Part 13

“‘In some places in the West and South, telegraph poles pass for miles through treeless plains and savannas. For lack of better perches, the Sparrow Hawks often use these poles for resting-places, from which they make short trips to pick up a grasshopper or mouse, which they carry back to their perch. At times, when grasshoppers are abundant, such a line of poles is pretty well occupied by these Hawks. In the vicinity of Washington, D.C., remarkable as it may appear to those who have not interested themselves specially in the matter, it is the exception not to find grasshoppers or crickets in the stomachs of the Sparrow hawks, even when killed during the months of January and February, unless the ground is covered with snow. It is wonderful how the birds can discover the half-concealed, semi-dormant insects, which in colour so closely resemble the ground or dry grass. Whether they are attracted by a slight movement, or distinguish the form of their prey as it sits motionless, is difficult to prove, but, in any case, the acuteness of their vision is of a character which we are unable to appreciate.

“‘In the spring, when new ground or meadow is broken by the plough, they often become very tame if not molested. They fly down, even alighting under the very horses, for an instant, in their endeavour to capture an unearthed mouse or insect.’”

“Aren’t there any _bad_ Hawks, then?” asked little Bobby, incredulously, for to him the cry of “Hawk!” and the sight of the hired man with the gun came together.

“Yes, Bobby, plenty of them, even hereabouts; the Sharp-shinned and the Chicken or Cooper’s Hawk, both of them flash out of the sky and pounce cruelly on both game- and song-birds. And, let me tell you all something, though I do not wish to kill any birds needlessly, yet I would not let any of these Hawks, useful or otherwise, nest or feed near Birdland, and I should have Jacob frighten them away with blank cartridges, because the very sight of them terrifies the beautiful song-birds that we love, and that trust us and confide in our protection.

“The little Screech Owls may play about if they will, but neither Crows, Jays, Hawks, nor English Sparrows can ever be welcome garden guests.”

Something to remember about Hawks and Owls.—_The female is always larger than the male!_

XIII TREE-TRUNK BIRDS

_Woodpeckers—Nuthatches and the Brown Creepers_

By the time November came in but few birds were to be seen about the schoolhouse at Foxes Corners. For until Gray Lady came, no one had taken an interest either in the appearance of the schoolbuilding itself or the ragged bit of ground upon which it stood. Now four sugar-maples had been transplanted from the near-by woods, and set where they would shade the windows in the warm days of early summer and fall and yet not interfere with winter sunshine; and Gray Lady had promised that by spring there should be some benches along the north fence, where there was shade from the white birches in the wood-lot beyond. That is, she had promised the wood for the benches and Jacob’s aid in their planning; for the rest, the boys were to do the work themselves, for after Thanksgiving four or five large boys would come to school,—Tommy Todd’s brother Everett, who was sixteen, and the two Judds, his cousins,—Walter, also sixteen, and Irving, fourteen,—being among them.

All of these boys knew something about the handling of tools, and, if they chose to join the Kind Hearts’ Club, would be valuable allies. Sometimes, however, big boys, even though they are not cruel, laugh at such societies, and so Gray Lady had made up her mind to let them ask to come to the class in the workroom as if it was a privilege they desired rather than as a favour to herself.

One bit of carpentry she asked Jacob to undertake, that no time should be lost, and that was the bird lunch-counter for the school grounds. As the flagpole was fastened to the schoolhouse, Jacob had utilized the gnarled stump of a half-dead wild-apple tree, the bark of which was seamed and scarred by the initials cut on it by many generations of scholars. Above the platform, to hold the crumbs and grain, he had fastened, between the two remaining branches, a slanting roof made of some old mossy shingles, and at the edge of this he had stuck half a dozen crooked spikes to hold bacon rind or suet or anything, like chicken bones, that might be left from the dinner-pails, as many of the children, owing to distance from home, always brought their lunch to school during the winter and spring terms.

This lunch-counter was in place when Gray Lady went to the school the first Friday afternoon in November, and she brought an additional surprise with her,—two pictures or charts that could be unrolled and hung on the wall like the great map.[2] Each of these charts held the pictures of some twenty-five birds done in colours and of natural size, and with each there was a little book telling about the birds.

The charts were to be lent to the five other schools in the township in turn, but the children at Foxes Corners were so delighted with them that they resolved that the first money that the Kind Hearts’ Club earned should go to buy other pairs of the charts, so that they could not only have some for their very own, but that the other schools, who had no Gray Lady for their fairy god-mother, could have them also.

After the first few weeks, Gray Lady found that it would be best, on the Fridays when she visited the school, simply to read to the children stories of the birds that they had either seen at Birdland or that they already knew by sight, from various books and magazines; as she had at her house so many books, pictures of birds, and the mounted birds themselves, that it was much easier for them to name unknown birds there than at school.

* * * * *

“The singing-birds have all gone,” said Sarah Barnes, the second Saturday of November, as she went to work upon the last piece of her doll’s outfit—the cloak for the Red Riding-Hood that she was dressing.

“We still have a Song Sparrow down in the meadow,” said Goldilocks, “and there are plenty of Bluebirds and Robins about, and Grackles and Cowbirds, but the Song Sparrow is the only one that pretends to sing a nice little song.”

“I guess we’ll have to go ahead to the spring birds or there won’t be anything to learn about until they come back,” chimed in Eliza Clausen, who was at work on a doll baby, and as her fingers were long and slender, she succeeded in hemming the fine lawn, of which the dress was made, very nicely.

“No birds?” said Gray Lady, raising her eyebrows. “Open the window nearest you, Sarah, and do both you and Eliza look out and listen.”

“I don’t see anything, and I only hear different kinds of squeaks,” said Eliza.

“I hear the squeaks,” said Sarah, “but I see a gray bird out here on the roof, with black on top of his head and white underneath, and he’s got a long beak and a short tail. Why, he’s just stuffed something that he had in his beak in between the shingles. Now he’s crying ‘quank-quank’ and flying toward the orchard.”

“That,” said Gray Lady, “is the White-breasted Nuthatch, one of our best winter friends, for though he summers with us, like the Chickadee and the Woodpeckers, it is not until the other birds have gone, and the trees are bare of leaves, that we really seem to see and appreciate him.

“This Nuthatch is one of the tree-trunk birds that you will learn to know so well, before winter is over, that you will never forget them; for, though they have no song to speak of, their cleverness and the good they do when other birds have gone more than make up for lack of music.”

“What do you mean by tree-trunk birds?” asked Clary; “I thought that birds liked leafy branches the best.”

“Most birds do prefer the leafy branches,” said Gray Lady; “that is why I call this little group, who do not, ‘tree-trunk birds,’ for all their little lives are spent so close to the heart of the wood that they seem almost to be parts of the tree.

“These birds not only make their nests in the wood itself by hollowing out partly decayed places in branch and trunk, but they gain the greater part of their food by searching the cracks in the tree bark for insects that live there, and which other birds, that spend their lives among the leafy twigs, cannot find.

“This quarrying food from the bark makes it possible for them to stay about the vicinity of their nesting-haunts all winter; for many forms of insect life winter in the bark crevices of forest as well as fruit trees where the eggs hatch out, and the larvae undergo transformation early in the season and begin to do mischief before the migrant birds return.

“If it were not for sleet storms, that cover the tree with a coating of ice for days at a time, these hardy, sociable little birds would be sure of a good living in a neighbourhood like this, with many orchards and strips of woodland. But when ice puts a lock on the pantry doors, what can the poor birds do?

“Owing to their frail structure and warm blood, they require more constant fuel to keep the life-fire alive than the four-footed animals, so that when hunger and cold travel hand in hand, they have to make a brave fight for life. For generations this freezing up has happened to them, and so, by experience, they have learned when food is plenty to try and save it up.

“The Nuthatch, that Sarah has just seen stowing something away under the shingles, is living very well at present. In spite of hard frost, wild food is plentiful; then, too, the lunch-counter is amply supplied with suet. The birds do not really need help as yet, but we put the food there so that they may know where to find it when hard times come.”

“I should think the lunch-counter, with lots of easy food, would make the birds lazy so’s they wouldn’t work for a living,” said Dave. “Pop says, feeding tramps everywhere only makes more folks turn tramp, so now he can’t get anybody to work at haying or wood-cutting for food and fair pay.”

“Ah, but that shows the difference between wild birds and what is called ‘civilized’ man,” said Gray Lady. “The Nuthatches do not sit still and gorge themselves, but are busy providing for the future. Yesterday, I saw one of these same birds packing away little bits of suet in a crevice under the roof of the side porch, and another using the thatch on the summer-house for a larder. So it would seem that they distribute the food in different places. If one cupboard is frozen up, one of the others may be in the sun.

“A pair of Nuthatches found that the cornice of the main roof, under the tin gutter, was in poor shape, and kindly called my attention to it by boring into the wood and nesting in the space within. Five little birds were hatched, and I believe that the party of seven, that are so tame and come about the house so freely, are the birds hatched in the cornice and their parents.”

“I shouldn’t think that you would like them to make holes in the house,” said Tommy, “for the water might get in and do lots of harm, just the same as Woodpeckers that make holes in the trees and spoil them.”

“That is where people make a mistake about these tree-trunk birds that bore holes, and think that they are mischievous and destructive, whereas they never pierce bark unless an insect lurks beneath, and when they bore a nest-hole in a tree, it is the same as saying to its owner, ‘See, this wood is dead; I am making use of what is otherwise useless to you and I will pay you rent by protecting your other trees from harm. If you watch well, you will see how many hairy caterpillars, birch-lice, and wood-boring beetles I will kill in the year.’”

“The gutter is all mended and painted now, so the Nuthatches can’t nest there next season, and I guess they will be very sorry,” said Clary, who had taken her turn at looking out the window.

“Yes, the cornice has been mended, but Jacob has hollowed out a bit of hickory branch with the bark on it, and has fastened it firmly under the cornice with screws, so that when the birds look up their home in spring, they will find a new one so close to the old place that I hope they will move into it. In fact, those pictures in the workroom, of bird-homes made of hollowed-out logs, were designed especially to attract these tree-trunk birds and their little companions, the Chickadees, who, though they search the twigs for food, love the trunk also, and nest in a wood hollow like the Woodpeckers, themselves.”

“He’s come back again, but he hasn’t brought suet this time; it’s some kind of a big seed that won’t stay in the shingle crack, so he’s pounding it in,” said Sarah, looking over Clary’s shoulder and dropping her sewing, so interested was she in the movements of the bird. “There, he’s going away and walking down the roof head first; I don’t see why he doesn’t slip and fall, the same as I did once when I tried to walk down the back stairs on my hands and knees head first, ’cause brother dared me.”

Gray Lady hurried to the window in time to see the Nuthatch give a final pound to the object that was wedged between the shingles. With her opera-glasses, she discovered that it was the empty shell of a beechnut.

“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.”

“Perhaps those were females,” said Sarah Barnes.

“Yes, the paler ones are the females and lack the red throat and sometimes the red head-feathers, also,” said Gray Lady, “for this bird is called the Sapsucker, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, because it has, as Bobby has told us, the bad habit of not only boring into trees for insects, but sucking the sap as well, and when a number of them are found together, of course, they are likely to do harm. Still, to my mind, the very worst that they do is to give a bad name to the family of the most industrious insect-eating birds that we have.