CHAPTER XI.

_The Bluebirds._

To the average middle-aged person of America, this bird needs little or no introduction, but to the young people they are now quite rare. In fact I was speaking to a young lady quite recently, and she has camped out every summer for the longer part of her life (but of course, like all other girls at her age, she has just passed sixteen; passed it coming back, of course) and she told me she had never seen a bluebird. They have decreased over ninety-five per cent. the last forty years, but when I was a boy they were as common as the robin is to-day. They usually arrive the same day in the spring, bringing with them their beautiful note that no musician has ever been able to imitate correctly.

In 1908 I put up three or four nests for them and in 1909 a pair came and built in one. These nests were made of wood; so it occurred to me possibly they would build in tile houses, and I set to work and made six or eight different varieties of drain-tile, and to my surprise and delight the wrens and bluebirds both took to the tile houses and have never built in the frame one since. Last summer I put a wren house up on Monday and the very next morning Mrs. Wren had her nest half built; or in other words, the tile house had hardly gotten cold before she started carrying in sticks.

I had one pair of bluebirds raise their first family for three successive years in the same house. So last summer I made about two hundred bluebird houses, taking this, their choice house, as a pattern. This pair of birds I know raised three families one summer, but they usually raise two. The same house does for both wrens and bluebirds; if the wrens use it, they will stop the large hole up with sticks so the English sparrows cannot get in, but of course leaving door-room enough to get in themselves, as they are so much smaller. This is my experience, but whether these birds will take to tile houses away from here, where they are not accustomed to seeing red tile and a red man, remains to be proven.

In case they do not, there are several remedies. The houses could be painted any color in order to get them coming. But first of all, leave it to the birds, as they seem to know whom it was put there for. So, knowing that the birds prefer them, and as the tile house can be made for about one-fourth of the cost of the wood and, like Pat said about the stone coffin “Sure it will last a lifetime,” I know I have secured a home run for the birds.

The removable top can be left off all winter if preferred. The wet and frost will rid the house of mites and so forth, which sometimes kill fledglings. By the use of these little fireproof bird dwellings around our home, the wrens have become far more plentiful than English sparrows, as the latter know they are not wanted. Although we have four or five pairs of bluebirds each year, yet they do not seem to multiply as rapidly as the wrens; I believe this is due to the wrens’ cunningness in barring the door against these cruel “flying rats.” This experience has compelled me to believe that the sparrows are responsible for the decrease of our lovable bluebird. I say “lovable,” and so will any person who is acquainted with the bluebird, for they expose their love for humanity by preferring to build their nests near our dwellings so they can rely on our protection.

We usually toe-nail their houses on top of the fence-posts around our premises. I have never tagged the bluebirds, therefore I have no positive proof the same one returns year after year; yet I am like the Scotchman who said he was open to conviction but he would like to see the man who could convince him otherwise, for we have several old birds any one of which will permit us to climb up the fence post and remove the roof from her house, and when we peep in she will sit there on her eggs, within eight inches of our eyebrows, and, turning her head sidewise she will cover our whole face with her one little eye as much as to say “Beg your pardon, sir, but you should have rapped before you opened the door.” If a stranger is permitted to do this, she will fly out, every time, though after I have taken the top off she will permit him to look in and will not fly out.

The chief cause of the decrease of the bluebird is English sparrows. One of man’s great mistakes was when he introduced this little, domineering Bolshevik into America. Not that he doesn’t destroy insects enough to counterbalance the amount of grain he takes, but here is my charge against him: He is doing all in his power to exterminate several varieties of birds that God put here, and any one of these birds will destroy more insects in a day than he will in a week.

Last summer when I awoke one Sunday morning I heard the voices of sparrows and bluebirds fighting at the bluebird house, which was about one hundred feet from my open window; but as I knew the young bluebirds were hatched, I just rolled over and had another snooze. About an hour later I saw that the English sparrows had possession. So I went over, and found five young bluebirds lying dead at the foot of the post. Now I did not see the sparrows throw them out. I only know that the old bluebirds were chirping and hovering around the nest and were driven back by the sparrows, and that the little dead birds were still warm. In fact, one was just gasping its last when I picked them up, and each showed marks where it had been pecked. I pinned the five little murdered babies to a piece of cardboard and hung them out and took their picture, which is shown herewith.