Part 24

“When the young were first observed, they were absolutely naked, without the suggestion of a feather, and, unlike most young birds, showed no plumage of any kind until the regular final feathering, which was the same as that of the adult, began to appear. The growth of the birds was remarkably slow, and even when nine days old the feathers were just beginning to push through their tiny sheaths, but so distinctly showed their markings that I was able to distinguish the sexes by the colouring of the bands on the chest. They did not open their mouths in the usual manner for food, but tried to pick up small objects from the ground, and one got another by his foot, as the picture shows. I took two other photographs the same day, showing several birds searching on the ground with their bills, as if they were already used to this manner of feeding.

“When the birds were sixteen days old, they had begun to look like formidable Kingfishers, with more shapely bills and crests, but as yet they evidently knew no use for their wings. They showed little temper, though they appeared to be somewhat surprised at being disturbed.

“My next visit to the hole in the bank was when the birds were twenty-three days old, and, to ascertain whether they were still at home, I poked into the entrance of the hole a long, thin twig, which was quickly accepted by quite a strong bite. Taking the precaution to stop the hole with a good-sized stone, I proceeded to my digging for the last time on the top of the bank. This time I found the chamber had been moved, and I had some difficulty in locating it about a foot higher up and about the same distance to one side. The old birds had evidently discovered my imperfectly closed back door, and either mistrusted its security, or else a heavy rain had soaked down into the loosened earth and caused them to make alterations. They had completely closed up the old chamber and packed it tightly with earth and disgorged fish bones.

“The skill with which they met this emergency was of unusual interest, showing again the ingenuity and general intelligence which so often surprises us in the study of birds. Their home was kept perfectly clean by its constant caretaker. One of the full-grown birds, with every feather, as far as I could see, entirely developed, sat just long enough for me to photograph him, and then flew from the branch where I had placed him, down the stream, and out of sight, loudly chattering like an old bird. One more bird performed the same feat, but before I was able to get him on my plate. The rest I left in the nest, and no doubt they were all in the open air that warm, sunny day, before nightfall.

* * * * *

“It happens that but few of us may look into a Kingfisher’s home as Mr. Baily did, but it is very pleasant to know where this dashing bird goes when, on securing a fish, instead of swallowing it, he seems to dive, drop into the water, and disappear, when in reality he is taking his prey home to the nest.

“We must be content to enjoy the Kingfisher as a feature in the landscape, as the centre of a picture of woods, pond, or river, to which he gives the needful touch of life. The river scenery of March is lifeless and dreary, for, if the snow has melted and the ice broken up, the bushes alongshore are beaten down by the storms of winter or partly submerged by the spring freshets. Here and there, in sunny spots on the low shore, we may see the purple-pointed hood and bright green leaves of the skunk-cabbage, but if a Kingfisher is perching on a dead branch overhanging the water, crest erect, gazing into the water and on the alert for a fish to pass, the scene at once becomes full of interest. Of course the Kingfisher, as his name implies, is above all a fisherman, and complaints come sometimes from those who are stocking ponds and rivers with fish, and who object to his taking his tithe, but when pressed by hunger through the sudden skimming of their hunting ponds with ice in early winter, he has been known to eat berries of many kinds, and in time of drought when streams run low or dry up entirely, the Kingfisher will feed upon beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, frogs, lizards, etc. But here in the East, at any rate, the bird is not plentiful enough to be a danger to the fishing industry.”

“I’ve seen a Kingfisher fishing in the salt-water creek that goes into the bay. We camped right there on the point last summer,” said Tommy. “He must have lived up the river somewhere, for he used to come down early in the morning, and stay about all day, and I suppose he must have got through feeding his children, for it was along in August. I never saw but one,—the male, I guess, because it didn’t have any brown on its breast like what there is in the picture of the female.

“It was great fun to watch him. One day the rest all went off fishing to Middle Ground Light, and I stayed at home because I’d cut my finger with a fish-hook, and it hurt a lot, and the Doctor made me keep it soaking in medicine, so I just lay in the sand under the shady side of the tent, only moving enough to keep out of the sun, and watched out.

“When the Kingfisher first came, the tide was just turned and beginning to rush out of the creek like everything. Mr. Fisherman sat on a tall post that we tie the boats up to at night. It was close to the water, not where the strong current was, but a little to one side, where it was more still. He did pretty well for a while; the fish looked small, and he swallowed ’em without wriggling his throat so very much.

“One thing he did was very funny; he didn’t dive right down from the post after the fish, but he took a little fly up first and then folded his wings to his sides and dropped right in beak first, same as we fellows do when we jump off the spring board dad rigged to a raft and then dive. I couldn’t make out whether he always did it, or if it was because the post was too near the water.

“After a little, the water went down so that the post wasn’t near enough to the water; then what did he do but shift over to the bowsprit of an old oyster boat that was wrecked and half buried in the sand, right in the bank just inside the creek; this gave him a fine perch right over the channel. When he saw that there was no one about, he sort of settled down, and looking at him so long made me lazy, and I guess I fell asleep and didn’t see him dive, because the next thing I knew, there was the Kingfisher back on the perch, but he had an eel in his beak instead of a fish.

“Say, Gray Lady, did you ever try to hold an eel in your fingers, without rubbing wet sand on them first? Well, you should have seen that bird twist and flop about. It was only a little eel, not any bigger than a pencil, but, oh my!” And Tommy laughed heartily at the very memory of the fray.

“Kingfisher couldn’t stick to the perch, so he dropped right on to a piece of the deck of the boat that wasn’t buried, and began to beat the eel on the wood and dance about. The eel squirmed so, it didn’t hit often, and it acted as if it had legs and was dancing too. When the fun began, the bird had the eel about in the middle, but it pulled away until one end was longer than the other, and that made it harder to hold.”

“Which was the head end, the one that hung down?” asked Eliza, who always insisted on precise details.

“I didn’t know then,” said Tommy; “I couldn’t see, and it didn’t keep still long enough for me to ask!

“At last Kingfisher gave the eel a good bang, and it didn’t squirm so much (then I knew the head must have been on the long piece because it wouldn’t have hurt its tail), and the bird began to swallow and work his throat, just like when a snake begins to work a toad down. Once or twice he stopped, and I thought that he was going to choke and keel over. He didn’t, though, but after it was all down, he looked real sorry and uncomfortable and his feathers laid down almost flat to his head, and he crouched there on the boat quite a while before he flew up creek and didn’t fish any more that day.

“Maybe he’d never caught a salt-water eel before, and didn’t know how lively they are; you can’t measure them by mud eels out of still water any more’n you can match snakes with ground-worms.”

THE KINGFISHER

He laughs by the summer stream Where the lilies nod and dream, As through the sheen of water cool and clear He sees the chub and sunfish cutting shear.

His are resplendent eyes; His mien is kingliwise; And down the March wind rides he like a king With more than royal purple on his wing.

His palace is the brake Where the rushes shine and shake; His music is the murmur of the stream, And the leaf-rustle where the lilies dream.

Such life as his would be A more than heaven to me; All sun, all bloom, all happy weather, All joys bound in a sheaf together.

No wonder he laughs so loud! No wonder he looks so proud! There are great kings would give their royalty To have one day of his felicity!

—Maurice Thompson.

“The very name of Phœbe calls us from the Red-wing in the marsh meadows and the Kingfisher by the waterways and brings us home again. Not only within the home acres, but close to the house, barns, and woodshed, for has she not been living in and about them quite as long as we have, or even longer? There was a Phœbe who always built her first nest on the deep sill of the dormer-window of the store-closet, and her second in the bracket that supports the hood of the north window in the guest-room.

“She was not very tidy about her work of nest-building (it seems more natural to call the Phœbe _she_ than _he_), but then, it must be very difficult to make a nest with a high foundation of crumbling moss and mud, with hairs and grass for a lining, without spilling some of the nesting material. My mother used to grumble about having the store-room window-sill remain in such a litter for so long, but she never disturbed the nest, even by brushing away the loose moss, and almost every day she would look through the window to see how the eggs or young were faring, and I thought it a great privilege to be allowed to go to the store-room and sit quite still inside the closed window and watch the Phœbe’s housekeeping.

“It was in this way that I first learned how the bird stands up in the nest and turns the white eggs over with its feet so that they may be evenly warmed through; how the young are fed and the droppings removed from the nest so that it need not become foul.

“In spite of great care and constant bathing, for Phœbe is very fond of a bath and was always a great patron of the log water-trough, the puddles that gathered in the gutter after rain, and upon occasion would dash into the bucket that always stood under the well-spout, the poor bird suffers greatly from insect parasites. The reason for this I cannot tell, unless it is that the foundation of the nest is so light and spongy on account of the moss, that the air does not pass through and the lice breed freely. One thing I remember, however, is that as soon as the birds had flown, mother always removed the empty nest and had its resting-place thoroughly cleansed.

“This is not so apt to happen when the bird chooses a fresh location and makes a new nest for a second brood, but upon the only occasion that the window-sill nest was used twice in a season, the lice crawled through the window-frame into the house, and of the second brood, only one lived to fly, and he was a miserable, emaciated little thing, so badly did the lice beset the young birds. After that, mother always gave them a hint that a new nest was best by making it impossible for them to use the old one.”

“I should think the Phœbes might have got mad and gone away for good,” said Sarah Barnes.

“No; they either understood that mother’s intentions were good, or else they appreciated the comfort and cleanliness of the new nest, for their children and grandchildren have occupied the two sites ever since, and this summer when I stood inside the store-room window showing the nest to Goldilocks, bird and nest were just the same as when my mother stood there by me.

“That is why the everyday birds that live about our homes are so precious and should be so carefully guarded. We never see them grow old, and so they help us to keep young in heart.

“Phœbe belongs to a very important family, that of the Flycatchers, songless birds with call-notes that are distinctive; these take their food upon the wing, diving from a perch into the air for it as the Kingfisher dives into the water for his. In this way the flycatchers are among the most valuable of the Sky Sweepers.

“Among Phœbe’s cousins you will find the _Kingbird_, who wears a slate-coloured coat and white vest, a crest on his head, and a white band on the end of his tail by which you may know him, as he sits on a fence rail, stump, or even on a tall mullen stalk and sallies out into the air, crying a shrill ‘Kyrie-Kyrie!’ The Great Crested Flycatcher, with an olive-brown coat, gray throat, and yellow belly, who builds in a tree hole well above the ground, and uses dried snake skins among his materials when he can get them, is another relative, and the largest of the family; while a third is the little Wood-pewee, of the dark olive-brown coat and two whitish wing-bars, who saddles his lichen-covered nest, as dainty as that of a Humming-bird high up on a limb, and calls his plaintive note, Pee-wee-pee-a-wee peer,’ through the aisles of the deep woods, as constantly as Phœbe lets her name be known in a more shrill and rasping voice to the barnyard flock.

“These and several other flycatchers do not come to us until May, but the Phœbe of all his tribes trusts his livelihood to the care of gusty March. Perhaps it is the early return that makes the Phœbe so friendly and causes it to choose either a site by the water or near a house. Insect life awakes much more quickly in gardens and about the farm-yards, or near open running water, than in the remote woods; for certain it is that no other member of the family is so easily domesticated.

“The Phœbe not only eats the earliest insects that appear, but it has peculiarly constructed eyes, like the Whip-poor-will and Night Hawk; it can catch its food until the end of twilight, so that it kills many bugs that hide all day. Among the hurtful insects that it catches are the click-beetle, brown-tail moth, canker-worm moth, and the elm beetle. As a berry-eater no one can find fault with it, as when late in a dry season it takes a little fruit, wild berries supply the need.

“All this should be a hint to us to leave a few nooks about the place for a pair of Phœbes to appropriate for a homestead; a little shelf under suitable shelter is all they ask, or, better yet, nail a few wide braces under the roof of a wagon, cattle, or wood shed, even if it does not need supporting. Then, before the first Robin or Chipping-sparrow awakens, when the first flush of light penetrates the darkness of night, you will have a home sentinel at hand to cry, ‘Phœbe! I see, all’s well!’ to the morning, and at evening she will blend her voice with the Whip-poor-will’s in wishing you good night, for though Phœbe is early to come in the spring and early to rise in the morning, she goes late to bed and meets the bats in the sky during her evening excursions.”

“Maybe Phœbes don’t really sing, but they think they do,” said Tommy, as Gray Lady looked in vain in her scrap-book for a poem that should do the bird justice and be catching in rhythm.

“Sometimes in May they get up on the roof or the telephone wire or something like that, and tumble somersaults into the air and cry ‘phœbe-phœbe-phœbe-phœbe,’ on and on and on and over again, like the Katydids and Katydidn’ts in the maples at night, only the Phœbe is so worked up she can only think of her own name.”

“Then this verse of Lowell’s at least is true,” said Gray Lady, closing the scrap-book.

“Phœbe is all it has to say In plaintive cadence o’er and o’er, Like children that have lost their way And know their names, but nothing more.”

[5] _The Kingfishers’ Home Life_, W. L. Baily in _Bird-Lore_.

XXIV THE TIDE HAS TURNED

THE MASQUERADING CHICKADEE

I came to the woods in the dead of the year, I saw the wing’d sprite thro’ the green-brier peeping: “Darling of Winter, you’ve nothing to fear, Though the branches are bare and the cold earth is sleeping!”

With a _dee, dee, dee_! the sprite seemed to say, “I’m friends with the Maytime as well as December, And I’ll meet you here on a fair-weather day; Here, in the green-brier thicket,—remember!”

* * * * * *

I came to the woods in the spring of the year, And I followed a voice that was most entreating: _Phebe! Phebe!_ (and yet more near), _Phebe! Phebe!_ it kept repeating!

I gave up the search, when, not far away, I saw the wing’d sprite thro’ the green-brier peeping, With a _Phebe! Phebe!_ that seemed to say, “I told you so! and my promise I’m keeping.”

“You’ll know me again, when you meet me here, Whether you come in December or Maytime: I’ve a _dee, dee, dee!_ for the Winter’s ear, And a _Phebe! Phebe!_ for Spring and Playtime!”

—Edith M. Thomas.

* * * * *

“When the Chickadee, who has persistently told us his name all winter, and has assured us also in the darkest weather that it was ‘day-day-day,’ changes his call for the flute-like spring song of ‘Phewe-Phe-wee,’ clear as the wind blowing through a reed, we know that at last the springtide has really turned. Chickadee occasionally gives this note in autumn as if in anticipation, but it is really a love-song of tender accent.

“Another spring sign comes to us in April, a sign to be seen. It comes out of a clear sky and has all the mystery about it that still shrouds the bird migrations. Spring and fall I see it, but it always fills me with awe. This morning I stood out in the open meadow below the orchard, looking at the sky to see if the clouds were going to break away, or if it was to be a day of April showers. To the southwest a curious fine black bar appeared high up against the clouds. Quickly it drew nearer, and I saw what seemed to be a great letter that moved rapidly and yet kept its shape printed on the sky,—a letter V coming toward me, point on. In another minute the line proved to be made of separate marks, then each mark developed a long neck and rapidly moving wings.”

Tommy Todd could stand it no longer; without giving the usual school “hand up” warning he cried out, “The V was Wild Geese, with the wise old gander that leads them for the point, and maybe if he wanted them to shift and change their way, he gave a big honk, honk, like the automobiles when they turn the sharp corner at the foot of our hill.

“We saw Wild Geese yesterday, grandpa and I; they were flying so low over the mill-pond that grandpa said maybe they had been resting somewhere. They do stop in fall sometimes, but in spring they generally go right over in a big hurry. This time I could see their feathers pretty well, black, gray, and light underneath, and a white mark around the neck as if it was tied up for a sore throat. Grandpa says he shot one once that was a yard long, but their necks looked all of that. How far away do they have to go before they can stop to nest, please, Gray Lady?”

“They nest only in our most northern states, and from there up through British America; but as the country is settled they have to shift their haunts very often, for you can well imagine that a colony, even in the nesting season, would have but little peace if hunters could reach it easily. These great birds on their journeys are one of the most thrilling sights that everyday people can see, for they travel the thousands of miles that separate their summer and winter homes, straight through the night as well as the day, without chart or compass, but with the same lack of fear and unfailing directness as a train would follow the rails upon the road-bed.

“We hear and read stories of Nature that are inventions, and could not have happened because they are not according to the plan of creation,—so the people who tell these instead of being clever are really very stupid,—but not one of these is as wonderful as the simple truth, or as awe-inspiring as the flight of Wild Geese that goes on before our sight year after year in the April sky, or that we know by their cries and the rush of wings is passing overhead in the gloom of a wild and stormy night.

WILD GEESE

A far, strange sound through the night, A dauntless and resolute cry, Clear in the tempest’s despite, Ringing so wild and so high.

Darkness and tumult and dread, Rain and the battling of gales, Yet cleaving the storm overhead, The wedge of the Wild Geese sails.

Pushing their perilous way, Buffeted, beaten, and vexed; Steadfast by night and by day, Weary, but never perplexed;

Sure that the land of their hope Waits beyond tempest and dread, Sure that the dark where they grope Shall glow with the morning red!

O birds in the wild, wild sky! Would I could so follow God’s way Through darkness, unquestioning why, With only one thought to obey!

—Celia Thaxter.

Nest-Building

“Though a few of our common birds, like the Robin, Bluebird, Woodcock, Crow, Grackle, and some of the Hawks and Owls, begin to nest in April, May and June are the real nesting months.

“When the spring migration is over, we call those birds who have decided to stay with us and build their homes Summer Residents, and it is from these that we must learn of the home life of birds.

“The visitors who stop awhile on their way to other places we may learn to call by name, but we can never really know them any more than we can a chance visitor who boards a few weeks in our vicinity.

“The nesting habits of birds and the manner in which they build their homes vary according to the necessity and skill of the species. (See _Citizen Bird_.)

“In their house-building you will find that the birds know almost as many trades as human beings, for among them are weavers, basket-makers, masons, and carpenters, as well as workers in felt, hair, and feathers.

“Many water-birds merely make a hollow in the sand or gather a few bits of grass together for a nest.

“The Grouse, Quail, and Woodcock scratch up a few leaves in a ground hollow or between stumps, for, like domestic fowl, they always nest on the ground and their colour, being dull, blends with it, and you may almost step on one of these birds when it is on its nest and never know it.

“The dull brown Sparrows build nests of grasses set in a low bush or between its roots, but the flaming Oriole weaves himself a snug hammock high out on a swaying elm bough, and the Scarlet Tanager builds high in an oak. The Blue Jay weaves small roots into a firm nest set well above reach, while the Bluebird lines a hollow in a tree or takes an abandoned Woodpecker’s hole for his house. The Woodpeckers chisel out homes in tree-trunks, and Robins and Cliff and Barn Swallows use more or less mud, and plaster the inside of their homes. If you watch carefully now when the birds are building, and associate the various nests with the birds that build them, in autumn, when the young have flown, you can collect many of these nests and study their beautiful workmanship. But pray keep your hands off them while they are in use, for it is not being either kind or polite to meddle.