Chapter 7
One day,--it was Sunday afternoon,--I was still grieving over the lost, or rather the unfound nest, and my friend was sitting composedly on the veranda writing letters, when restlessness seized me, and I resolved to take a quiet walk. I sauntered slowly down the road, towards the woods, of course; all roads in that charming place led to the woods.
I had nearly reached the "Sunset Corner," where I had a half-formed intention of resting and then turning back, when my eyes fell upon--but hold! I will not describe it, lest I enlighten one more collector, and aid in the robbery, perhaps the death, of one more bird-mother. Suffice it to say what I saw resembled, though not perfectly, the surroundings of a veery's nest as described in the books.
Of course there could be no nest there, I thought, yet the ruling passion asserted itself at once. It would at least do no harm to look. I left the path, walked carelessly up to the spot, and looked at it. It seemed empty of life; but as I gazed, there gradually took form a head, a pair of anxious eyes fixed upon mine, a beak pointed upward, and there was my nest! almost at my feet.
Joy and surprise contended within me. I thought not of the mother's anxiety; I stood and stared, absolutely paralyzed with delight.
But not for long. I remembered my friend who had not found the tawny thrush's nest, and with whom I must instantly share my happiness, and carefully marking the locality, not to lose what I had so accidentally found, and might so easily lose, I moved quietly away till I reached the road. Then I hurried to an opening in the trees from which the house could be seen. Here I stopped; the letter-writer looked up. I waved my green bough in triumph above my head, and with the other hand I beckoned.
"A veery's nest!" she thought at once. Away went paper and pen, and in a moment she joined me. Together we stood beside the beautiful sitting thrush, so brave, though no doubt suffering from deadly terror. Then we slowly walked away, rejoicing. It was so near the house! so easy to watch! the bird not at all afraid! All the way home we congratulated ourselves.
The next morning our first thought was of the veery's nest, and on starting out for the day we turned in that direction. Alas! the old story! The nest was overturned and thrown out of place, the leaves were trampled; there had evidently been a struggle of some kind. No birds, no eggs, not a bit of broken shell--nothing was left, except one dark brown spotted feather from a large bird, whether hawk or owl I shall never know, for neglecting to take it at the moment, it was gone when I thought of it as a witness.
Again the old longing for a nest assailed me; but I was not without hope, for I had my hint. I had found out what sort of places the veeries in this neighborhood liked. After that I never went into the woods, on whatever errand bent, but I kept my eyes open for the chosen situation. I examined dozens of promising spots, and I found nests that had been used, which proved that I was on the right track, and kept up my courage.
It was several days before another tawny-thrush cradle in use gladdened our eyes, and this was in a wild part of the woods where we seldom went. We were drawn there by the song of a tiny warbler, whose nest my friend desired to find, since it was rare; and in passing a thicket of maple saplings three feet high, she discovered a nest. She quickly parted the leaves and looked in; three young birds opened their mouths for food. "Veeries!" she exclaimed, in surprise. "What a strange place!"
This little home rested on a bare dead stick that had fallen and lodged in a living branch, and the dead leaves used by veeries in their building made it conspicuous, when the eyes happened to fall upon it; but it was so well concealed by living branches that one might pass fifty times and not see it. I describe this location, for it was very unusual.
We looked at the birdlings; we walked on till we came to the place where we turned from the path to see the warbler's little domicile. My friend passed along. I lingered a moment, for it was a lovely spot, attractive to birds as to bird-lovers, and high up in the air on the upturned roots of a fallen tree
"an elder or two Foamed over with blossoms white as spray."
While I stood there admiring the brave little bush that kept on living and blooming, though lifted into an unnatural position by the tree at whose feet it had grown, some mysterious drawing made me look closely at a spot beside the road which we had passed many times without special notice. There I found our third veery nest, the mother bird sitting.
Henceforth, every morning we went up the veery road, and before each little nursery we sat us down to watch and study. It was necessary to be very quiet, the birds in the saplings were so nervous; but keeping still in the woods in summer is not the easy performance it is elsewhere, though great are the inducements. From one side comes the chirp of the winter wren, from the other, low, excited calls of veeries, and nothing but absolute quiet seems necessary to capture some of the charming secrets of their lives. Meanwhile a dancing and singing host collects around one's head. I call up my philosophy; I resolve not to care, though I shall be devoured. My philosophy stands the strain; I do not _care_; but my nerves basely fail me, and after a few moments, and a dozen stings here and there, I spring involuntarily to my feet, wildly flourish my wisp of leaves, and of course put to instant flight the actors in the drama before me.
The pair of veeries in the maple bushes were never reconciled to our visits. They called and cried in all the varied inflections of their sweet voices, and they moved uneasily about on the low branches with mouths full of food. But though we were as motionless as circumstances would permit, they never learned to trust us.
One--the mother, doubtless--did sometimes pay a flying visit to her three darlings under the leaves; but she undoubtedly felt that she took her life in her hands (so to speak), and it did not give her courage. She returned to her post and cried no less than before. We were not heartless; we could not bear to torture the timid creatures, and therefore we never stayed very long.
Every day we looked at the growing babies, who passed most of their time in sleep, as babies should; and at last came the time, sooner than expected, when we found the family had flitted. Nestlings cradled near the ground seem to be spared the long period in the nest endured by birdlings who must be able to fly before they can safely go. Young veeries and bobolinks, song sparrows and warblers, who build low, apparently take leave of the nursery as soon they can stand up. Thereafter the parents must seek them on the ground; and if the student follows their chirps, he will often see the droll little dumpy fellows running about or crouched under bushes until their wing feathers shall grow and lift them to the bird's world, above the dull earth.
After the exit of the family in the maples, we kept closer watch of the remaining nest. Every day we passed it, and not always at the same hour, yet never but once did we find the mother away, and seven days after that morning, when not one youngster had broken the shell, the family was gone.
The young birds in the maples we had seen in the nest for five days after they were hatched, so we were forced to believe that either the second nest had been robbed, or that the mother had watched for us, and flown to cover her babies after they were hatched, till we had paid our daily visit and passed on. This latter may be the correct conclusion, and if so, her conduct was entirely different from that of any veery I have seen.
Whatever cause had emptied the thrush cradle we found no signs of disturbance about it, and we heard no lamentations. But we did hear from every impenetrable tangle in the woods, the baby-cries of young thrushes; and we ventured to hope that no hawk or owl or squirrel, or other foe in feathers or in fur, had carried off the nestlings of that brave brown-eyed mamma.
XII.
A MEADOW NEST.
A bird's nest in the middle of a meadow is as isolated as if on an island; for the most eager bird student, though he may look and long afar off, will hesitate before he harrows the soul of the owner of the fair waving sea of grass by trampling it down. In such a secure place, among scattered old apple-trees, a pair of veeries had set up their household, surrounded and protected from every enemy who does not wear wings.
They were late in nesting, for young veeries were out everywhere. Doubtless the first home had been destroyed, and they had selected this retreat in the midst of the tall grass for its seclusion and apparent safety.
What dismay, then, must have filled the heart of the timid creatures when there arrived, one morning, a party of men and horses and machines, who proceeded at once, with the clatter and confusion which follows the doings of men, to lay low their green protecting walls, and expose their cherished treasures to the greed or the cruelty of their worst enemies! Not less their surprise and grief when, after the uproar of cutting, raking and carrying away their only screen, there entered the silent but watchful spies, who planted their stools in plain sight, to take note of all their doings.
The nest, with its babies three, was wide open to the sun; no one could pass without seeing it. It was in a cluster of shoots growing up from the roots of an old apple-tree, and so closely crowded between them that its shape was oval.
The nestlings were nearly ready to fly, and I hoped that birds brave enough to come out of the woods and build among apple-trees would be less afraid of people than the woods dwellers. So when I learned of my comrade's discovery I hastened at once to make the acquaintance of this, our fourth nesting-veery of the summer.
The parents were absent when I seated myself at some distance from their homestead to wait. They soon came, together, with food in their mouths; but their eager, happy manner vanished at sight of me, and they abandoned themselves to utter despair, after the manner of veeries. They stood motionless on neighboring perches, and cried and bewailed the anticipated fate of those babies for all of the short time that I was able to endure it. A kingbird came to the tree under which I sat, to see for himself the terrible bugaboo, and a robin or two, as usual, interested themselves in the affairs of a neighbor in trouble.
Thirty minutes proved to be as long as I could bring myself to stay, and then I meekly retired to the furthest corner of the field, where I made myself as inconspicuous as possible, and hoped I might be allowed to remain. Kingbird and robins accepted the compromise and returned to their own affairs; but the veeries by turns fed the babies and reviled me from a tree near my retreat, till I took pity on their distress and left the orchard altogether.
Not only does the veery exhibit this strong liking for solitude, and express the loneliness of the woods more perfectly than any other bird, with the exception, perhaps, of the wood-pewee; but his calls and cries are all plaintive, many of them sensational, and one or two really tragic.
His most common utterance, as he flits lightly from branch to branch, is a low, sweet "quee-o," sometimes hardly above a whisper. When everything is quiet about him one may often hear an extraordinary performance. Beginning the usual call of "quee-o," in a tender and mournful tone, he will repeat it again and again at short intervals, every time with more pathetic inflection, till the wrought-up listener cannot resist the feeling that the next sound must be a burst of tears. Although his notes seem melancholy to hearers, however, the beautiful bird himself is far from expressing that emotion in his manner.
Aside from the enchanting quality of his calls, and the thrilling magnetism of his song, the tawny thrush is an exceedingly interesting bird. In his reserved way he is socially inclined, showing no dislike to an acquaintance with his human neighbors, and even evincing a curiosity and willingness to be friendly, most winning to see.
Speak to one who, as you passed, has flown up from the ground and alighted on the lowest limb of a tree, looking at you with clear, calm eyes. He will not fly; he will even answer you. You may stand there half an hour and talk to him and hear his low replies. It seems as if it were the easiest thing in the world to inspire him with perfect confidence, to coax him to a real intimacy. But there is a limit to his trustfulness. When he has a nest and little ones to protect, as already shown, he is a different bird; he is wild with terror and distress, and refuses to be comforted when one approaches the sacred spot.
This unfortunate distrust of one's intentions makes it very hard for a student who loves the individual bird to watch his nest. One can't endure to give pain to the gentle and winsome creature. The mournful, despairing cry of both parents, "ke-o-ik! ke-o-ik! ke-o-ik!" constantly repeated, makes me, at least, feel like a robber and a murderer, and no number of "facts" to be gained will compensate me for the suffering thus caused.
One more phase of veery character I was surprised and delighted to learn. Sitting on a log in the edge of the woods one evening, just at sunset, I listened to the singing of one of these birds quite close to me, but hidden from sight. I had never been so near a singer, and I was surprised to hear, after every repetition of his song, a low response, a sort of whispered "chee." Was it his mate answering, or criticising his music? Was it the first note of his newly-fledged offspring? Or could it be _sotto voce_ remarks of the bird himself? It was impossible to decide, and I went home much puzzled to account for it; but a day or two later the mystery was solved,--the thrush showed himself to be a humorist.
The odd performance by which I discovered this fact I saw through my closed blind. The bird was in plain sight on a small dead tree, but it was a retired spot, where he was accustomed to see no one, and he evidently did not suspect that he had a listener.
He had eaten his fill from a cluster of elderberries I had hung on the tree, and he lingered to sing a little, as he often did. First he uttered a call, aloud, clear "quee-o," and followed it instantly by a mocking squawk in an undertone. I could hardly believe my eyes and ears, and at once gave much closer attention to him. As if for the express purpose of convincing me that I had not been mistaken, he instantly repeated his effort; and after doing so two or three times, he poured out his regular song in his sweet, ringing voice, and followed it by a whispered "mew," almost exactly in the tone of pussy herself.
He was not far from my window, across a small yard, and as plainly seen through my glass as though not six feet away. I saw his beak and throat, and am absolutely certain that he delivered every note. The absorbed singer stood there motionless a long time, and carried on this queer conversation with himself. It sounded precisely like two birds, one of whom was mocking or ridiculing the other in a low tone.
Sometimes the undertone, as said above, was a squawk; again it resembled a squeal; now it was petulant, as though the performer scoffed at his own singing; and then it was a perfect copy of the song itself, given in an indescribably sneering manner. I could think of nothing but the way in which one child will sometimes mock the words of another.
It was very droll, as well as exceedingly interesting, and I hope some day to study further this unfamiliar side of the thrush nature.
After my unsuccessful attempt to disarm the fears and suspicions of the meadow-nesting thrushes, we left the little family to its much loved solitude, and in a day or two the whole nestful departed.
XIII.
A JUNE ROUND OF CALLS.
"I should like to meet you two in that rig on Fifth Avenue," calmly said our hostess one morning in June, as we started out on our regular round of calls.
What a suggestion! We stared at each other with a new standard of criticism in our eyes. We were not exactly in ordinary visiting costume; but then, neither were we making ordinary visits, for the calling-list of June differs in every way from that of January. The neighbors at whose doors we appeared would be quite as well (or as ill) pleased to see us in our dull green woods dress, with fresh leaves on our hats to convey the impression that we were mere perambulating shrubs, with opera-glasses instead of cards, and camp-stools in place of a carriage, as though we had been in regulation array. Away we went, the big dog prancing ahead with the camp-stool of his mistress.
Our first call was upon a small dame very high up in the world, thirty feet at least. The mention of Fifth Avenue suggests that possibly our manners were not above criticism. We introduced ourselves to Madam Wood-Pewee not by ringing and sending up cards, but by pausing before her door, seating ourselves on our stools, and leveling our glasses at her house. We felt, indeed, that we had almost a proprietary interest in that little lichen-covered nest resting snugly in a fork of a dead branch, for we had assisted in building it, at least by our daily presence, during the week or two that she spent in bringing, in the most desultory way, snips of material, fastening them in place, and moulding the whole by getting in the nest and pressing her breast against it, while turning slowly round and round. Now that she had really settled herself to sit, we never neglected to leave a card upon her, so to speak, every morning.
As we approached we were pleased to see her trim lord and master bearing in his mouth what was no doubt intended for a delicate offering to cheer her weary hours, for a gauzy yellow wing stuck out on each side of his beak, suggesting something uncommonly nice within. He stood a moment till we should pass, looking the picture of unconsciousness, and defying us to assert that he had a house and home anywhere about that tree. But when we did not pass, after hesitatingly hopping from perch to perch nearer the nest, he deliberately diverted yellow wing from its original destiny, swallowed it himself, and wiped his beak with an air that said: "There now! What can you make out of that?"
Ashamed to have deprived the little sitter of her treat, we folded our stools and resumed our march.
How shall one put into words the delights of the woods in June without "dropping into poetry?" Does not our own native poet say:--
"Who speeds to the woodland walks? To birds and trees who talks? Caesar of his leafy Rome, There the _poet_ is at home."
But if one is not a poet, must he then suffer and enjoy in silence? When he puts aside the leafy portiere and enters the cool green paradise of the trees, must he be dumb? Slowly, almost solemnly, we walked up the beautiful road with its carpet of dead leaves. It was as silent of man's ways as if he were not within a thousand miles, and we had all the enjoyment of the deep forest, with the comforting assurance that five minutes' walk would bring us to people.
A small family in dark slate-color and white, with a curious taste for the antique cave-dwelling, was next on our list. The home was an excavation in the soft earth, held together by the roots of an overturned tree, and everything was quiet when we arrived--the two well-grown infants sound asleep on their hair mattress. We sat down to wait, and in a moment we heard the anxious "pip" of the returning parents. They had been attending to their regular morning work, and both brought food for those youngsters, who woke inopportunely--as babies will--and demanded it instantly.
Junco--for he was the head of this household--paused on a twig near by, opened and shut his beautiful white-bordered tail, in the embarrassing consideration whether he should go in before our eyes and take the risk of our intentions, or let his evidently starving offspring suffer. He "eyed us over;" he waited till his modest little spouse, acting from feeling rather than from judgment (as was to be expected from one of her unreasoning sex), had slipped in from below, administered her morsel to those precious babies, and escaped unharmed. Then he plucked up courage, boldly entered his door, gave a poke behind it, and flew away.
A week later, after we had called as usual one morning and found the house empty, he brought his pretty snow-birdlings in their tidy striped bibs up to the grove at the back door, where we often heard his sharp trilling little song, and saw him working like some bigger papas to keep the dear clamorous mouths filled.
The Junco neighborhood was a populous part of our calling district. Behind his cave, in a high tree, lived a family of golden-winged woodpeckers, who "laughed" and talked as loud as they liked, scorning to look upon the two spies so far below them. Not quite so self-possessed and bold were they a little later, when madam came up to the grass by the farmhouse with her young son to teach him to dig, for that is what she did. He was a canny youngster, though he was shy, and had no notion of being left in the lurch for a moment. If mamma flew to the fence, he instantly followed; did she return to the ground, baby was in a second at her side demanding attention. On one occasion while I was watching them behind my blind, the mother managed to slip away from him and disappear. In a moment he realized his deserted condition, stretched up, like a lost chicken, looking about on every side, and calling, in a most plaintive tone, "pe-au! au!" and then, "au! au! pe-au!" When at length he saw his mother, he burst into a loud cry of delight, and flew into a locust-tree, where I heard for a long time low complaining cries, as if he reproached her for leaving her baby alone on the fence.
On the right of the home of the golden wings, in a sapling not more than five feet from the ground, was the residence of a gay little redstart, which we had watched almost from the laying of the foundations. We made our visit. Yesterday there were two pearls of promise within; to-day, alas! nothing.
Squirrels, we said; for those beasts were the bugaboo of the woods to its feathered inhabitants. Hardly a nest was so high, so well hidden, or so closely watched, but some unlucky day a little fellow--sportsman, would you call him?--- in gray or red fur, would find his chance, and make his breakfast on next year's song birds.
Musing on this and other tragedies among our friends, we silently turned to the next neighbor. At this door we could knock, and we always did. (We desired to be civil when circumstances permitted.) A rap or two on the dead trunk brought hastily to the door, twenty-five feet high, a small head, with a bright red cap and necktie, and eager, questioning eyes. Observing that he had guests, he came out, showing his black and white coat. But one glance was usually enough; he declined to entertain us, and instantly took his leave. We knew him well, however--the yellow-bellied woodpecker, or "sapsucker," as he was called in the vicinity. This morning we did not need to knock, for one of the family was already outside,--a young woodpecker, clinging to the bark, and dressing his nest-ruffled plumage for the grand performance, his first flight. We resolved at once to assist at the debut, secured reserved seats with a good view, and seated ourselves to wait.