Part 14

After August I saw nothing more of their mother. I have suspected that a boy down the street was to blame; his favorite plaything was an air-gun, and he had been caught shooting a brown thrasher shortly before. It seems to me the laws protecting song-birds ought to be taught in every school, and that children should be obliged to know that shooting song-birds or their young, or spoiling or stealing their eggs or nest, is a crime punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both.

Father Cardinal was seen tending the young faithfully until October. Then he suddenly turned on them. Whenever they followed him after that he drove them from him. The young found peanuts which I had chopped and scattered on the ground for them. But whenever Father found the young birds eating these nuts, he chased them away. Once a baby cardinal found a whole peanut. He bravely ventured to eat it, and in the attempt got the shell partly open. He was just picking a nut out, when his brother tried to snatch it from him. A struggle followed, during which the shell broke in two, and each contestant got a kernel. In November the young cardinals disappeared.

Father Cardinal’s persecution of his motherless children seemed unnatural, not to say cruel. Can it be that he tried thus to compel his young to seek their natural food, rather than to subsist on dainties furnished? Did he want to encourage them to become self-reliant and useful? Only on this theory can I account for his conduct.

Our cardinal was a widower for some weeks longer. Only a few times during that mild winter did he come to sleep on our porch, and on those occasions he came alone. Then a lady cardinal appeared, and she followed him persistently. But he wholly ignored her. Finally she began to carry food to him and to feed him. Whether this be a last resort of wooing in birddom, or not, I do not know. Anyhow, Mr. Cardinal relented. The next thing, he was seen to feed her whom he had treated so coolly. This was a pretty sure sign that the two had come to an understanding. Again the old log by the ravine was being visited for nesting material. Again all his songs rang out, and he added a new one. It seemed as if he were singing over and over:

“Come ^here come ^here Come ^here here here”

XII MY BIRD FAMILY

A great big family—that’s what my bird neighbors are to me. This large family is made up of smaller families. Let me set them all down in a row: There are the bluebirds, meadowlarks, killdeers, song sparrows, robins, purple martins, goldfinches, wrens, orioles, thrashers, thrushes, waxwings, flycatchers, pewee, phœbe, and the redheaded woodpecker. Oh, there is one more. I would by no means slight the humble chimney swift. When I hear that “Gitse gitse” twitter, then I know that they, too, have come. From early March when the first bluebird arrives, until late May when pewee comes, I am like a mother who waits at evening, unsatisfied until all her children are in for the night. When I hear the call of the latest comer, the sweet-voiced pewee, then I know that my absent ones have all returned.

Add to these the Bob Whites, the cardinals, bluejays, and flickers, who stay the year round, and the chickadees, nuthatches, downy and hairy woodpeckers, and juncos, who come in autumn to spend the winter, and you have my bird family, a wonderful family, of musicians, of workmen, of homemakers—fathers and mothers and children.

To me the ways of birds are more entertaining than the best play I have ever attended. They enact real life, not make-believes. Then, too, what music can be compared to the sunrise and sunset concerts of birds in springtime and in early summer? To know each singer by name adds much to the enjoyment.

The ways of birds are also wonderful, past finding out. Who can explain how they make their nests so pretty, when the only tools they have are beak and feet? Then, how gingerly they hide their nests, some with dainty curtains of leaves, others by blending colors! To find a bird’s nest always fills me with reverence. It is a little home, a sacred place to its owners. It shall be sacred to me. The mother-wit and father-wisdom that birds show in rearing their young and in protecting them from harm makes me believe that they do think and plan and reason out things much as we human beings do. The most wonderful thing about birds is the long journey that so many of them make every year, generally with several babies only a few months old in the family.

It has been proved that birds will return year after year to the same orchard, garden, yard, or porch. I know my birds by their actions. I do not need to tie bands on their legs to know them. When they return they visit all their familiar haunts, not cautiously as a stranger would, but boldly, and with the joyousness of those who have returned home after a long absence. They call to me as if they would say: “Here we are again! Are you still here, too?”

Then what curiosity they display when they find a new bath! How they fly over and around it, trying to satisfy themselves that it is a safe place to alight! What joy they express by their splashing!

It was while taking her bath that Mother Oriole was caught one day by the camera. Most wonderful to tell, her own babies whom she often brought with her took this picture. How did they do it? They tried to perch on the thread leading from the camera over to the house, where I sat waiting for Mrs. Oriole to come out of the water before taking her picture. The thread was not strong enough to hold the young birds. They went down with it, and in so doing snapped the spring which operated the shutter. This took the picture of Mother Oriole in the bath.

Those of my bird family who inhabit houses are sure every spring to find either some new houses, or their old ones cleaned and repaired.

I always keep two houses up for bluebirds, and several for wrens. It is pleasant to watch them make their choice, and after a fledging they can set up housekeeping again in the same house, or take another. My experience has been that birds become attached to a house where they have safely fledged a brood, and if it is promptly cleaned they will return to it, rather than try a new one. But I have known instances where a pair began a second nesting before the young of their first brood were fledged. In such a case an extra house is convenient.

My bluebird house is five by seven inches, and is so shaped as to afford depth. Sufficient height is secured by means of a gable roof; and a half-inch hole immediately under the roof affords ventilation.

The bluebird covers the floor of her house with grasses to the depth of about an inch and a half. Away back against the rear wall she makes the little hollow in which she lays her eggs. I make her entrance one inch and a half in diameter, and just below the middle front. While brooding she can look outside, and this affords her some diversion during that monotonous task. This certainly seemed to be what one bluebird aimed at who nested in Mrs. Daily’s wren house. The wad of grasses in that house reached clear up to the entrance, which was about four inches above the floor. Apparently this bird had tried to build her nest high enough so she could look outside.

Wrens always make a litter several inches high of twigs and other materials. In this litter they embed their nest of fine grasses and feathers. Hence I conclude that they want their entrance several inches above the floor, so that, on going in, they can walk over the litter and do not have to grope through it. Being small birds they need only a small house. After years of experimenting I have settled on five inches by seven for wrens also, but their house is so shaped as to afford height. The sides run up at the back to twelve inches. A half-inch hole high on each side affords ventilation. I make the entrance one inch and an eighth in diameter, just too small for the English sparrow, but large enough to serve some other small bird should no wrens come. A smaller entrance makes it difficult for wrens to get in their bulky nesting materials. My wrens raised three broods in their little house in the pear tree last summer.

A friend of mine bought a wren house which has a low entrance. Some wrens nested in it. One day Father Wren was very much excited, but no one could understand what was the trouble. The next day, believing that the wrens had fledged their young, my friend ordered the house to be cleaned. To her horror she found Mother Wren wedged in among the nesting, dead. The babies were dead in their nest. Evidently their increasing weight had settled the nesting materials so the mother could not get out any more and neither could Father Wren go in. Let this be a warning to all who make wren houses, to make the entrance several inches above the floor!

My houses for wrens and bluebirds are so made that they can be easily opened after use, and cleaned. The front on the wren house can be raised, that on the bluebird house lowered. By means of a screw eye, the front is securely closed while the house is in use.

Of late I have also used an open shelter. It consists of a tray about five inches square, roofed over, and serves two purposes. For winter use I fasten a small wire pocket on it, into which I put beef suet. Then I mount this shelter about five feet high on a tree. Around the trunk I fasten strings of peanuts; in the tray I keep shelled corn, of which cardinals are especially fond. The English sparrow does not care for the suet, and as he cannot manage the corn nor the peanuts, this feedery attracts only desirable birds. In March I remove the wire pocket, and mount the shelter a few feet higher, to serve as a nest shelter for robins. The roof will ward off heavy rains, which destroy so many robin’s nests. A similar shelter, if fastened in the shade on a wall, might attract phœbes.

When one starts out to make bird houses he should decide first of all what birds he wishes to attract by means of them. Booklets containing drawings and instructions for making houses for many kinds of house-nesting birds can be had free by addressing a postcard to the Biological Survey, Washington, D.C.

Whoever tries to attract birds should also protect them from storms, from their natural enemies, and from meddlesome people. Birds will sometimes reject a good house because it is not properly mounted, or because the location is objectionable. The boy and I visited a park lately where about a hundred bird houses had been put up, and but a few were said to be occupied. These houses were so constructed that, by turning a cleat underneath, the floor could be pulled down and out. If occupied, opening them in this way might have disturbed the nest. We visited twenty-five of these houses. All except two were mounted so low that the boy could reach them, some with ease, and turn those cleats. Only the two which he could not reach were occupied.

Some people have recommended tin cans as nest boxes for small birds. I have tried the tin can, carefully painted and placed in the shade. But, even with these precautions, I would discourage its use. People are so apt to forget about placing it in the shade! I have seen birds’ nests in tin cans with little skeletons embedded in them, the birds having been smothered by the intense heat which metal will store.

Enough wooden boxes are discarded by grocers, druggists, and other merchants to stock the country every year with bird houses. If our fathers and mothers will encourage the making of these discards into bird houses, shelters, and feederies, it will mark a step forward in bird protection.

Food houses should be protected so that other animals cannot mount and monopolize them, keeping the birds at bay. The red squirrel will do this unless the food tray is at least five feet above ground and the post well sheathed in tin.

My newest food house has the lid of a cheese box as tray and the top of a sugar barrel as roof. This flat surface is a handy place for a basin of water. In each of the four pillars supporting the roof is a hole, to be stuffed with suet, cheese, peanut butter, etc. My grocer saves the drippings from his peanut grinder for my birds, so there is no extravagance in giving them this dainty. Song sparrows and bluebirds like it as well as the woodpeckers. On the side of the tray I tack nesting material. So this food house, made out of waste materials, serves several uses. The boy liked it so well he patterned one after it for his birds.

Every autumn a lisping, whispered, dreamy bird song coming from some low elevation has puzzled me. The bird looked like the song sparrow, but this soft warble was so different from his spirited spring and summer songs that I could not believe my eyes. After repeated autumn entries in my notebook, “I see his heavy breastspot heave and swell, and his tail quiver as the song sparrow’s always does when he sings,” I was gratified to find my findings confirmed by another observer. The singer was the song sparrow.