The first of the season we saw only the male, and he kept high in the blue-gum trees, fifty or sixty feet or more above ground, singing as soon as everybody was out of sight, but disappearing if a door opened. We thought him a belated robin, so do the songs of the two birds impress a stranger. For weeks we could catch not so much as a glimpse of the singer, though we hid in the shrubbery. Shrubbery was no barrier to the sight of the keen little eye and ear above. Then we took to the attic, and from a little roof corner-pane beheld the musician.
But his song was short and ended unfinished, so suspicious was the bird. Gradually he came to understand that no shot-gun disturbed the garden stillness, even though he sat on an outer bough, and no cat lurked in the roses. He also appeared to notice that nobody played ball on the greensward, nor threw stones at stray chickens. Altogether circumstances seemed favorable to Sir Grosbeak, and he brought Madam along down from the mountain cañons.
By midsummer of the second season the two were seen at sunrise as low as the tallest of the orange-trees, but they flew higher or disappeared if the door were opened. It was the year that we first planted the row of Logan berries, a new cross between the blackberry and raspberry. It was between the orange and lemon trees, in a quiet corner of the orchard, and the grosbeaks espied them, reddening a month before they ripened. By getting up at dawn we made sure that nesting operations had begun within twenty feet of the Logan berries. But which way? It was not until the eggs were laid that we found the site on a low limb of a fig-tree adjoining the berry row. The nest was made solely of dry dark-leaf spines, and so transparently laid that we could distinguish the three eggs from below. There was no lining, plenty of ventilation in this and other of these grosbeaks' nests observed in the foothills being the rule. Perhaps the climate induces the birds to this sanitary measure. Certain it is that this nest could be no harbor for those insect foes that too often make life miserable for the birdlings.
The summer passed, and we gave up the row of berries to the grosbeaks. There were but few anyway, and we wanted the birds. And there was other fruit they were welcome to.
This season the grosbeaks have brought off three broods within fifty feet of the house. The male sings in the low bushes and trees, and does not think of punctuating his notes with stops and pauses, even though we stand within a few feet of him. In fact, the birds are now as tame as robins. Young striped fledglings grope about in the clover, or flutter in the bushes as fearless as sparrows. If we pick them up they will support themselves by a grip on the hand and swing by their strong great beaks, screaming at the top of their shrill voices to "let go!" when it is themselves that are holding on with might and main. If they scream long enough, and their beaks do not weaken in their clutch, the mocker comes to the rescue and scolds us, while we explain the situation, extending our hands with the grosbeak clinging to the palm.
So far as we have known, all the nests in our grounds have been built in the crotch of a fig-tree. The fig has sparse foliage and affords little shelter. But then there are figs that ripen most of the summer—and figs are good for baby grosbeaks. Once we discovered a nest by accident. The bees at swarming-time settled in the top of a fig-tree, a place not at all suitable, in our opinion. We were busily engaged in tossing dust into the tree to frighten the bees out, when a grosbeak appeared, scolding so hard in her familiar, motherly tone that we knew we were "sanding" her nest as well as the bees. And we found it all right! She went on with her work after we had attended to the bees.
On account of the fondness of the birds for fruit and buds, the grosbeaks might easily become resident in any home grounds. Low shrubbery they love when once they have become familiar; unlike the thrushes, not caring particularly for damp places. Dry, baked-in-the-sun nooks, crisp undergrowth, and especially untrimmed berry rows fascinate them. During mating-season the male sings all the time when he is not eating, singing as he flies from perch to perch, and like others of the family, has been accused of night serenades. We are unable to know certainly if it is our grosbeak or the mocker that wakes us at midnight. It is probably the mocker, who has stolen notes from all the birds.