A-Birding on a Bronco

by Florence Merriam Bailey

The young were out of the eggs, though not much more, and their mother sat on the edge of the nest feeding them. She curved her neck over till her long bill stood up perpendicularly, when she put it gently into the gaping bills of her young; the smallest of bills, not more than an eighth of an inch long, I should judge. I never saw hummingbirds fed so gently. Probably the small bills and throats were so delicate the mother was afraid they would not bear the usual jabbing and pumping.

When the little ones were fed, the old bird got down in the nest, fluffing her feathers about her in a pretty motherly way and settling herself comfortably to rest, apparently ignoring the fact that Billy was grazing close beside her. She may have had her qualms, but no mother bird would leave her tender young uncovered on such a cold morning.

While she was on the nest, there was an approaching whirr, followed by a retreating buzz—had the father bird started to come to the nest and fled at sight of me? Remembering the evidence Bradford Torrey collected to prove that the male bird is rarely seen at the nest, I wondered if his absence might be explained by his usually noisy flight, for it would attract the notice of man or beast.

Two days later I carefully touched the tip of my finger to the back of one of the tiny hummingbirds,—it was very skinny, I regret to state,—and at my touch the little thing opened its wee bill for food. That day the mother fed the birds in the regulation way, when we were only four feet distant. I was near enough to see all the horrors of the performance. She thrust her bill down their throats till I felt like crying out, "For mercy's sake, forbear!" She plunged it in up to the very hilt; it seemed as if she must puncture their alimentary canals.

While waiting for the wrens, I buckled Billy's bridle around the sycamore and threw myself down on the warm sand under the beautiful tree. The little horse stood near, outlined against the blue sky, with the sunlight dappling his back, while I looked up into the light green foliage of the white sycamore overhead. There seemed to be a great deal of light stored in these delicate trees. The undersides of the big, soft, white leaves looked like white Canton flannel; the sunlight mottled the whitish bark of the trunks and branches; and a great limb arched above me, making a high vaulted chamber whose skylights showed the deep blue above.

But there were the little lover and his mate, and I must turn my glass on them. She came first, with long streamers hanging from her bill, and at sight of me got so flustered that one of her straws slipped out and went sailing down to the ground. When the pair had gone again, two linnets came along. The female saw the wren's doorway, and being in search of apartments flew up to look at the house. When she came out she and her mate talked it over and, apparently, she told him something that aroused his curiosity—perhaps about the wren's twigs she found inside—for he flew into the dark hole and looked around as she had done. Then both birds went off to inspect other holes in the tree. The master of the wren cottage came back in time to see them on their rounds, and taking up his position in front of his door sang out loudly, with wings hanging and a general air of, "This is my house, I'd have you understand!"

When the lord of the manor had flown away, his lady came. I thought perhaps he had told her of the visitors and she had come to see if they had disturbed any of her sticks, for she brought no material. She was afraid to go to the nest in my presence, but flew to a branch near by and leaned down so far it was a wonder she didn't tip over as she stared anxiously at the hole—a bad way to keep a secret, my little lady! I thought. When her merry minstrel came, his song again gave her courage and she flew inside, turning in the doorway, however, to look out at me.

But what with horses grazing under her windows and linnets making free with her nest, the poor wren was unsettled in her mind. Possibly it would be wiser to take out her sticks and build elsewhere. She went about looking at vacant rooms and examined one opening in the side of the trunk where I could see only her profile as she hung out of the hole.

For some time the timid bird would not accept Mountain Billy and me as part of her immediate landscape, and I watched the premises a number of days, getting nothing but my labor for my pains, as far as wrens were concerned.

One day when she did not come, I thought it was a good chance to get a study of the hummingbird's nest; but alas!—the delicate little structure hung torn and dangling from the twig, with nothing to tell what had become of the poor little hummers. I moralized sadly upon the mutability of human affairs as I took the tattered nest and tied it up in a corner of my handkerchief; for it was all that was left of the little home built with such exquisite care and brooded over so tenderly.