Part 34

“This little bird has been kind enough to write the meaning of its singular name here on the roof, evidently for the benefit of the Kind Hearts’ Club, for I have been expecting that some of you would ask from what the term ‘Nuthatch’ came.”

“I thought it was a funny name, but then lots of birds’ names seem queer, until you hear about them,” said Eliza Clausen.

“This bird is very fond of nuts,” continued Gray Lady, “not the very hard ones like butternuts, but the smaller acorns, chestnuts, and especially the little three-cornered beechnuts, with the sweet meat. Having no teeth to crack them like a squirrel, and not being able to use his beak for a nutcracker, he wedges the nut fast and then uses his sharp, strong bill for a hatchet and hatches the nut open; by this he has earned his name, ‘Nuthatch.’

“There is another name that Goldilocks once gave him that is quite as good, and that would remind you of him wherever you hear it,—the ‘Upside-down’ bird!—for what other bird that you know can climb about as he does?”

“Woodpeckers do,” cried Tommy and Dave, together.

“Yes, and there’s another bird, little and brown and striped, that’s only here in winter and goes up and down all over the tree-trunks. I saw one this morning when I was coming up,” said Sarah, “and I guess Chickadees can go upside down, too, for I saw one hanging on to a fir cone yesterday, and it was head down.”

Gray Lady laughed. “You all doubtless think that all these other birds climb like the Nuthatch, but this is a case of wrong seeing, which is simply another form of not really paying attention; for not one of them walks upside down in the same way. Hear what one of our poets says of this:—

TO A NUTHATCH

Shrewd little hunter of woods all gray, Whom I meet on my walk of a winter day, You’re busy inspecting each cranny and hole In the ragged bark of yon hickory bole; You, intent on your task, and I, on the law Of your wonderful head and gymnastic claw!

The Woodpecker well may despair of this feat— Only the fly with you can compete. So much is clear; but I fain would know How you can so reckless and fearless go, Head upward, head downward, all one to you, Zenith and nadir the same to your view.

—Edith M. Thomas, in Bird-Lore.

Even the woodpeckers, supplied, as they are, with a reversed toe and a stiff, supporting tail, cannot compete with the Nuthatches in descending head first. The Woodpecker, in going down the trunk, finds itself in the same predicament as the bear,—its climbing tools work only one way. It is dependent on its stiff tail for support, and so must needs hop down backwards. The Creeper is still more hidebound in its habits, and its motto seems to be “Excelsior.” It begins at the foot of its ladder, and climbs ever upwards. But the climbing ability of the Nuthatch is unlimited. It circles round the branches, or moves up, down, and around the trunks, apparently oblivious to the law of gravitation. Its readiness in descending topsyturvy is due, in part, to the fact that, as the quills of its tail are not stiff enough to afford support, it is obliged to depend upon its legs and feet. As it has on each foot three toes in front and only one behind, it reverses the position of one foot in going head downward, throwing it out sidewise and backward, so that the three long claws on the three front toes grip the bark and keep the bird from falling forward. The other foot is thrown forward, and thus, with feet far apart, the “little gymnast has a wide base beneath him.” The Nuthatch not only straddles in going down the tree, but spreads its legs widely in going around the trunk, but bird artists generally seem to have overlooked this habit. The slightly upturned bill of the Nuthatch, and its habit of hanging upside down, give it an advantage when in the act of prying off scales of bark, under which many noxious insects are secreted.

—E. H. Forbush.

“The little, brown-striped bird that Sarah saw this morning, that somewhat resembles a Wren, is the Brown Creeper, for it creeps like a veritable feathered mouse. Though it is a true tree-trunk bird, in that it lives and nests as close to the heart of wood as possible, it has a slender needle-like bill for picking out insects; but it cannot bore wood with it, so it has to be content to make its home between the wood and the bark.

“This bird comes to us in middle New England only as a winter visitor, and well does it pay its way by eating grubs and insect eggs. It does not seem very shy, hereabouts, but in the nesting time it loves deep, silent forests and the cedar swamps of the North, and it is only in these places that its strange, sweet song may be heard, which is something that I have never heard successfully imitated or put into syllables, but Mr. Brewster, who is one of the Wise Men who knows, says it is like the soft sigh of the wind among the pine boughs.

“It is in these deep woods, also, that it nests. Discovering a tree where the bark is loose and yet does not strip off too easily, this little Creeper finds a nook of the right size, which he lines with soft bark, moss, or bits of wood so thoroughly decayed that it is like sponge, and in this bed are laid six or eight pretty little lavender eggs with brown spots wreathed about the larger end.

“When the Creeper comes to us, he has evidently forgotten home and family cares as well as his beautiful song, for he only favours us with a very scratchy squeak, as if a file at work on a wire and a couple of crossed tree branches were striving to see which could sing the better. But he is as busy as busy can be, and acts as if he were practising for a race in climbing the stairs of a lighthouse tower.

“At the bottom of the tree, he starts and goes up and around without a pause until he is two-thirds of the way up and the more frequent branches bother him. Then he stops a moment to rest, bracketing himself against the tree by the sharp point of his tail-feathers, which arrangement he possesses in common with the Chimney Swift and the Woodpeckers. Next, without warning, he flits with a backward tilt either to the base of another tree, or to the same one, and again begins to climb; so for him the Stair-climber would be a good name.

“He, also, when the trees are ice-plated, will come gladly to the lunch-counter, I know, for as a girl, long before I left home, this Creeper used to feed upon the scraps that I put upon my window-ledge; for, though people here have been feeding birds in winter this long while, it has only been since the Wise Men have told us of the particular needs of each bird family that we have been able to do it intelligently, and to the best advantage.

“There are some verses in my scrap-book about this tree-trunk bird, also, and it seems as if our poets were very fond of these songless birds who inspire them as much by their friendliness as the others do by melody. I hope that a couple of you will learn this to recite at Christmas. As there are four verses, each can learn two, and then alternate in repeating them.

THE LITTLE BROWN CREEPER

“Although I’m a bird, I give you my word That seldom you’ll know me to fly; For I have a notion about locomotion, The little Brown Creeper am I, Dear little Brown Creeper am I.

“Beginning below, I search as I go The trunk and the limbs of a tree, For a fly or a slug, a beetle or bug; They’re better than candy for me, Far better than candy for me.

“When people are nigh I’m apt to be shy, And say to myself, ‘I will hide,’ Continue my creeping, but carefully keeping Away on the opposite side, Well around on the opposite side.

“Yet sometimes I peek while I play hide-and-seek If you’re nice I shall wish to see you; I’ll make a faint sound and come quite around And creep like a mouse in full view, Very much like a mouse to your view.”

—Garrett Newkirk, in Bird-Lore.

“I guess I know what the other tree-trunk birds are, Gray Lady; they’re Woodpeckers,” said little Bobby, who seemed to have grown taller and broader ever since the day that Jacob had put a jack-knife in his hand and taught him to carve a wooden spoon, and he felt himself to be a full-fledged boy.

“Some Woodpeckers are pretty bad, though, ’cause grandpa caught a whole bunch of ’em early last spring sucking the juice out of the apple trees in the young orchard, and Uncle Bill, over the mountain, said they did the same to his sugar-maples. I saw what they did, myself, and you can see, too, if you stop up at our house some time when you are passing, for the marks are there,—little round holes, all in rows so as they make squares like the peppery holey plasters grandma wears for a lame back. They were awfully pretty birds, too—all red on the head and neck, and black and white speckled on top, and yellow underneath, and black across the front. I had a good chance to see it, ’cause grandpop was hoppin’ mad and tried to shoot them, and he did get one of the prettiest of them all. Some of them that were on the apple tree didn’t have so many colours in their feathers.”