Birds of Song and Story

by Elizabeth Grinnell; Joseph Grinnell

By gradually accustoming birds to one's presence, and then to one's voice, and then to the near approach, one may succeed in taming wild birds at nesting-time. We have had the finches and linnets and towhees and bush-tits and humming-birds perfectly trustful, even to some of the males, whose presence at the nests is not absolutely essential. We have had the parent birds feed the young from our hands, we standing at the nest. As to nesting itself, the fun to be had of a spring morning is beyond description. After learning this familiarity the birds will go on without noticing us. The towhee straggles across the grass, tugging a long rag much too heavy to fly with. The mocker pulls straws from the torn end of a garden cushion. The bush-tit gathers bits of lichen from the bough on which our hands rest. The phœbe scarcely waits for us to step aside that she may bite the shreds from the jute door-mat, to mix with her mud. The sparrow, scratching away under the tree for a bug and a bit of leaf at one and the same time, treads on our toes in her fearlessness. The hummer fans our faces with her wings, should we happen to be near the "cotton-counter."

When the young birds are just big enough to tumble out of the nest, then nursery-times fairly begin. The ground is alive with them. Of many sizes and features, more especially as to beak, they peep and scream and coax. By sundown those not old enough to hop or flutter to a safe place are the source of great anxiety. We are obliged to go out and help "put the babies to bed." And these twilight times, more than the whole day, are the "cat-times." Pussy understands the turmoil. She skulks and prowls, and scarcely dares to breathe in her silent hopes. It is then that we dare breathe, and many other things. This incessant war on the feline tribe must be kept up would any one have birds around his home.

There is one thing at nesting-time that puzzles us. Why do mother birds pass carelessly by so much good material? They pick up this grass or string or feather, to drop it for another. And then, why do they pass by this or that fly or other insect and pick up another?

They probably have their reasons, the same as they choose between equally good nest locations. It is on this account that we are particular to have a variety of everything in their way.

It is at nesting-time that we take especial care of the garden table. We furnish everything we imagine acceptable. As soon as the young of finches or sparrows are out of the nest they are brought to the table by their parents. All the birds have a sweet tooth. They like cookies and pie and sugar and (as will be remembered in the case of the sparrows) good molasses. It was when the tourist robins were here that we thought about the molasses. The robins wouldn't take it clear, as the sparrows did, so we mixed it with meal. They came and looked at it and tasted, and liked it very well. Thinking to score a point for the temperance people, we mixed some old bourbon with the pudding. A tipsy robin would be a funny sight! But not a morsel of the meal would they ever touch. We kept up the game several days, it resulting at last in all the robins leaving the grounds in disgust. Then we tried it on the sparrows, but to no purpose. Every bird grew suspicious, and we had to give it up. This proved to us that birds cultivate the sense of smell.

Birds in general are like the donkey before whose nose is suspended a wisp of hay tied to the end of a pole, "to make him go." Of course in the case of the donkey the pole goes in advance of the nose, and it's a long while before the wisp and the appetite have a passing acquaintance. With the birds at our home the "wisp" is always out, so they are in no hurry to migrate. They do not leave us for so much as a short visit to their folks in Mexico until the molt is well under way. Some summer visitants even molt completely with us, and it is a sorry season. By the time a young bird is able to hustle for himself he wouldn't know his own mother. She has shed the feathers around the beak, leaving her nose or mouth so grotesque one has to laugh. Seeming to understand the joke is at their expense; some of our birds at this time keep well hidden, and come only to the edges of the shrubbery for food, or if overtaken in the open, they run as fast as their legs can carry them. A song-sparrow without a bit of tail is hopping now under the window, chirping her happy note, but hiding if we look at her.

A hummer, which yesterday took honey from the flowers we held in our lips, sits on a tiny twig, the picture of despair because her neck feathers are so thin. A mocker who has drank all summer from the dish with the bees, peeps at her shadow and preens imaginary quills. Half of them are on the ground by the table.

A phœbe sits alone on the housetop, wailing, thinking no doubt she is singing, and looking the picture of distress, with one tail-feather, and not enough of her ordinary neckerchief around her neck to cover the bare skin of it. And the nests, where are they? Just where they were. But they are faded and old and deserted. Never does a young bird go back to the nest after it has once left it, though some people believe they use it for a bed until long into the autumn. We have not seen them do so. They scorn the old thing! Isn't it as full of mites as it can hold? Of course it is, especially if it be a linnet's nest. When the third brood came out in the same nest we found it so infested with mites, almost invisible, that we could not touch it. And the poor little birdlings had to bide their time in getting away. It is supposed to be on account of these parasites that some birds compose their nests of strong-smelling weeds. However, we have not known any of the nests near us to be disturbed by these parasites save those in which several broods are reared. We have a seven-story flat, on each successive floor of which a linnet and a phœbe have nested. Phœbe's nest is mud, linnet's is straw and hair. Each builds atop of the others. It may grow to be a sky-scraper yet. Many of the mother birds sing at nesting-time. The house-finch, or linnet, keeps a continual twitter while incubating. So also the goldfinches. These notes are low and very musical and happy. The phœbe speaks her mournful note under the eaves while on the nest. By close listening, when other things are noiseless, one may detect the almost inaudible note of some of the hummers. The ear of a nature-lover grows keen by practice. There are low, nearly inarticulate whisperings among the birds in summer days never heard by those who have not learned the art of listening. The nest of the summer yellowbird may be within six feet of a person on the hunt for it, who, though of keen eye, may never find it, for lack of as keen an ear to hear the low note of the mother bird behind the foliage.

By close observation one may come to disprove many things said against the birds. For instance, a neighbor told us to be careful how we encouraged the orioles and phœbes to nest in our grounds if we didn't want them to eat up all our honey-bees. As usual with us in such cases, we accepted the warning "with a pinch of salt," and took to making observations on our own account.