Part 5

It seems to me that a martin house, perched high in broad sunlight, needs ventilation. But this must be provided without causing drafts. It can be provided by making a half-inch horizontal slit on the inner walls just below the ceiling, something like the ventilation in a steamer cabin. Martins will not tolerate drafts. Then if the two topmost rooms in the martin house are made to connect by means of a hole two and a half inches in diameter, next to the ceiling, this will greatly assist the visiting scout. When English sparrows see the scout enter the house, they will lie in wait where he entered, expecting to molest him when he comes out. But if he can leave at another exit and get his colony while the sparrows still wait for him, they will have to surrender when he returns. It is a question of numbers. This kind of house, even though it have only six or eight rooms, will attract martins, and promise a good beginning in martin lore.

My neighbor, Mrs. Cotton, has now a martin house also. It has ten rooms, ventilated as described above and with the two upper rooms connecting. There being no telephone wires near enough, a wire running over the house on four uprights serves the same purpose.

The first martin that was seen to visit this house brought a lady martin with him. Maybe he had been there before, alone, without being noticed. The pair inspected the rooms, then perched on the wire overhead and preened. Every little while Mr. Martin twittered:

^“Chow chow chow ^choochoo_choo_ho/_//^/heeho_ho_ho”

and

^“Yo ^yo yo _yo _yo.”

This pair took possession of the upper east room. The next day four more martins came. One pair took a lower east room, the other took the south room. It looked as though the wire on top and the ventilation pleased them. I was overjoyed that this house, which I had designed, proved satisfactory to these notional birds.

The dimensions of the rooms in this house are six inches square by seven inches high. The diameter of the entrances is two and a half inches; the width of porch five inches. The pole extends through the center of the house and is screwed to the roof. The rest of this house is held in place by means of a bolt underneath, which can be taken out and the house—without its roof—let down to be cleaned.[2]

Now listen to the good that martins do: A martin will eat mosquitoes by the thousand every day, besides many insects that injure fruit trees and spoil the fruit. To protect their young, martins will drive away hawks and other big birds that come near. In this way they also protect any poultry yard near by. On moonlight nights they hunt the moths and millers until midnight.

In late August the martins began to assemble in ever increasing numbers, getting ready for the journey to their winter home, which is said to be in Central and South America.

During one of the days while those gatherings were going on, the boy was here. The martins had, by this time, become so confiding that we could go clear up to the pole on which their house was mounted,—and they would stay on the wires and look down at us! I told the boy how I had driven the sparrows away from the martin house, and showed him the stick with the can tied to it. He tried it on the nearest telephone pole, and instantly the martins flew from the wires. It looked like a great gathering in midair.

The father martins were much darker at this time than in the Spring,—in fact, almost black. Mother’s pretty violet hues had faded to gray. Baby Martin was brownish-gray on the back, and light in front.

One day the whole colony departed, a jolly company, leaving us sad indeed, but hopeful that they would return with the Spring flowers.

X MORE ABOUT THE BOY

I am sure that the farm at the end of our street is like home to the birds of the neighborhood, and that that good boy is big brother to them all. He always has a bath for the birds set out on a table, and a lunch beside it.

“You would be surprised to see how well the birds like oatmeal mush and other cereals,” said he, the last time I was there. “Just watch that song sparrow!”

The little brown bird was feeding on a shredded wheat biscuit. She stayed long enough to eat a hearty meal; then took away as much as she could carry in her bill. While I sat there she returned several times for more.

We were out in the boy’s workshop. He had just finished making what he called a food house. It was a tray roofed over, “to keep out the rain and snow,” he said.

I remarked that it was early (it was in July) to talk about snow.

“Oh,” said he, “this is one of my vacation jobs. After school begins I won’t have time for these things. I’ll be a freshman in High, you know.”

The tray was about a foot long and not quite so wide. On each side there was a wire pocket to hold suet. Four neat, round sticks supported the roof, which he said was made out of the sides of a soap box.

I asked where he got those fine round sticks and that pretty tray. He said the sticks were scraps from his uncle’s cabinet shop, and that he got the tray from the grocer. The name “Neufchâtel” was printed on the sides of the tray in big letters.

I said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if all the Neufchâtel cheese boxes were made into food trays for birds?”

“Yes,” he answered, “I know that our grocer would rather give his boxes away for some useful purpose than to burn them.”

I admired the little food house so much that the boy gave me some sticks so that I could make one, too.

Then he told me of a pair of cedar waxwings that had nested in the orchard, and a pair of crested flycatchers in a woodpecker’s house. I was very curious to see the waxwings, so we went to them first. The nest was about ten feet up in an apple tree. With our field glasses we could see it quite plainly from under the nearest tree. Mrs. Waxwing was sitting up there; we could just see her head and her tail. Mr. Waxwing visited her every few minutes with some food. They were the quietest birds I have ever seen. What they did say or sing was in very soft tones, as if they were telling each other secrets. I hummed parts of the little song occasionally. When I explained to the boy why I did so, he smiled, and looked as if he didn’t quite believe me.

We went from the waxwings to the flycatchers. They lived in what the boy called a Berlepsch house. That means it was designed by a man named Berlepsch who was a great friend of birds. The boy said his uncle in New York had sent him the house as a birthday present. What could be a nicer gift for a boy than a bird house? It would make him want to get birds in it, of course. And I can think of nothing that would make a boy happier than to have bird neighbors.

The Berlepsch house was made so one could raise the top, lid-fashion, and clean it when necessary. It was mounted about twelve feet high on a brook willow that stood aslant in the ravine; and it had been intended for woodpeckers. The crested flycatchers are brown birds with gray upper breast and yellow below. Their headfeathers are always ruffed, which gives the appearance of a crest.

The flycatchers were flying back and forth continually with all sorts of prey. The brown bugs called “Canadian soldiers” were numerous that day and were easy to catch. These parent birds evidently had a large family, judging from the amount of food they delivered.

Mr. Flycatcher had a loud, explosive whistle. It sounded as if he were saying:

“Wha-^a-^at?”

The young could be heard giving the same whistle, but much more softly, and somewhat long drawn out:

_“Wha-a-^a-^at?”

After our visit with the flycatchers we returned to the waxwings. Waxwings are brown and about the size of bluebirds. On the back of the head they have a tuft. A black line extends across the bill, and around the side of the head. The front is yellowish-gray and the tail edged with yellow. The name, waxwing, is due to a shiny red patch on their wings. The fact that these waxwings are very fond of cedar berries must be what has given them also the name of cedar bird. The nest was made of twigs, strings, and various kinds of fiber. The boy said that a few weeks ago he had cut his dog’s hair and left it lying on the lawn: that these waxwings then came and carried every bit of it to their nest.

While near the birds I hummed the bird song again, to let them know that the same persons were there that had visited them before. The mother bird was looking straight at us and sitting perfectly still all the while. The boy said he believed the song did help to keep her quiet.

On a cornice of the front porch a phœbe had made two nests, one last year and one this. Both nests were now empty. I said I hoped that a phœbe would come to live on our porch next year.

“You can have this one,” answered the boy; and added, “I have to wash off the porch every day while Phœbe is nesting: she scatters so much mud.”

As for me, I would gladly clean off our porch several times a day if a phœbe would nest here and sing as sweetly, “Phœbe, phœbe,” as I heard that one sing. Sometimes I noticed a slight trill in the second syllable of her song, like “Phœbery.” She sang “Phœbe” with the inflection generally downward; but when she trilled it, “Phœbery,” the inflection was always upwards:

“Phœ-^be-^ry.”

^“Pee-e- _a- _wee- _e- e- ^e- ^ ee”

came up from the ravine, clear as a strain from a flute. On my way home I saw the pewee on a fence picket. Every little while he flew after an insect, then back to a picket. As I walked slowly along, he flew from picket to picket ahead of me, until I came to where the houses on the street begin again. Then he flew back. I think that pewee and phœbe must be some relation, they look so nearly alike. And both sing their own names.

Another bird who sings his name is Bob White, the quail. “Bob _White_!” came ringing across the meadow every little while. The boy could whistle it exactly the same as the bird, and they answered each other back and forth. Bob White was on a fence post,—a large brown bird with a stubby tail.

On Thanksgiving Day I was up at the farm again, and I saw a shelter which the boy had made for the winter comfort of Bob White, and other birds who wished to share it. It was tent-like, made out of cornstalks, the inside filled with pea vines, bean vines, morning-glory vines, and several sheaves of oats. Kitty was watching beside the shelter,—for mice, the boy explained!

The new food house was being visited by bluejays, who nibbled at the suet. A smaller feedery on a tree had corn in a tray and suet in a wire pocket. This feedery was much liked by downies, and small gray birds with white on lower front and tail—juncos. Juncos came in flocks of a dozen or more, and twittered, “Tut, tut, tut,” to each other and to us, in sociable fashion. They preferred to pick up the scatterings of chickfeed on the ground, rather than perch on the tray. Both of these food stations were protected with tin sheeting to keep the squirrel from eating the birds’ food. This visit at the boy’s home made me wish more than ever that some day I, too, might live on a farm.

On that Thanksgiving Day I had quite a surprise. Some dogs came barking from the ravine. Before them ran a rabbit just as fast as he could. They were the dogs that had so often chased Bunny, and this rabbit looked so much like Bunny, that I felt sure it was he.

“There’s my rabbit,” said the boy, as he went to chase the dogs away. I was glad to know that Bunny had such a nice home, and that the boy was a big brother to him also.

XI THE CARDINALS

Having often seen cardinals feed in poultry yards with chickens, I again started to scatter chickfeed, hoping to attract those beautiful birds to my house. _Chickfeed_ is finer than _chickenfeed_, and I believe the birds like it better.

Every winter I trimmed up an old tree with peanuts for the birds’ Christmas, and always after a snowstorm I tramped the snow down; then scattered the feed on it, with buckwheat and sunflower seeds added.

At first only nuthatches, chickadees, and juncos came to my lunches on the snow. One stormy day a cardinal ventured into our front yard; but he did not go near the chickfeed. Several juncos were there, and maybe he wanted to be generous and leave it all to the smaller birds.

He kept coming nearer to the house. At last he flew pell-mell into our porch. It seemed as if the wind had blown him in. On a little shelf behind the windshield he alighted and stayed.

After a while another bird flew to the little shelf. I hadn’t noticed this bird before, my attention being taken up with the cardinal. This second bird was reddish green. In my little bird guide I had seen pictures of the two cardinals, so I knew that she was the red one’s mate.

The cardinal pecked at her when she went to his side, and the meek little bird just clung to the shelf. The next day I made a shelf for her just below his.

At dusk the cardinals returned, silently, even stealthily, as though they thought it unwise to publish their presence. Again he was a little ahead of her, and he flew to the new shelf. She alighted on the edge of the upper one. After a while she tripped a little farther in, to a more comfortable place. When she was settled, he went to her shelf and snuggled down beside her. Maybe he was sorry that he had acted so selfishly the day before. I never saw him peck at her again.

Every stormy day that winter the cardinals came to our porch at evening. They became so confiding after a week or so that he usually announced their arrival with a few low hissing notes, something like “Tset, tset, tset!” Sometimes he would perch on the upper shelf, sometimes on the lower. Mrs. Cardinal was a peace-loving bird. She always came last, and took the empty shelf. Usually he would change so as to sit beside her. They were always gone in the morning, no matter how early I came out; and when they came in the evening it was usually dusk. So I never got a picture of my cardinals on the shelves.

Mr. Cardinal finally got so he sometimes came to the lunch on the snow; but his favorite feedery was a tray in my neighbor’s yard, which I kept supplied with shelled peanuts and shelled corn. The English sparrows could not manage these large kernels, so the cardinals had this feedery to themselves. This may be the reason why they preferred it to the one on the ground.

But the cardinals must have procured much of their food elsewhere, for they came only about once in three or four hours to get a dainty at the tray. Strange to say they never came together. Always he came first and ate a while, then sometimes she would come, too. It seemed as if she let him come first, then, seeing that he stayed, she took it for granted that all was well.

In March the cardinals stopped sleeping on the porch. About that time I began to hear almost daily a new song. It sounded like,

^“D e _a _r gilly gilly gilly gilly!”

Immediately after it there would be a loose twitter: “Chuk-chuk-chuk-chuk,”—so soft and low, it seemed it must be very near. Usually it brought another song from the cardinal, and presently he would appear with a morsel for Mrs. Cardinal, who had a favorite perch in our little pear tree. I soon learned that the twitter was her response to his call. The winsome sight of seeing him feed her repaid me for all the money I spent for peanuts at thirteen cents the pound.

The pair began now to frequent the ravine more than usual. On its edge lay a log from which the outer bark had been removed. Here the cardinals were often to be seen, peeling and tearing off strips of wood-fiber, which they bore away in long flowing streamers.

One morning Mrs. Cotton came in. “Here is news for you,” she said. “The red bird and a greenish bird are making a nest in my syringa bush.”

The birds went on with their nesting for several days. Then Mrs. Cotton came over again, looking sad. The birds were carrying away all their nesting material, she said. They had probably seen the cat, had become alarmed for the safety of their home, and so changed its location.

The cardinal had several songs. One was:

“Whit whit ^d ^e a _r ^d ^e a _r ^whoit whoit whoit”

Another was just plain:

_“W _h o ^i ^t _w _h o ^i ^t”

sung from three to ten times in succession. Sometimes, when Mrs. Cardinal did not respond promptly, he “chuk”-ed, himself, in imitation of her notes.

In late August I found the cardinals’ deserted nest in an evergreen on the ravine’s edge. It was made almost entirely of this stringy wood-fiber, lined with fine rootlets, and interwoven with many leaves.

I never saw but two baby cardinals of this brood. They were brownish birds, and they had the red bill of the parents.

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,[3] 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.