Part 8

THIS family is small in our country. There are only three members of it that we are likely to see. But they are most dainty and lovely birds. They are the two kinglets or little kings, not much bigger than hummingbirds, and the blue-gray gnatcatcher, about as small. They are all fond of living in the tops of tall trees, and they generally get their food and make their pretty nests away out of our reach. So we have to look sharp to see them. It is easier to hear them, for they are fine singers.

The RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET is a plump little bird in olive-green feathers. Below he is yellowish white, and he has two whitish wing bars. On top of his head is a narrow stripe of bright ruby color. But we see him usually from below, so that is not often noticed. He flits about the upper branches, picking out the smallest insects and insect eggs, and eating them. So he is very useful to us.

Although this bird is found all over our country, he does not nest with us, except sometimes in the mountains. He goes farther north, beyond the United States. The nests that have been found in the mountains of Colorado and Montana were partly hanging, and very large for such a tiny bird. They were made of soft, fine bark strips, and green moss, and hung to the end of a spruce or pine branch.

But the ruby-crown passes his winters in the Southern States and Mexico, and when he starts for his nesting-home, he begins to sing. As he goes north, he stops a few days or a week in a place, and then is the time to hear his sweet voice. When he sings, you would hardly know him. He raises the red feathers on top of his head so that they stand up like a crown, and change his looks very much. In the picture you can see a little of the ruby stripe.

Not much is known of the habits of these little birds, they are so hard to study. They are found all over the United States, in the Southern States and California in winter, and in the Northern States in spring and fall, when migrating.

The BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER is a slim little bird, with a rather long tail. He is bluish gray, with some white and black on head, wings, and tail, and he is grayish white below.

He has a sweet song, but it is so low you have to be very near and very quiet to hear it. He is such a talkative, restless fellow, however, that you often see him when you might not hear the song.

The gnatcatcher is one of the most lively of birds. He bustles about in an eager way that shows everybody where to look for the nest. And when there is no nest, he flits over the tree-tops, catching tiny flying insects, and uttering a queer call that sounds something like the mew of a cat. He does not need to be so quiet as birds who build on the ground or near it, because few can get at the nest. It is too high for snakes and boys, and on branches too light for squirrels or big birds. So he can afford to be as chatty as he pleases.

The nest of this bird is one of the prettiest that is made. It is a little cup, upright on a branch, usually near the end so that it is tossed by the wind. Miss Merriam found a pair of gnatcatchers in California, and watched them through many troubles. Their way of building was by felting. That is, they took fine, soft materials like plant down, and packed it all closely together by poking with the beak and prodding it with the feet.

A gnatcatcher's nest is large for the size of the bird. It must be deep for safety, so that eggs and nestlings will not be thrown out by the wind. Three times, Miss Merriam thinks, the little family she watched had to build their nest. Each time it took more than ten days of hard work.

This pretty little fellow has a long tail, and he keeps it in motion all the time. He jerks it up or down, or twitches it to one side or the other; or he flirts it open and shut like a fan, which shows the white edges and looks very gay.

Dogs and cats, as you know, show how they feel by the way they move the tail. Birds do the same, some much more than others. If you watch the way in which they move their tails, you can learn to tell how a bird feels almost as well as if he could speak to you.

FOOTNOTE:

[3] See Appendix, 2.

IV

THE NUTHATCH AND CHICKADEE FAMILY

(_Paridæ_)[4]

THIS is another family of small birds. The nuthatches are lively, restless little creatures. You generally see them scrambling over the trunks of trees, head up or head down, as it happens. They are dressed in sober colors, and spend their lives picking tiny insects out of the crevices of the bark.

The WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH is the best known in the East. In California the slender-billed takes his place, being about the same in dress and manners. Both of them, East and West, go about calling "quank, quank." The dress is slate-blue and white, with a white breast, a black cap, and black on wings and tail.

Nuthatches nest in holes, either deserted woodpecker nests or natural holes in trees. If such a place is not to be found, the pair will sometimes dig out a home in a decayed stump for themselves.

It is wonderful to see how easily and quickly a nuthatch will run over the trunk and large branches of a tree. Woodpeckers usually go upward, and brace themselves with their stiff tails. If they want to go down, they back down rather awkwardly. Creepers, who also go over tree trunks, go up only, and they also use their stiff tails for a brace. But the nuthatch goes head up, or down, or sideways, and never uses the short, square tail in the business. He can do this because his claws are very curving, almost like hooks, and they grasp tight hold of the little rough places in the bark.

It is a funny sight to see a mother nuthatch going about with four or five hungry little ones after her, like chickens after a hen, all calling their droll little "quanks."

The nuthatch gets his name, it is said, from the habit of fixing a nut into a crack and hammering or "hacking" it till it breaks. In summer, when insects are to be had, this bird, like many others, eats nothing else, and he eats thousands of them. But he can live on other food, so he is not forced to migrate.

To provide for winter, when insects will be gone and snow cover the seeds, he lays up a store of food. He takes kernels of corn, if he can get them, or sunflower seeds, or nuts of various kinds. This keeps him very busy all the fall, and he has often been seen at the work. He will carry a nut to a tree and find a crack in the bark just big enough to hold it. He tries one after another till he finds one to fit. Then he hammers it in till it is secure, and leaves it there. Then in winter the same bird has been seen, when everything was covered with snow, to dig the hidden nuts out of their hiding-places and eat them.

Many birds who do not migrate, but live in the same place the year round, provide for winter in the same way. So do squirrels and other animals. It is pleasant to think that rough-barked trees, and knotholes, and hollows, are filled with food for the hungry birds. And if they had not that supply, they might starve, or be obliged to leave us.

The RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH is a little smaller than the white-breasted, and has a reddish breast. His home is more toward the north, both East and West. He nests in Maine and other Northern States. His call note is different too. It sounds like the squawk of a toy trumpet. His habits are much like those of his bigger relative.

The nuthatch is fond of his mate, and takes good care of her in nesting time. He feeds her and the young till they leave the nest.

Mr. Fowler tells a story of an English nuthatch who is almost the same as one of ours. Some bird-lovers were in the habit of putting nuts on a window-sill for these birds to carry away. One day, to see what they would do, somebody put one in a glass tumbler. The birds saw the nut and tried to get it through the glass, pecking and hammering at it a long time. Finally, one got tired or discouraged and flew up to a perch over the tumbler. Then he happened to look down, and saw the nut inside the glass. Instantly he came down. He alighted on the edge of the tumbler and held on tightly, while he leaned far over inside, almost standing on his head, till he picked up the nut and carried it off.

These birds are easily made tame in winter by feeding them every day when food is hard to get; and at a time when they are forced to live on seeds and nuts, they greatly enjoy scraps of meat, and most of all, suet. Many people put out food for the birds every day in winter, in some safe place where cats cannot come. They have great pleasure in watching their little guests.

Chickadees, or Titmice, as they are named in the books, belong to another branch of this Family. There are a good many titmice in the world, seventy-five kinds or species, but we in America have only thirteen. Best known in the Eastern and Middle States is the common chickadee. In California, the mountain chickadee has habits about the same, and the Southern States have the tufted titmouse.

All these little fellows are pretty birds in gray, set off with black and white, with lovely soft and fluffy plumage.

The common CHICKADEE and his brother of the West have black on top of the head and on the throat, and white at the side of the head. They nest in holes in a tree or stump. If they can find the old home of a woodpecker, they are glad to get it, but if they cannot find one, they are able to cut one out for themselves, though it is a hard, long job for them.

These birds have very large families, sometimes as many as eight or nine little chickadees in one of those dark nurseries. How so many can live there it is hard to see. They must be all in a heap.

Everybody knows the common call of the chickadee,--"chick-a-dee-dee;" but he has a song, too. It is slow, sad-sounding, and of two notes, almost like the common cry of the phœbe. But you must not think they have no more than these few notes. They have odd little songs, and they make queer sounds that seem much like talking. Almost all birds have many notes and calls and little chatty noises of different sorts, besides their regular song and the common call note. To hear these, and learn to know a bird whatever he says, is one of the delights of bird study. I hope you will some day enjoy it. The Chippewa Indians named the chickadee "kitch-kitch-ga-ne-shi."

A chickadee is a friendly little fellow. Many times one has come down on to a man's hand or knee. Mr. Torrey once found a pair making their nest, and he climbed up on to a branch of the tree, close by where they were working, so as to watch them. Many birds would have been frightened to have a man so near, but not the brave little chickadees. They stared at him a little, but went right on with their building.

These birds, though so tiny, are among the most useful to us, because they spy out and destroy the insect eggs hidden in crevices of bark, or under leaves. Bigger birds might not care to pick up such small things, or their beaks might be too clumsy to get at them.

When you see a chickadee scrambling over a tree, hanging head down with all sorts of antics, he is no doubt hunting out the eggs. These eggs, if left, would hatch out into hungry insects, to eat the leaves or fruit, or to injure and perhaps kill the tree. The nuthatch clears up the trunk and large limbs, and the chickadee does the same for the small branches and around the leaves.

It has been found out that one pair of chickadees with their young will destroy five hundred pests, such as caterpillars, flies, and grubs, every day. No man could do so much, if he gave his whole time to it. Besides, he could not go over the whole tree as a bird does, without doing harm to it. A chickadee hops along the small branches and twigs, looking under every leaf, sometimes hanging head down to see the under side, and picks up every insect or egg. Among his dainties are the eggs of the leaf-rolling caterpillar, the canker-worm, and the apple-tree moth,--all very troublesome creatures.

The TUFTED TITMOUSE is more common in the South and West than his cousin, the chickadee, and he is one of the prettiest of the family. He is dressed in soft gray, with a fine, showy, pointed crest. His ways are something like the chickadee's, but he is, perhaps, even bolder and more pert, and he is easily tamed. All his notes are loud and clear, and he is never for a moment still.

In winter, this bird is found in little flocks of a dozen or more. These are probably all of one family, the parents and their two broods of the year. He is one of the birds who stores up food for a time when food is scarce. In summer, he eats only insects.

The tufted titmouse, like others of his race, has a great deal of curiosity. I have heard of one who came into a house through an open window. It was a female titmouse in search of a good place for a nest. After she had been in all the rooms, and helped herself to whatever she found that was good to eat, she seemed to decide that it was a land of plenty and she would stay.

The stranger settled upon a hanging basket as nice to build in. The family did not disturb her, and she brought in her materials and made her nest. She had even laid two or three eggs, when the people began to take too much interest in her affairs, and the bird thought it best to move to a safer place.

Another of these birds in Ohio, looking about for something nice and soft to line her nest, pitched upon a gentleman's hair. Unfortunately, he had need of the hair himself; but the saucy little titmouse didn't mind that. She alighted on his head, seized a beakful, and then bracing herself on her stout little legs, she actually jerked out the lock, and flew away with it. So well did she like it that she came back for more. The gentleman was a bird-lover, and was pleased to give some of his hair to such a brave little creature.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] See Appendix, 3.

V

THE CREEPER FAMILY

(_Certhiidæ_)[5]

THIS is a family of birds who creep; that is, they appear not to hop up a tree trunk like a woodpecker, or walk up like a nuthatch, but they hug close to the bark with claws and tail, and seem really to creep.

The one member of the family in this country is called the BROWN CREEPER. He is a little fellow in streaks and stripes of brown, and he looks so much like the tree trunks that one can hardly see him. He has a slender, curved bill, just the thing to poke into cracks in the bark, and pull out the insects and eggs hidden there. His tail feathers are curious. They have sharp points on the ends, so that he can press them against the bark, and help support himself.

The creeper's way of getting up a trunk is to begin near the ground, and go round and round the trunk till he reaches the lowest branch. Then he flings himself off, and flies to the roots of another tree, and goes up that in the same way. A brown creeper once came into a house, and found it so comfortable, and food so plentiful, and people so kind, that he stayed. He was very tame, and his great pleasure was to climb up a man's leg or a woman's skirt, exactly as he climbs a tree trunk, going round and round.

Quiet and demure as he looks, this little bird sometimes plays rather funny pranks. He has been seen to whirl around like a top, and again to fly up and down close to a tree trunk, apparently just for fun. He has a sweet little song, which we do not often hear, for his voice is not strong.

The brown creeper mother takes a droll place for a nest. It is behind the loose bark of an old tree. She makes a snug little home under the bark roof, and lines it with feathers, and there she brings up her three or four little creepers. She is as well protected from sun and rain as if she had an umbrella, and it is such an odd place that it was not for a long time known where her cunning little nest was made.

This bird nests in the Eastern States, in northern New York and New England, and in California he nests in the mountains, but he goes South in winter. When he wants to hide, he makes use of a clever trick, which shows that he knows how much he looks like the trunk of a tree. He simply flattens himself against the bark, and keeps perfectly still. Then you can hardly see him, though you look right at him. You can see in the picture how he looks.

FOOTNOTE:

[5] See Appendix, 4.

VI

THE CAVE-DWELLING FAMILY

(_Troglodytidæ_)[6]

FIRST BRANCH

THIS is a family of singers, who dress in plain colors. There is not a red or blue stripe, and not a yellow or purple feather, among them.

The family has two branches, or subfamilies as the books call them. The first branch, which gives the name to the family, is made of birds who are really a sort of cave-dwellers,--the wrens.

Wrens are lively little birds, excitable and afraid of nothing. They are in plain browns, barred off with another shade of the same color. They are so near the color of the ground, where they spend most of their time, that they are not easily seen. They have a way of holding their tails up, some of them much more than others, by which one may know a wren wherever he sees it.

The most common one of the family is the HOUSE WREN. He is found all over the Eastern States. In the Western States the same bird, except in the shade of his coat, is called the Western House Wren.

The house wren is fond of a snug place for a nest. If a wren box is to be had, he will take that; but if not, he will seek some cozy nook, which he will furnish, mostly with fine twigs, and then wait for his mate to appear.

Sometimes the bird takes queer places to live in. I once found a wren family inside a hollow iron hitching-post in a city street. The birds went in through the hole for the hitching-strap. I wondered how the wrenlings would get out through the long, dark passage. Another nest was made in an oriole's hanging cradle, after the young orioles had flown. It was filled up with sticks to make it suitable for baby wrens. One that I found last summer was in a hole in a gate-post.

The place is usually chosen by the male, who stuffs it full of fine twigs, and then sings and calls for his mate to come. He will sing hour after hour his sweet little song, stopping every few minutes to bring another stick to add to his store.

The wren is a droll fellow about one thing,--he never knows when he has enough furniture for his house. He will bring twigs and stuff them into the box or hole, till he can't get another one in. Sometimes even till his mate can't get in herself. A pair began to build in a shed room, and apparently set out to fill the whole room with twigs. They brought in so much stuff that the owner had to stop up the hole they used for a door and make them go somewhere else. He was willing to share the room with them, but he couldn't spare the whole.

The house wren is a plucky little fellow, and as he likes the same kind of places the English sparrow wants, they often quarrel over a box or a nice snug hole. Small as he is, the wren often succeeds in keeping the place he wants, and driving the sparrow away.

English sparrows can be kept out of wren houses by making the opening too small for the bigger bird. An auger hole one inch in diameter will be large enough for wrens, but too small for sparrows. A sparrow has sometimes been seen trying to get into one of these wren boxes, and very droll he looks, when he sticks his head in, and struggles and kicks violently to push himself in.

I found a pair of house wrens in Colorado one summer. The singer spent most of his time scrambling about a pile of brush, apparently trying to make me think that was where he lived. But I was sure he had a mate and a nest somewhere else, and I kept watch for them.

One day I happened to see a little brown bird fly up under the eaves of a summer cottage not much bigger than a tent. On looking closely, I found that there were openings under the eaves. The birds had taken one of these for a door, and built a nest inside, in the box frame over a window. After that I looked at them through another window. Everything went well till the wrenlings left the nest and began to fly around. Then they seemed to lose their wits, or not to mind their parents. They flew wildly about in the cottage, bumping against the glass, and seeming not able to find the door to get out.

I had not the key to open the big door, so I could not help them in their trouble. And the old birds were so frantic when I looked in at the window, while they were trying to get their family out, that I went away and left them. In an hour or two I went back, and found everything quiet, and the wren babies all out on the trees.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] See Appendix, 5.

VII

THE CAVE-DWELLING FAMILY

SECOND BRANCH

THE second branch of this family is very different from the first; it is composed of mockingbirds, catbirds, and thrashers. These birds were once placed with the thrushes, and by habits and manners they seem to belong there. But, as I told you, families in the bird world are made by structure,--by the way the bird is made. These birds have scales on the leg, and some other things like the wrens, so now they belong to the cave-dwelling family, though they never dwell in caves. They live in shrubbery and low trees. They are larger than any wren, but they are like those birds in being good singers and dressed in plain colors. Wherever they are placed in the books, they are interesting and delightful birds to know.

The most famous of this branch is the MOCKINGBIRD, found in the Southern States and California. He is a beautiful and graceful fellow in gray, with large white patches in his wings.

The nest of the mockingbird is a rather rough affair, built in a low tree or a bush. One that I saw was in a tree about as high as an apple-tree. The bird gets his food on the ground, and has a curious habit of lifting his wings as he is about to attack a beetle.

The mockingbird is a celebrated singer. Many persons think him the finest in America. He is especially famous for repeating the notes of other birds; but he can imitate other sounds, such as a policeman's rattle, a postman's whistle, and almost anything else. Sometimes a caged one makes mischief by this accomplishment. He has no need to borrow, for he has a fine song of his own.

Besides being famous in this way, he is a very knowing bird, and a most interesting one to study. The young mocker is a spirited fellow, who can't endure to stay in the nest till his wings are strong enough to bear him. He usually tries to fly too soon, and so comes to the ground. Coming to the ground is a great misfortune to the bird, for he is easily caught and put in a cage.

Being fine singers, mockingbirds are often kept in cages. In the late summer, the bird stores in New York have hundreds of them for sale, birds so young that they still wear the speckled bibs of baby-days. Many of them die, and so every year they are growing more rare.

A lady wrote me the story of a young mockingbird, whose mother saved it from a cage. The little fellow was just out of the nest, and could not fly far, and a young man thought he would catch him and take him to his sister; but the mother bird wished to save him from such a fate.

When the man went toward the youngster on the ground, the mother flew down, seized him, lifted him up, and flew away with him. She carried him a little way and then let go. He flew as far as he could, but soon came to the ground again. Then the man started for him. Again the anxious mother flew down and lifted him into the air, and again he flew a little and fell to the ground. So it went on for some time, till the young man began to feel ashamed of himself. Then he took up the cage and went away, leaving the little one to his mother's care.