A-Birding on a Bronco

by Florence Merriam Bailey

In any event, he built away quite unconcernedly not three rods from where I sat on the ground staring at him. He would fly to the earth for material, but return to the nest from above, pitching down to it as if having nothing to hide. Once, when resting, he perched on the tree, and I talked to him quite freely. That noon the phainopeplas were at the house before me, and I went out to talk to them while they lunched to let them know it was only I who had visited their nest, so they would have new confidence on the morrow.

But on the morrow they flew to another part of the island, and when we followed, although I hitched Billy farther away from the nest tree and sat quietly behind a brush screen, they did not come back. A brown chippie plumed his feathers unrebuked in their oak, making the place seem more deserted than before. A lizard ran out from the grape cuttings at my feet, and a little black and white mephitis cantered along over the ground with his back arched and his head down. He nosed around under the bushes, showing the white V on his back, exactly like that of our eastern species. As I rode home, five turkey buzzards were flying low over the edge of the island, and one vulture rose from a meal of one of the little black and white animal's relatives, but I saw nothing more of my birds that day.

The next day the phainopeplas came again to the pepper-trees and ate their fill while I sat on the steps watching. The male was quite unconcerned, but when his mate flew near me, he called out sharply; he could risk his own life, but not that of his love. Again the pair flew back to the high oaks on the far side of the island. All my hopes of the first low inaccessible nest vanished. I had driven the birds away. My intrusiveness had made me lose the best chance of the whole nesting season. But I would try to follow them. It did not seem necessary to take Billy. There were only a few trees on that side of the island, and it would be a simple matter to locate the birds. I would walk over, find in which tree they were building, and spend the morning with them. I went. Each oak was encircled by a thick wall of brush, over which it was almost impossible to see more than a fraction of the tree, and the high oak tops were impenetrable to eye and glass. After chasing phantoms all the afternoon I went home with renewed respect for Billy as an adjunct to field work. In order to locate anything in chaparral, one must be high enough to overlook the mass.

That afternoon I saw a pair of phainopeplas fly up a canyon on the east, and another pair fly up another on the west. If I were to know anything of these birds, I must not be balked by faulty observing; I must at least do intelligent work. Riding in from the back and tying Billy out of sight away from the old nest, I swung myself up into a crotch of a low oak from which I could overlook the whole island. The phainopeplas soon flew in, but to the opposite side, and I was condemning myself for having driven them away when, to my amazement, the male flew over and shot down into the little oak where he had been building before! My self-reproach took a different form—I had not been patient enough. Surely if I could wait an hour for an ordinary hummingbird, I could wait a morning for an absent phainopepla.

From the nest the beautiful bird flew to the bare oak top behind it which he used for a perch, and—alas! gave his warning call. I was discovered. He dashed his tail, turned his head to look at me first from one side and then from the other, and then flew to the top of the highest tree in sight to verify his observations. Whether he recognized the object as his pepper-tree acquaintance, I do not know; but to my great relief he went back to his work. By this time the little tree which had seemed such a comfortable chair had undergone a change—I felt as if stretched upon the gridiron of St. Anthony. Climbing down stiffly, I kneeled behind the brush and practiced focusing my glass on the nest so that it would not catch the light and frighten the bird, when out he flew from the nest and sat down facing me in broad daylight! He did not say a word, but looked around abstractedly, as if hunting for material.

If he were so indifferent, perhaps it would be safe to creep nearer. Following the paths trodden by the bare feet of the school children, and spying and skulking, I crept into a good hiding-place about a rod from the nest. The ground was covered with dead leaves, and I saw a suggestive round hole—a very large rattlesnake had been killed a few rods away the week before. I covered the hole with my cloak and then sat down on the lid—nothing could come up while I was there, at all events.

The phainopepla worked busily for some time, flying rapidly back and forth with material. Then came the warning cry. I drew in my note-book from the sun so that it should not catch his eye, and waited. The hot air grew hotter, beating down on my head. A big lizard wriggled over the leaves, and I thought of my rattlesnake. Then Billy sneezed in a forced way, as though to remind me not to go off without him. Growing restless, I moved the bushes a little—they were so stiff they made a very good chair-back if one got into the right position—when suddenly, looking up I saw my phainopepla friend vault into the air from a bush behind me, where, apparently, he had been sitting taking notes of his own! What observers birds are, to be sure! The best of us have much to learn from them.

But though the phainopepla was most watchful, he was open to conviction, and he and his mate at last concluded that I meant them no harm. Afterwards, when I moved, they both came and looked at me, but went about their business quite unmindful of me.

As I had seen from the outset, the male did almost all the building. When his spouse came in sight he burst out into a tender joyous love song. She went to the nest now and again, but generally when she came it was to sun herself on the bare perch tree, where she dressed her plumes or merely sat with crest raised and her soft gray feathers fluffed about her feet, while waiting for her mate to get leisure to take a run with her.

When he had finished his stint and she was not about, he would take his turn on the perch tree, his handsome glossy black coat shining in the sun. If an unwitting neighbor lit on his tree he would flatten his crest and dash down indignantly, but for the most part he perched quietly except to make short sallies into the air for insects, sometimes singing as he went; or he just warbled to himself contentedly, what sounded like the chattering run of a swallow on the wing. One day we had quite a conversation. His simplest call note was like the call of a young robin, and while I answered him he gave his note seventeen times in one minute, and eleven times in the next half minute.