THE BIRDS’ TABLE
THE impression of comedy among natural birds and beasts first came to me in childhood, a time when eyes are frankly open to behold the natural world as God made it. Long before it became the excellent fashion to feed our winter birds, I used to prepare a table under the grapevines and spread it with crumbs, raisins, cracked nuts, everything a child could think of that feathered folk might like. Scores of wild birds came daily to my table in bitter weather. Squirrels frisked over it, and were sometimes hungry enough to eat before they began to hide things away, as squirrels commonly do when they find unexpected abundance. Several times a family of Bob Whites, graceful and light footed, came swiftly over the wall, gurgling exquisite low calls as they sensed the feast; and once a beautiful cock partridge appeared from nowhere, gliding, turning, balancing like a dancing master, and hopped upon the table and ate all the raisins as his first morsel.
Unless a door were noisily opened or a sneaky cat crept into the scene, none of these dainty creatures gave me any impression of fearfulness, and such a notion as pity for their tragic existence could hardly enter one’s head; certainly not so long as one kept his eyes open. Though always finely alert, they seemed a contented folk, gay even in midwinter, and they quickly accepted the child who watched with eager eyes from the window or sat motionless out-of-doors within a few feet of their dining table. When their hunger was satisfied many would stay a little time, basking in the sunshine on the grapevines or the pear tree, as if they liked to be near the house. Some of them sang, and their note was low and sweet, very different from their springtime jubilation. A few uttered what seemed to be a food call, since it brought more of the same feather hurrying in; now and then it appeared that birds which are perforce solitary in winter (because of the necessity of seeking food over wide areas) were glad to be once more with their own kind. Among these were certain small groups, noticeable because they chattered together after the feast, and I wondered if they were not a mother bird and her reunited nestlings. I think they were, for I have since learned that family ties hold longer among the birds than we have been led to imagine.
One of the first things I noticed in the conduct of my little guests was that they were never quarrelsome so long as they were downright hungry. Indeed, unlike our imported house sparrow, very few of them showed a pugnacious disposition at any time; but now and then appeared a thrifty or grasping fellow who, after satisfying his hunger, would get a notion into his head that the food was all his if he could claim or corner it; and he was apt to be a trouble-maker. This early observation is one which I have since confirmed many times, both at home and in the snows of the North: the hunger which is supposed to make wild creatures ferocious invariably softens and tames them.
Another matter which soon became evident was that birds of the same species were not all alike. Their forms, their colors, even their faces distinguished them one from another. I began to recognize many of them at sight, and presently to note individual whims or humors which reminded me pleasantly of my neighbors; so much so that I called certain birds by names which might be found in the town records, but not in books of natural history. Some came with grace to the table, eating daintily or moving aside for a newcomer, as if timid of giving offense. Others swooped in and fed rudely, unmindful of others, as if eating had no savor of society or the Sacrament, but were a trivial matter to be finished quickly, with no regard for that natural courtesy and dignity which we now call manners.
Among these graceful or graceless birds there was constant individual variety. Alert juncos, forever on tiptoe, would be followed by some sleepy or indifferent junco; woodpeckers that seemed wholly intent on the marrow of a hollow bone would be replaced by a Paul-Pry woodpecker, who was always watching the other guests from behind a limb; and sooner or later in the day I would bid welcome to “Saryjane,” a fussy and suspicious bird that reminded me of a woman who had only to look at a boy to make him shamefully conscious that his face needed washing or his clothes mending.
No sooner did “Saryjane” light on the table than peace took to flight. Before she picked up a crumb she would lay down the law how crumbs must be picked up, and by her bossy or meddlesome ways she drove many of the birds into the grapevines; whither they went gladly, it seemed, to be rid of her. They soon learned to anticipate her ways; at her approach some dainty tree sparrow or cheerful titmouse would flit away with an air of “Here she comes!” in his hasty exit. She was a nuthatch, one of a half-dozen that came at odd times, peaceably enough, to explore a lump of suet suspended over the birds’ table; and whenever I see her like now, or hear her critical yank-yank, I always think of “Saryjane” rather than of Sitta carolinensis.
When I translate the latter jargon, using a monkey-wrench on the grammar, I get, “A she-thing that squats, inhabitating a place named after an imaginary counterpart of a he-one miscalled Carolus”; which illuminates the ornithologists somewhat, but leaves the nuthatch in obscurity. The other name has power, at least, to evoke a smile and a happy memory. The real or human “Saryjane” used to stipulate, when she hired a boy to pick her cherries, that he must whistle while he worked or lose his pay.
One morning—I remember only that the snow lay deep, and that all birds were uncommonly eager at their breakfast—a stranger appeared at the birds’ table, a sober fellow whom I had never before seen. Without paying the slightest attention to other guests he plumped into the feast, ate enough for two birds of his size, and then sat for a long time beside a pile of crumbs, as if waiting for another appetite. Thereafter he came regularly, and always acted in the same greedy way. He would light fair in the middle of the food, and gobble the first thing in sight, as if fearful that the supply might fail or that other birds might devour everything before he was satisfied. After eating he would sit at the edge of the table, his feathers puffed, a disconsolate droop to his tail, looking in a sad way at the abundance of things he could not eat, being too full. With the joy of Adam when he gave names to creatures that were brought before him, I promptly called this bird “Jake” after a boy about my size, one of a numerous and shiftless brood, whom I had brought most unexpectedly to our human table on Thanksgiving Day.
The table happened to be loaded, in the country fashion of that time, with every tasty or substantial thing that the farm provided, and Jake stuffed himself in a way to threaten famine. Turkey with cranberry sauce, sparerib with apple sauce, game potpie, mashed potatoes with cream, Hubbard squash with butter,—whatever was offered him vanished in fearful haste, and his eyes were fixed hungrily on something else. He said never a word; as I watched him, fascinated, he seemed to swell as he ate. Then came a great tray of plum pudding, with mince and pumpkin pies flanked by raisins and fruit; and the waif sat appalled, his greasy cheeks puffed out, tears rolling down over them into his plate. “I can’t eat no puddin’; I—can’t—eat—no—pie!” he wailed; while we forgot all courtesy to our guest and howled at the comedy. Poor little chap! he had more hunger and less discretion than any wild thing I ever fed.
That was long ago, when I knew most of the birds without naming them, and when no one within my ken could have given me book names for the half of them had I cared to ask. It was the bird himself, not his ticket or his species, that always interested me.
Among the visitors was one gorgeous blue-and-white fellow, a jay, as I guessed at once, who puzzled me all winter. He always came most politely, and would light on the pear tree to whistle a pleasant too-loo-loo! a greeting it seemed, before he approached the table. I took to him at once, with his gay attire and gallant crest, and immediately he proved himself the most courteous guest at the feast. He invariably lit at some empty place; he would move aside for the smallest bird, with deference in his manner; when he took a morsel it was always with an air of “By your leave, sir,” which showed his breeding.
The puzzle was that other birds disdained this handsome Chesterfield, refusing to have anything to do with him. Now and then, when he was most polite, some tiny sparrow would fly at his head or chivvy him angrily from the table; but for the most part they kept him at a distance until they had eaten, when they would move scornfully aside, leaving him to eat by himself. At first I thought they had bad tempers; but a child’s instinct is quick to measure any social situation, and when the jay had returned a few times I began to suspect that the fault was with him. Yes, surely there was something wrong, some pretense or imposture, in this fine fellow whom nobody trusted; but what?
The answer came in the spring, and was my own discovery. I am still more proud of it than of the time, years later, when I first touched a wild deer in the woods with my hand. Near my home was a woodsy dell with a brook singing through it, which I named “Bird Hollow” from the number of feathered folk that gathered or nested there. What attracted them I know not; perhaps the brook, with its shallows for bathing; or the perfect solitude of the place, for though cultivated fields lay about it, and from its edge a distant house could be seen, I never once met a human being there. It was just such a place as a child loves, because it is all his own, and because it is sure to furnish something new or old every day of the year,—birds’ nests, wood for whistles, early woodcock, frogs for pickerel bait, pools for sailing a fleet of cucumber boats, a mink’s track, a rabbit’s form, an owl’s cavernous tree, a thousand interesting matters.
One morning I was at the Hollow alone, watching some nests at a time when mother birds chanced to be away for a hurried mouthful. Presently came my blue jay, and he seemed a different creature from the Chesterfield I had known. No more polite or gallant ways now; he fairly sneaked along, hiding, listening, like a boy sent to plunder a neighbor’s garden. Without knowing why, I felt suddenly ashamed of him.
Just over a catbird’s nest the jay stopped and called, but very softly. That was a “feeler,” I think, for at the call he pressed against the stem of a tree, as if to hide, and he stood alert, ready to flit at a moment’s notice. Then he dropped swiftly to the nest, drove his bill into it, and tip-tilted his head with a speared egg. A dribble of yellow ran down the corner of his mouth as he ate. He finished off two more eggs, and went straight as a bee to another nest, which I had not discovered. Evidently he knew where they all were. He speared an egg here, and was eating it when there came a rush of wings, the challenge of an excited robin, and away went the jay screaming, “Thief! Thief!” at the top of his voice. A score of little birds came with angry cries to the robin’s challenge, and together they chased the nest-robber out of hearing.
And then I understood why the other guests had no patience with the jay’s comedy when he played the part of a fine fellow at the winter table. They knew him better than I did.
It was an experience, not a theory, of life that I sought in those early days, when nature spoke a language that I seemed to understand; and a host of experiences soon confirmed me in the belief that birds and beasts accept life, unconsciously perhaps, as a kind of game and play it to the end in a spirit of comedy. Later came the literature and alleged science of wild life, one filling the pleasant woods with tragedy, the other with a pitiless struggle for existence; but no sooner do I go out-of-doors to front life as it is than all such borrowed notions appear in their true light, the tragic stories as mere inventions, the scientific theories as bookish delusions.
The cheery lesson of the winter birds, for example, is one which I have since proved in many places, especially in the North, where I always spread a table for the birds before I dine at my own. The typical table is a broad and bountiful affair, set just outside the window on the sunny side of camp; but sometimes, when I am following the wolf trails, it is only a bit of bark on the snow beside my midday fire.
When the halt comes, and the glow of snowshoeing is replaced by the chill of a zero wind, a fire is quickly kindled and a dipper of tea set to brew. Next comes the birds’ table with its sprinkling of crumbs, and hardly is one returned to the fire before Ch’geegee appears, calling blithely as he comes to share the feast. His summons invariably brings more chickadees, each with gray, warm coat and jaunty black cap; their eager voices attract other hungry ones, a woodpecker, a pair of Canada jays (they always go in pairs, as if expecting another ark), and a shy, elusive visitor who is no less welcome because you cannot name him in his winter garb. Suddenly from aloft comes a new call, very wild and sweet; there is a whirl of wings in the top of a spruce, where Little Far-to-go, as the Indians name him, calls halt to his troop of crossbills at sight of the fire and the gathering birds. A brief moment of rest, a babel of soft voices, another flurry of wings, and the crossbills are gone, speeding away into the far distance. Next to arrive are the nuthatches, a squirrel or two, and then—well, then you never know who may answer your invitation. Before your feast ends you may learn two things: that these snow-filled woods shelter an abundant life, and that the life is invincibly cheerful.
So it happens that, though I have often been alone in the winter wilderness, I have never eaten a lonely meal there; always I have had guests, friendly, well-mannered little guests, and the pleasure they bring to the solitary man is beyond words. Very companionable it is, as one says grace over his bread and meat, to hear “Amen” from a score of pleasant voices making Thanksgiving of the homely fare. Warm as the radiance of the fire, soothing as the fragrance of a restful pipe, is the inner glow of satisfaction when one sees his guests linger awhile, gossiping over the unexpected, questioning the flame or the smoke, and anon turning up an inquisitive eye at the silent host from whose table they have just eaten. When I hear speaker or writer urging his audience to feed our winter birds because of their earthly or economic value, I find myself wondering why he does not emphasize the heavenly fun of the thing.
As I recall these many tables, spread in the snow at a season when, as we imagine, the pitiless struggle for existence is at its height, they all speak to strengthen the early impression of gladness, of good cheer, of a general spirit of play or comedy among wild creatures. I have counted over sixty chickadees, woodpeckers, grouse, jays, squirrels and other wayfarers around the table beside my camp; but though some of these have their enmities in the nesting season, when jays and squirrels are overfond of eggs, it was still a lively and a happy company, because all the wood folk have an excellent way of ending an unpleasantness by forgetting it. They live wholly in the present, being too full of vitality to dwell in the past, and too carefree to burden life by carrying a grudge.
Some of these remembered guests came boldly to my table, some with the exquisite shyness born of the silent places; but all were natural at first, and therefore peaceable. Unlike our mannerless house sparrows, they fed very daintily for the most part, and would chatter pleasantly before going away, to return when they were again hungry; but now and then some graceless bird or squirrel would insist on having the biggest morsel, or might even try to drive others away while he made sure of it; and it was these exceptional individuals who caused whatever brief, unnatural bickerings I have chanced to witness.
I remember especially one nuthatch that visited my winter camp in Ontario; he was different from all others of his kind, even from my early acquaintance, “Saryjane,” in that he seemed possessed of the notion that whatever I put out-doors in the way of food was his private property. He was always first at the table, arriving before the sun; and sometimes, when an angry chatter would break through my dawn dreams, I would go to the window to find him driving other early comers away from the relicts of yesterday’s abundance. “Food Baron” we dubbed him when some of his notions struck us as familiar and quite human.
As the sun rose, and more hungry birds appeared for the breakfast I always spread for them, the Baron would change his methods. Finding the hungry ones too many or too lively to be managed, he would proceed hurriedly to remove as much food as possible to a cache which he had somewhere back in the woods. In this individual whim of hiding food, as well as in his peculiar challenge, he was different from any other nuthatch I ever met. Returning from one of these hurried flights, he would perch a moment on a branch over the table, eye the feeding guests angrily, pick out one who was busy at a big morsel, and launch himself straight at the offender’s head. Deep in his throat sounded a terrifying chur-churr as he made his swoop.
The odd thing is that he always got the morsel he wanted. Though he often charged a jay or a squirrel much bigger than himself, I never saw one that had the nerve to stand against his headlong rush. Being peaceable and a little timid, as all wild things naturally are, they dropped whatever they were eating and dodged aside; whereupon the nuthatch swept over the table like a fury, whirring his wings and crying, “Churr! Away with you! Vamoose!” which sent most of the little birds with startled peeps into the trees. Then, with the board cleared, he would drag off his morsel, hide it, and come back as quickly as he could to repeat his extraordinary performance.
How the other birds regarded him would be hard to tell. At times they seemed to get a bit of fun or excitement out of the game by slipping in to steal a mouthful while the Baron was chasing some luckless fellow who had claimed too big a crumb. At other times they would wait patiently in the trees, basking in the sunshine, till the trouble-maker was gone away to hide things, when they would come down and feed alertly. In this way they would soon get all they wanted for the time, and flit away to their own affairs. Another odd thing is that the Baron, after storing things without opposition for a few minutes, would tire of it and disappear, leaving plenty still on the table.
Occasionally in the woods one meets a bird that by some freak of heredity seems to have been born without his proper instincts: a young wild goose sees his companions depart from the North, but feels no impulse to follow them, and remains to die in the winter snow; or a cow-bunting has no instinct to build a nest of her own, and makes a farce of life by leaving an egg here or there in some other bird’s household. Among the beasts it is the same story: a rare beaver has no instinct to build a house with his fellows, but lives by himself in a den in the bank; or some timid creature that has fled from you unnumbered times on a sudden upsets all your generalizations by showing the boldness of lunacy.
I remember one occasion when darkness and rain overtook me on the trail, and sent me to sleep in a deserted lumber camp; which is the most sleepless place on earth, I think, being full of creaks, groans, rustling porcupines, wild-eyed cats, spooks, mice, evil smells, and other distractions. Except in a downpour, any tree or bush offers more cheerful shelter. About the middle of the night I was awakened, or rather galvanized, by the impression that some creature was trying to get at me. In the black darkness of the place the very presence of the thing seemed to fill the whole shanty. I foolishly jumped up, charged with a yell, and ran bang into a huge, hairy object. There was a grunt, and a hasty, flaring match showed the grotesque head of a cow-moose sticking into the open window. Having been scared stiff, I belted her away roughly; but hardly had I straightened my poor nerves in sleep when she came again, head, neck, shoulders, all she could crowd into the low doorway. I shooed her off, hastening her flight with clubs, ax heads, old moccasins, everything throwable that I could lay hands on; yet she lingered about the yard for an hour or two, and once more came snuffling with her camel’s nose at the window. How do I account for her? I don’t. You can say that she mistook me for her lost calf, and I shall not contradict you.
So this nuthatch, at odds with all his kind, may possibly have been born without the common instinct of sociability and decency. The other birds were sometimes seen watching him curiously, as they watch any other strange thing. Now and then one of them would resent some personal indignity by giving the greedy one tit for tat; but for the most part they seemed well content to keep aloof from the nuisance. They had enough to eat, with a little sauce of excitement, and I think they accepted the nuthatch as a harmless kind of lunatic.
