, though I have not proof enough to convict him. But one season the
nest of a chickadee which I was observing was broken up in a position
where nothing but a mouse could have reached it. The bird had chosen a
cavity in the limb of an apple tree which stood but a few yards from the
house. The cavity was deep, and the entrance to it, which was ten feet
from the ground, was small.
Barely light enough was admitted to enable one to make out the number of
eggs, which was six, at the bottom of the dim interior. While one was
peering in and trying to get his head out of his own light, the bird would
startle him by a queer kind of puffing sound. She would not leave her nest
like most birds, but really tried to blow, or scare, the intruder away;
and after repeated experiments I could hardly refrain from jerking my head
back when that little explosion of sound came up from the dark interior.
One night the nest was harried. A slight trace of hair or fur at the
entrance led me to infer that some small animal was the robber.
A weasel might have done it, as they sometimes climb trees, but I doubt if
either a squirrel or a rat could have passed the entrance.
A pair of the least flycatchers, the bird which is a small edition of the
pewee, one season built their nest where I had them for many hours each
day under my observation. The nest was a very snug and compact structure
placed in the forks of a small maple about twelve feet from the ground.
The season before a red squirrel had harried the nest of a wood thrush in
this same tree, and I was apprehensive that he would serve the flycatchers
the same trick; so, as I sat with my book in a summerhouse near by, I kept
my loaded gun within easy reach.
One egg was laid, and the next morning, as I made my daily inspection
of the nest, only a fragment of its empty shell was to be found. This I
removed, mentally imprecating the rogue of a red squirrel. The birds were
much disturbed by the event, but after much inspection of it and many
consultations together, concluded, it seems, to try again.
Two more eggs were laid, when one day I heard the birds utter a sharp
cry, and on looking up I saw a cat-bird perched upon the rim of the nest,
hastily devouring the eggs. I soon regretted my precipitation in killing
her, because such interference is generally unwise. It turned out that she
had a nest of her own with five eggs in a spruce tree near my window.
Then this pair of little flycatchers did what I had never seen birds do
before: they pulled the nest to pieces and rebuilt it in a peach tree not
many rods away, where a brood was successfully reared. The nest was here
exposed to the direct rays of the noonday sun, and to shield her young
when the heat was greatest, the mother-bird would stand above them with
wings slightly spread, as other birds have been known to do under like
circumstances.