A-Birding on a Bronco Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: Eastern Phbe.

(One half natural size.)]

Five years later, on going back to the ranch, I found the phbes around the old place, but hunted in vain for the nest. A schoolhouse had been built in the interval, near the old adobe, and the birds perched on its gables, on the hitching posts in front of it, and on my prune-trees, that had taken the place of the willows, across the road. They even came up to my small ranch-house and filled me with delightful antic.i.p.ations by inspecting the beams of the piazza; but they could not find what they wanted and flew off to build elsewhere. Later in the season, a neighbor whose ranch was opposite mine showed me a phbe's nest inside his whitewashed chicken house. It was a mud pocket like a swallow's, made of large pellets of mud plastered against a board in the peak of the house.

Of course I could never prove that these birds were my old friends, but it seemed very probable.

The smallest of my tenants was a hummingbird. I saw it fly into a low spray, and it stayed there so long that when it left I rode up to look, and found that it was building on the tip of a twig under a sycamore leaf umbrella, one whose veining showed against the light. By rising in the saddle I could just reach the twig and pull it down to look inside the nest; but afterwards I found so many other hummers who could be watched with fewer gymnastics, I rested content with knowing that this little friend was there.

One morning, when on the way to the sycamores, I found an oriole's nest high in a tree. Canello was hungry, but when permitted to eat barley under the branches kept reasonably quiet. There were two species of orioles in the valley; and not knowing to which the nest belonged, I prepared to wait for the return of the owner. The heat was so oppressive that I took off my hat, and a bird flew into the tree with bill open, gasping. After my hot ride down the valley the shade of the big tree was very grateful; and the cool trade wind coming through a gap in the hills most refreshing.

Suddenly there was a flash--we all waked up--was that the house owner?

What a remarkable bird! and what a display of color!--it had a red head, fiery in the sun; a black back, and a vivid yellow breast. On looking it up in Ridgway the stranger proved to be the Louisiana tanager, a high mountain bird. That was a red letter day for me. No one can know, without experiencing it, the delight of such discoveries. The pleasure is as genuine as if the world were made anew for you. In the excitement the oriole's nest was neglected; but ordinarily the rare unknown birds did not detract from the enjoyment of the old, more familiar ones.

So when the brilliant stranger flew away and was seen no more I turned with pleasure to the pair of sparrow hawks who had come to live on the ranch. A branch had fallen from one of the trees, and the hawks found its hollow just suited to their needs. It was a good, s.p.a.cious house, but a pair of their cousins who had built in a tree over the whitewashed hovel had made a sad mistake in choosing their dwelling--for the front door was so small they could hardly enter! I used to stop to watch them, and was very much amused at their efforts to make the best of it.

Canello could stand up to his knees in alfilaree clover under their tree, so he allowed me to watch the birds in peace. The first day the male sparrow hawk flew to the tree with what looked like a snake dangling from his bill, and as he alighted screamed _kit-kit'ar'r'r'r'_, spreading his wings and shaking them with emphasis. When this brought no response, he flew from branch to branch, crying out l.u.s.tily.

He revolved around the end of a broken limb in whose small hollow was framed the head of Madame Falco. From her height she looked like a rag doll at her window. Her funny round face, which filled the doorway, had black spots for bill and eyes, and dark lines down the cheeks that might have simulated rag doll tattooing.

Evidently there was some reason why she did not want to come to breakfast. Once she started to turn back into the nest, but at last laboriously wedged her way out of the hole and flew to a branch. Her mate was at her side in an instant, and handed her the snake. She took it greedily and flew off with it, let us hope because she was afraid of me, not because she did not want to divide with him, or thought he would ask her to, after all his devotion and patience!

When the bird went back to her nest, her hesitation about leaving it was explained. For a long time she sat on a limb near by with tail bobbing, apparently trying to make up her mind to go in. When she did fly up at the hole she could not get in, and half fell down. After this failure she sat down on a branch, her tail tilting as violently as a pipit's, and when Canello moved around too much, took the excuse and flew off.

Her mate came back with her, but when he saw us, he screamed and flew away, leaving her to her fate.

She sat looking at her hole a long time before she tried it again, and when she did try, failed. It was not till her fourth attempt that she succeeded. The hole was very much too small for her, and the surface of the branch below it was so smooth and slippery that it gave her nothing to hold to in trying to wedge herself in. She would fly against the hole and attempt to hook her bill over the edge, and so draw herself up, but her shoulders were too big for the s.p.a.ce. She tried to make them smaller by drawing down her wings lengthwise. Once, in her efforts, she spread her tail like a fan. After her third struggle, she sat for a long time smoothing her ruffled feathers, shaking herself, scratching her face with her foot and trying to get her plumes in order.

While making her toilet she apparently thought of a new plan. She went back to the hole and, raising her claw, fastened it inside the hole and with a spasmodic effort wedged in her body and disappeared down the black hollow. Her mate came a moment after, but she did not even appear in the doorway when he called. Again he came, crying _keek' keek'

kick-er' r' r'_, in tender falsetto; but it was no use. Madame Falco had had altogether too hard a time getting in, to go out again in a hurry.

He held a worm in his bill till he was tired, changed it to his claw, letting it dangle from that for a while; and then, as she would make no sign, finally flew off.

The next day we had another session with the sparrow hawk. She had evidently profited by experience. She did not fly at the hole in the violent way she had done the day before, but ambled along a limb to get as close to it as possible, and then quietly flew up. She made two or three unsuccessful attempts to enter, but kept at the branch,--falling back but once. She got half way in once or twice, but could not force her wings through. She acted as if determined not to give up, and at last, when she found herself falling backwards, with a desperate effort drew herself in.

There was another sparrow hawk family across the road from my ranch. In riding by one day, I saw a youngster looking out from the nest hole with big frightened eyes. Was it the only child, or was it monopolizing the fresh air while its brothers were smothering below? Another day there were two heads in the window; one was the round domed, top of a fluffy nestling whose eyes expressed only vague fear; but the other was the strongly marked head of an old sparrow hawk, who eyed us with keen intelligence. As I stared up, the young one drew back into the hole behind its parent, probably in obedience to her command; and the old bird bent such an anxious inquiring gaze upon me that I took the hint and rode away to save the poor mother worry.

These were not the only hawks of the valley. Once, seeing one of the large Buteos winging its way with nesting sticks hanging from its claws, I turned Canello into the field after it, following till it lit in the top of a high sycamore. The pair were both gathering material. Sometimes they flew with the twigs in their claws; sometimes in their bills; now they would fly directly to the nest, again circle around the tree before alighting. When one was at work, the other sometimes flew up and soared so high in the sky he looked no larger than a sparrow hawk. In swooping to the ground suddenly, the hawks would hollow in their backs, stick up their tails, drop their legs for ballast, and so let themselves come to earth. While one of the birds was peacefully gathering sticks, two blackbirds attacked it, apparently on general grounds, because it belonged to a family that had been traduced since history began. To tell the honest truth, I trembled a little myself at thought of what might happen to some of my small tenants, though I rea.s.sured myself by remembering that the facts prove the maligned hawks much more likely to eat gophers than birds.

In the back of the stub occupied by one of the sparrow hawks it was a pleasure to find a flicker excavating its nest. Planting its claws firmly in the hole with tail braced against the bark, the bird leaned forward, thrusting its head in, over and again, as if feeding young. It used its feet as a pivot, and swung itself in, farther and farther, as it worked. Such gymnastics took strong feet, for the bird raised itself by them each time. It worked like an automatic toy wound up for the performance. When tired, the flicker hopped up on a branch and vented its feelings by shouting _if-if-if-if-if-if-if_, after which it quietly returned to work. The wood was so soft that the excavating made almost no noise, but it was easy to see what was going on, for the carpenter simply drew back its head and tossed out the glistening chips for all the world to see. At the end of a week the flicker was working so far down in its excavation that only the tip of its tail stuck out of the door.

The nest of another Colaptes, I found by accident--a fresh chip dropped from mid-air upon my riding skirt. Just then Canello gave a stentorian sneeze and the bird came to her window to look down. She did not object to us, and was loath to turn back inside the dark hole--such a close stuffy place--when outside there were the rich green leaves of the tree, the sweet breath of the hayfield and the gentle breeze just springing up; all the warmth and sunshine and fragrance of the fields. How could she ever leave to go below? Perhaps she bethought her that soon the dark hole would be a home ringing with the voices of her little ones; at all events, she quickly turned and disappeared in her nest.

At the foot of the ranch I discovered a comical, sleepy little brown owl, dozing in a sycamore window. When we waked it up, it went backing down the hole. I wondered if it kept awake all day without food, for surely owl children do not get many meals by daylight. I spoke to the ranchman's son about it, and he said he thought the old birds fed the young too much, that he had found about a dozen small kangaroo rats and mice in their holes! He told me that he had known old owls to change places in the daytime, and both birds to stay in the hole during the day. Down the valley, where an old well was only partly covered over, at different times he had found a number of drowned owls. They seemed to fly into any dark hole that offered. Three barn owls had been taken from a windmill tank in the neighborhood in about a month. In a mine at Escondido the man had found a number of owls sitting in a crevice where the earth, had caved; and he had seen about a dozen of them fifty to a hundred feet underground, at the bottom of the mine shaft.

I did not wonder the birds wanted to keep out of sight in the daytime, knowing what happened to those that stayed out. A pair nested in the top of a high sycamore on my neighbors' premises, and when one stirred away from home, it did so to its sorrow. One morning there was such a commotion I rode down to see what was the matter. A big dark brown form flew down the avenue of sycamores ahead of us, followed by a mob of all the feathered house owners in the neighborhood. They escorted it home to the top of its own tree, where it seated itself on a limb, its big yellow eyes staring and its long ears dropped down, as if home were not home with a rout of angry bee-birds and blackbirds screeching and diving at you over your own doorsill. Two orioles started to fly over from the next tree, but went back, perhaps thinking it wiser not to make open war upon such near neighbors; while a sparrow hawk who came to help in the attack was judged too dangerous an ally and escorted home by a squad of blackbirds dispatched for the purpose. The poor persecuted owl screwed its head around to its back as if hoping to see pleasanter sights on that side; but the uncanny performance did not seem to please its enemies, and a blackbird flew rudely past, close under its bill, as if to warn it of what might happen.

The queerest of all my tenants was an old mother barn owl who lived in the black charred chimney of one of the sycamores. I found a white feather on the black wood one day in riding by, and pulling Canello up by the tree, broke off a twig and rapped on the door. She came blundering out and flew to a limb over our heads--such a queer old crone, with her hooked nose and her weazened face surrounded by a circlet of dark feathers. The light blinded her, and with her big round eyes wide open she leaned down staring to make out who we were. Then shaking her head reproachfully, she swayed solemnly from side to side.

As the wind blew against her ragged feathers she drew her wings over her breast like a cloak, making herself look like a poverty-stricken wiseacre. Finding that we did not offer to go, the poor old crone took to her wings; but as she pa.s.sed down the line of sycamores she roused the blackbird clan, and a pair of angry orioles flew out and attacked her. My conscience smote me for driving her out among her enemies, but on our return to the sycamores all was quiet again, and a lizard was sunning himself on the edge of the old owl's chimney.

XI

AN UNNAMED BIRD.

SIX years ago, on my first visit to California, I found a dainty cup of a nest out in the oaks, but the name of its owner was a puzzle. On returning East I consulted those who are wisest in matters of such fine china, but they were unable to clear up the matter. For five years that mystery haunted me. At the end of that time, when back in California, up in those same oaks, I found another cup of the same pattern; but the cup got broken and that was the end of it.

The fact of the matter is, you can identify perhaps ninety per cent. of the birds you see, with an opera-gla.s.s and--patience; but when it comes to the other ten per cent., including small vireos and flycatchers, and some others that might be mentioned, you are involved in perplexities that torment your mind and make you meditate murder; for it is impossible to

Name _all_ the birds without a gun.

On bringing my riddle to the wise men, they shook their heads and asked why I did not shoot my bird and find out who he was. On saying the word his skin would be sent to me; but after knowing the little family in their home it would have been like raising my hand against familiar friends. Could I take their lives to gratify my curiosity about a name?

I pondered long and weighed the matter well, trying to harden my heart; but the image of the winning trustful birds always rose before me and made it impossible. I will put the case before you, and you can judge if you would not have withheld your hand.

One day, hearing the sound of battle up in the treetops, I hurried over to the scene of action, when out dashed a pair of courageous little dull-colored birds in hot pursuit of a blue jay, whom they dove at till they drove him from the field. My sympathies were enlisted at once.

Fearless little tots to brave a bird four times as big as themselves in defense of their home! How hard to have to build and rear a brood in the face of such a powerful foe! I wanted to take up the cudgels for them and stand guard to see that no harm came.

Planting my camp-stool under their oak, I watched eagerly to have my new friends show me their home. As I waited, a pair of turtle doves walked about on the sand under the farther branches of the tree; a pair of woodp.e.c.k.e.rs sat on a dead limb lying in wait for their prey; and a couple of t.i.tmice came hunting through the oak--all the world seemed full of happy home-makers.

But soon I saw a sight that made me forget everything else. There were my brave little birds up in the oak working upon a beautiful moss cup that hung from a forked twig. They were building together, flying rapidly back and forth bringing bits of moss from the brush to put in their nest.

They worked independently, each hunting moss and placing it to its own satisfaction. What one did the other would be well pleased with, I felt sure. But while each worked according to its own ideas, they always appeared to be working together; they could not bear to be out of sight of each other long at a time. When the small father bird found himself at the nest alone, after placing his material he would stand and call to let his pretty mate know that he was waiting for her; or else sit down by the nest and warble over such a contented, happy little lay it warmed my heart just to listen to him.

When his mate appeared the merry birds would chase off for a race through the treetops. Song and play were mingled with their work, but, for all that, the happy builders' house grew under their hands, and they kept faithfully at their task of preparing the home for their little brood. Once the small, dainty mother bird,--surely it must have been she,--after putting in her bit of moss, settled down in the nest and sat there the picture of quiet happiness.

This was all I saw of the nest builders that year. A great storm swept through the valley, and it must have washed away the frail mossy cup, for it was gone and the tree was deserted. Nevertheless, the birds had been so attractive, and their nest so interesting, that through the five years that pa.s.sed before my return to California I kept their memory green, and could never think of them without tenderness--though I could call them by no name. If they had only worn red feathers in their caps, it would have been some clue to their coats-of-arms; but, out of hand, there seemed to be nothing to mark the plain, little, greenish gray birds from half a dozen of their cousins.

When I finally returned to the California ranch, one of my first thoughts was for the moss nest makers up in the oaks. Now I had a chance to solve the mystery without harming one of their pretty feathers, for by long and patient watching I might get near enough to puzzle out the 'spurious primary' and the subtle distinctions of tint that make such a difference in calling birds by their right names.

For six weeks I watched and listened in vain, but one day when riding up the canyon rejoicing at the new life that filled the trees, I stopped under an oak only a few rods from the one where the nest had been five years before, and looking up saw a small dull-colored bird with a bit of moss in its bill walking down into a mossy cup right before my eyes! For a few moments I was the happiest observer in the land. I had found my little friend again, after all these years! It looked over the edge of the twig at me several times, but went on gathering material as unconcernedly as if it, too, remembered me. The mossy cup seemed prettier than any rare bit of Sevres china, for I looked upon it with eyes that had been waiting for the sight for five years.

As the bird worked, a cottontail rabbit rustled the leaves, and Billy started forward, frightening the timid animal so that it scampered off over the ground, showing the white underside of its tail. But though Billy and the rabbit were both terrified, the brave worker only flew down to a twig to look at them, and turned back calmly to its task.

The nest was so protectively colored that I could not see it readily, and sometimes started to find that I had been looking right at it without knowing it. The prospect of identifying my birds was not encouraging. You might as well expect to see from the first floor what was going on up in a cupola as to expect to see from the ground what birds are doing up in the thick oak tops. You have reason to be thankful for even a glimpse of a bird in the heavy foliage, and as for 'spurious primaries,'--"Woe worth the chase!"

Now and then I got a hint of family matters. My two little friends were working together, and occasionally I saw a bit of moss put in; but it was evident that the main part of the work was over. One day I waited half an hour, and when the bird came it acted as if it had really done all that was necessary, and only returned for the sake of being about its pretty home.

The birds said a good deal up in the oak, sometimes in sweet lisping tones, as though talking to themselves about the nest. They often flew away from it not far over my head. The call note was a loud whistle--_whee-it'_--and the bird gave it so rapidly that I once took out my watch to time him, after which he called seventy times in sixty seconds. Often after whistling loudly he would give a soft low call. His clear ringing voice was one of the most cheering in the valley.

When the building seemed done and I was looking forward to the brooding, as the birds would then, perforce, be more about the nest, one sad morning I rode up through the oaks and found the beautiful moss cup torn and dangling from its branch. It was the keenest disappointment of the nesting season, and there had been many. The pretty acquaintance to whose renewal I had looked forward so many years was now ended.

Again I had to leave California without being able to name my winning little friends. If I had been too much interested in them before to set a price on their heads; now, rather than raise my voice against them, they should remain forever unnamed.[4]

FOOTNOTE:

[4] Since this paper was written, I have consulted an authority on nests, who thinks that this nameless bird was probably Hutton's vireo.