The next day we had another session with the sparrow hawk. She had evidently profited by experience. She did not fly at the hole in the violent way she had done the day before, but ambled along a limb to get as close to it as possible, and then quietly flew up. She made two or three unsuccessful attempts to enter, but kept at the branch,—falling back but once. She got half way in once or twice, but could not force her wings through. She acted as if determined not to give up, and at last, when she found herself falling backwards, with a desperate effort drew herself in.
There was another sparrow hawk family across the road from my ranch. In riding by one day, I saw a youngster looking out from the nest hole with big frightened eyes. Was it the only child, or was it monopolizing the fresh air while its brothers were smothering below? Another day there were two heads in the window; one was the round domed, top of a fluffy nestling whose eyes expressed only vague fear; but the other was the strongly marked head of an old sparrow hawk, who eyed us with keen intelligence. As I stared up, the young one drew back into the hole behind its parent, probably in obedience to her command; and the old bird bent such an anxious inquiring gaze upon me that I took the hint and rode away to save the poor mother worry.
These were not the only hawks of the valley. Once, seeing one of the large Buteos winging its way with nesting sticks hanging from its claws, I turned Canello into the field after it, following till it lit in the top of a high sycamore. The pair were both gathering material. Sometimes they flew with the twigs in their claws; sometimes in their bills; now they would fly directly to the nest, again circle around the tree before alighting. When one was at work, the other sometimes flew up and soared so high in the sky he looked no larger than a sparrow hawk. In swooping to the ground suddenly, the hawks would hollow in their backs, stick up their tails, drop their legs for ballast, and so let themselves come to earth. While one of the birds was peacefully gathering sticks, two blackbirds attacked it, apparently on general grounds, because it belonged to a family that had been traduced since history began. To tell the honest truth, I trembled a little myself at thought of what might happen to some of my small tenants, though I reassured myself by remembering that the facts prove the maligned hawks much more likely to eat gophers than birds.
In the back of the stub occupied by one of the sparrow hawks it was a pleasure to find a flicker excavating its nest. Planting its claws firmly in the hole with tail braced against the bark, the bird leaned forward, thrusting its head in, over and again, as if feeding young. It used its feet as a pivot, and swung itself in, farther and farther, as it worked. Such gymnastics took strong feet, for the bird raised itself by them each time. It worked like an automatic toy wound up for the performance. When tired, the flicker hopped up on a branch and vented its feelings by shouting if-if-if-if-if-if-if, after which it quietly returned to work. The wood was so soft that the excavating made almost no noise, but it was easy to see what was going on, for the carpenter simply drew back its head and tossed out the glistening chips for all the world to see. At the end of a week the flicker was working so far down in its excavation that only the tip of its tail stuck out of the door.
The nest of another Colaptes, I found by accident—a fresh chip dropped from mid-air upon my riding skirt. Just then Canello gave a stentorian sneeze and the bird came to her window to look down. She did not object to us, and was loath to turn back inside the dark hole—such a close stuffy place—when outside there were the rich green leaves of the tree, the sweet breath of the hayfield and the gentle breeze just springing up; all the warmth and sunshine and fragrance of the fields. How could she ever leave to go below? Perhaps she bethought her that soon the dark hole would be a home ringing with the voices of her little ones; at all events, she quickly turned and disappeared in her nest.
At the foot of the ranch I discovered a comical, sleepy little brown owl, dozing in a sycamore window. When we waked it up, it went backing down the hole. I wondered if it kept awake all day without food, for surely owl children do not get many meals by daylight. I spoke to the ranchman's son about it, and he said he thought the old birds fed the young too much, that he had found about a dozen small kangaroo rats and mice in their holes! He told me that he had known old owls to change places in the daytime, and both birds to stay in the hole during the day. Down the valley, where an old well was only partly covered over, at different times he had found a number of drowned owls. They seemed to fly into any dark hole that offered. Three barn owls had been taken from a windmill tank in the neighborhood in about a month. In a mine at Escondido the man had found a number of owls sitting in a crevice where the earth, had caved; and he had seen about a dozen of them fifty to a hundred feet underground, at the bottom of the mine shaft.
I did not wonder the birds wanted to keep out of sight in the daytime, knowing what happened to those that stayed out. A pair nested in the top of a high sycamore on my neighbors' premises, and when one stirred away from home, it did so to its sorrow. One morning there was such a commotion I rode down to see what was the matter. A big dark brown form flew down the avenue of sycamores ahead of us, followed by a mob of all the feathered house owners in the neighborhood. They escorted it home to the top of its own tree, where it seated itself on a limb, its big yellow eyes staring and its long ears dropped down, as if home were not home with a rout of angry bee-birds and blackbirds screeching and diving at you over your own doorsill. Two orioles started to fly over from the next tree, but went back, perhaps thinking it wiser not to make open war upon such near neighbors; while a sparrow hawk who came to help in the attack was judged too dangerous an ally and escorted home by a squad of blackbirds dispatched for the purpose. The poor persecuted owl screwed its head around to its back as if hoping to see pleasanter sights on that side; but the uncanny performance did not seem to please its enemies, and a blackbird flew rudely past, close under its bill, as if to warn it of what might happen.
The queerest of all my tenants was an old mother barn owl who lived in the black charred chimney of one of the sycamores. I found a white feather on the black wood one day in riding by, and pulling Canello up by the tree, broke off a twig and rapped on the door. She came blundering out and flew to a limb over our heads—such a queer old crone, with her hooked nose and her weazened face surrounded by a circlet of dark feathers. The light blinded her, and with her big round eyes wide open she leaned down staring to make out who we were. Then shaking her head reproachfully, she swayed solemnly from side to side. As the wind blew against her ragged feathers she drew her wings over her breast like a cloak, making herself look like a poverty-stricken wiseacre. Finding that we did not offer to go, the poor old crone took to her wings; but as she passed down the line of sycamores she roused the blackbird clan, and a pair of angry orioles flew out and attacked her. My conscience smote me for driving her out among her enemies, but on our return to the sycamores all was quiet again, and a lizard was sunning himself on the edge of the old owl's chimney.