Part 8

The boy had seen how I put out strings and cotton and chicken feathers, for the birds’ nestings, and he had fixed up a “store”—as he called it—on a tree, where they could “buy without money.” Every little while a goldfinch came and got some string. Always on coming he sang out, “Perchikatee,” as if to say, “By your leave.” Downy woodpeckers, chickadees, and nuthatches were there at this time of the year, although ordinarily they are seen only in winter and early spring.

The boy said it was the ravine, with its trees and thickets and tangles, that attracted so many birds. He was always praising that ravine. He thought so much of it that he had asked the neighbors not to throw rubbish down there, and not to disturb the underbrush, which shelters so many birds. He had also asked them please to keep their cats indoors at night, because so many birds had nests and helpless little ones on the ground, or in low bushes.

“Mother put me up to that,” he said; and added, “we are trying to keep that ravine as a sanctuary for birds, where they and their little ones can be safe.”

Another thing that attracted birds to that place was a mulberry tree. Though only two years old, it was bearing fruit and was visited by robins, orioles, thrashers, and redheaded woodpeckers.

The boy had so many kinds of birds never seen near our place that I began to wish I, too, could live on a farm and have so many more of these charming neighbors.

A storm came up. Soon the shallow places in a cornfield near by were turned into puddles. The baby martins that had been lounging on the porch went inside. The old ones came flying home in a hurry. We went to the garden house, which the boy had fitted up as a workshop because he didn’t like to deprive his mother any longer of her little storeroom. When it stopped raining the sun came out and the clean earth fairly glistened. A flock of robins came to hunt for worms in the drenched field. Some bathed in the puddles. It was amusing to watch them chase one away if he stayed in long.

As we were enjoying the robins, the boy’s mother called out: “Come here, you bird people, and see what has happened.” She took us to the living room and told us to listen at the chimney. A rasping twitter came from within.

“It must be those chimney swallows,” guessed the boy.

He stepped upon a chair and took off the chimney cap. There, scrambling around in soot, were some black looking birds.

“One, two, three, four,” he counted, as he reached in and handed them out on a newspaper.

Three were young birds, and one was an adult bird with long wings. Their nest was also there. The heavy rain had loosened it and made it fall.

The little ones screeched in chorus, and tried constantly to get hold of something with their claws. The older bird gave no sound at all. She seemed to be hurt. We called her the mother.

The lady looked at their little nest. Then she went and fetched a basket, and, as soon as the birds were removed to it, they began to clamber up the sides. When they got to the top, where they could hang at full length, they stopped their screeching. Only now and then they still gave a rasping sound. Perhaps they were hungry, and scolded because nobody brought them any food. Some crossed over the rim of the basket and tried the other side.

I stayed there the rest of the afternoon. Every ten or fifteen minutes the little birds gave a call, like, “Gitse gitse.” Thinking that they must be almost choked with the soot, I tried to give them water, but they would not open their bills. I forced them open with a manicure stick, and gave them a drop at a time. They swallowed it when it was dropped far down in their throats; otherwise they would jerk their heads and throw it out.

I also moistened a cracker with some egg yolk, and mixed into it about fifty flies out of the flytrap; then tried to feed the birds with the little stick. By prying up their upper mandible I got some flies down each bird’s throat. The lower mandible was very soft and would not bear handling.

I became so attached to these birds, I hated to leave them, but the time came for me to go home. The boy and his mother seemed distressed at the prospect of having birds as boarders. There was canning to do, besides cooking for extra farm hands; and Laddie had to help his father with the haying,—so his mother said.

I offered to take the birds and do the best I could with them, if the lad was willing. He was; so I took the birds and the nest with me in the little basket, which was their temporary home.

VII THE CHIMNEY SWIFTS

The correct name of these birds whose home life was so rudely broken up is chimney swift. According to the bird books, they have been known to fly a thousand miles in a day, and they live in chimneys. Could any name fit them better? Chimney swifts are sometimes called swallows, probably because they resemble them somewhat, and twitter like swallows. But they are not swallows at all.

I thought if the birds could have their nest near them, it would seem more like home to them. It was a tiny nest, a bracket made of twigs which were woven together basket fashion and tightly glued. I have preserved it as an art treasure. On each side is a flat, gluey extension. Wetting this extension made it sticky; but it would not stick to the rough surface of the small basket. I laid it on the smooth surface inside a peach basket and put weights on it. When it became dry, the nest was stuck fast.

Then I transferred the swifts from the small basket, which had been their temporary home, to the peach basket. They perched around the nest. One of these babies was put to rest in the nest, but he did not stay there long. They all clambered up to the edge and from time to time they changed places, sometimes crossing over the edge of the basket from one side to the other.

It was fortunate that this happened during my vacation, because the care of a baby bird demands much time. He has to be fed regularly and often. Having several birds to feed is about enough to take up all one’s time.

If they only had opened their bills when they were hungry, it would have been much easier to feed these swifts. Their very short but wide bills had to be pried open every time and the food poked down their throats. I tried to feed them every fifteen or twenty minutes. It took so long to feed each one, that usually, by the time I had finished with number four, it was necessary to begin feeding number one again.

The food I gave them was bread soaked in warm milk, with plenty of flies mixed in. For a change I mixed the bread with a raw yolk. I gave them warm water occasionally. It seemed to me they needed it after having come through that mass of soot.

At the end of the first day the young were as chipper and bright as any young birds. Instead of screeching they began to twitter, “Gitse gitse.” The mother was very still. She did not seem to care for her babies at all, and did not go near to keep them warm. She just hung in the one position. Several times she tried to fly, but she could only fly a few feet; then she fell to the floor.

During the second day the young seemed to be doing well. They preened themselves, and their blackish breasts were changed to gray. It was a cool day, and I set the basket where the sun would shine on the birds. They fluffed their feathers as if they enjoyed the warmth. Once in a while one tried to fly, but he always fluttered to the ground and had to be brought back. The mother tried her wings again and again. She got so she could fly a little farther at every attempt, before she went to the ground. At about five o’clock she flew far enough to get out of sight.

All the next day I kept the peach basket with these swifts in it outdoors, hoping the mother would return and feed them. But she did not return.

On the following day these birds began to look feeble. I went to the telephone and called up a gentleman who is an authority on birds, and asked him what I should do. He said the main thing was to keep the birds evenly warm; that more young birds die from chill than from hunger. To revive them he said I should put a few drops of whiskey in a glass of water and give them each a few drops; then I should try to get them some gnats, or a grub from the garden, mince it well, and feed it to them. Flies, he said, had not much nourishment in them.