Birds of Song and Story

by Elizabeth Grinnell; Joseph Grinnell

Locating ourselves behind an open window near the beehives, we watched. A vine trellis with top bar uncovered offered safe footing to phœbe; on she came with five young phœbes hatched on the fourth-floor flat under the eaves. The young birds were whining for food. As plain as any words can be, they cried, "Bees, bees, please!" And bees they were to have for dinner! The mother led them to the trellis bar, where they squatted in a row, peeping their longings. Bees were flying thicker than hail. The mother canted her head from side to side, the black eye of the upward cant searching the homeward-bound insects. "Why don't you help yourself?" we wondered. In a few minutes the bum, bum, of the drones was heard. Then mother phœbe darted, and darted, and darted; each time she snapped a big, sting-less, bumming drone, which she killed by banging its head against the bar. Then it was taken by a little phœbe, or more often by two phœbes, who tugged at the creature until it came in two parts, or was cunningly appropriated as a whole by one of them. This meal-time went on until all were, for the time being, appeased, and the family flew off. By the middle of next day they returned and went through the same performances, very amusing to the witnesses inside the window. Now, not a single worker-bee was touched! And the mother phœbe knew the exact hour for the flying of drones. These lazy, shiftless, bumming fellows never leave the hives until the day is far advanced and the sun has warmed things up. So, not breakfast, but dinner, was made of the drones.

As for the orioles, we were willing to give them a chance to speak for themselves. They appeared about April 10th, as usual. And straight for the bee corner of the garden they went. "I told you so!" said the neighbor. We watched. There were rose-bushes and vines in that part of the grounds, and to these the orioles hastened as fast as their wings could take them. The beehives sit under a row of moss-roses so thickly covered with spines that one cannot take hold of them without gloves. But this pair of orioles ran up and down and in and out without fear. These and many other rose-bushes did they examine minutely, pecking away as fast as they could move their beaks. Right at the entrance to the hives they went, on straggling briers, but not a bee did they touch. We were as close to them as we wished to be. Suddenly we scared them away before they should have devoured every secret, and there was retreat for our neighbor! The orioles had been eating the little green plant-lice that infest rose-bushes early in the spring.

Later they took to watching the bees, and we resumed our watch of the orioles. It was midsummer, and the young birds were all about, crying for bread, or rather for "bees," though their pronunciation was not so distinct as that of the young phœbes. The parent orioles took their stand right on the doorstep of the hives, and waited with head slightly turned, alert, ready for "a bite." Not a worker did they touch, but when a drone came bumming along he was nabbed as quick as a wink. All drone-time (which lasts about two months with us) did the orioles patronize the beehives. Unmolested did the tireless workers come, pollen-loaded, and run in at the entrance.

When the summer yellowbirds have three or four hungry mouths to feed, just watch at the open window behind the snowball-bush and "see what you see." Little green caterpillars make nourishing food for baby yellowbirds. The parents might be running up and down amid the green and white of the bush, just for effect of color, but they are not. Those little, soft, green biscuits are the objects of their ramble.

It has been an open question as to whether old birds carry water to the young. In the case of tame canaries they have been seen to regurgitate a whole cropful of the liquid into waiting "parched throats." So we may conclude that young birds require water.

In the case of a very young humming-bird who was deprived of its mother, we raised it for a while, at least, on milk sweetened with honey, feeding it with an eye-dropper such as surgeons use. The milk was a good substitute for such animal food as the young of hummers are accustomed to. When young humming-birds come out of the nest, and for many weeks, they are either very fearless or their sight is not good. Surely it is not the latter, unless it be atoned for by greater sense of smell; for they come to flowers we hold up to them, and even light on our hands and faces, following us in the shrubbery.

As a rule, young birds are suspicious and wary. They know by instinct how and where to hide. After sundown is the time to see interesting events connected with supper and bedtime. By close and quiet watching one may see for one's self where and how young birds sleep. Some retire to the same bough or bush each night. A family of bush-tits slept in a row on an orange twig every night for two weeks, in plain sight of us, and as near as six feet from our hands. The parents had been blessed with unusual success in this particular brood, bringing off six. These all slept in a row, "heads and tails," whispering the softest of notes until quite dark.

We have never been able to account for all the egg-shells that disappear in nesting-times. Now and then cracked bits are found in fields and woods, but only bits. One might get some information from the ants that are always prowling about for detached morsels of animal life. The birds themselves may eat or hide them, lest they tell tales. We have found shells far away from any nests, as if they had been carried on purpose. Sometimes they lie in the nest bottom in powder.

It is worth while to take a peep into every nest, just to get "pointers"—but never to get birdlings! And one's peeps should not be too frequent. It disturbs family order and confidence. Besides, if one takes to peeping when the birds are nearly fledged they often become frightened, and leave the nest too immature to warrant freedom and safety. Young birds are seen to sit or cling to the edge of the nest long before they are able to fly. At night they snuggle down into the warmth—and warmth as much as food is essential to young birds. But nesting-time has an end, like all good times.

When the late peaches turn their rosiest cheek to the autumn sun, and the husk of the beechnut opens its pale lips, then are the nests that were so lately the center of attraction tenantless and neglected. Old birds, in passing, take no notice of them, and the hungry juveniles pay no visible heed. What care they for cradles, now that the universal cry is "Bread and butter, please"?