The birds had a great variety of calls and songs, most of which were vivacious and cheering and seemed attuned to the warmth and brightness of the California sunshine. The quality of the love song was rich and flute-like.
The male phainopepla seemed to enjoy life in general and his work in particular. He frequently sang to himself when going for material; and once, apparently, when on the nest. When he was building I could see his black head move about between the leaves. Like the gnatcatchers, he used only fine bits of material, but he did not drill them in as they did. He merely laid them in, or at most wove them in gently. Now and then, as the black head moved in front, the black tail would tilt up behind at the back of the nest as if the bird were moulding; but there was comparatively little of that. When completed, the nest was a soft felty structure.
When working, the male would fly back and forth from the ground to the nest, carrying his bits of plant stem, oak blossom, and other fine stuff. He worked so rapidly that it kept me busy recording his visits. He once went to the nest four times in four minutes; at another time, seventeen times in a little over an hour. Sometimes he stayed only half a minute; when he stayed three minutes, it was so unusual that I recorded it. He worked spasmodically, however. One day he came seventeen times in one hour, but during the next half hour came only five times. The birds seemed to divide their mornings into quite regular periods. When I awoke at half past five I would hear them at the pepper-trees breakfasting; and some of them were generally there as late as eight o'clock. From eight to ten they worked with a will, though the visits usually fell off after half past nine. It was when working in this more deliberate way that the male would go to his perch on an adjoining tree and preen himself, catch flies, or sing between his visits. Once he sat on the limb in front of the nest for nearly ten minutes. By ten o'clock I found that I might as well go to watch other birds, as little would be going on with the phainopeplas; and they often flew off for a lunch of peppers.
Just as the island nest was about done—it was destroyed! I found it on the ground under the tree. For a time I felt as if no nests could come to anything; the number that had been destroyed during the season was disheartening. It seemed as though I no sooner got interested in a little family than its home was broken up. Sometimes I wondered how a bird ever had courage to start a nest.
But though it was hard to reconcile myself to the destruction of the phainopeplas' nest, I found others later. Altogether, I saw three pairs of birds building, and in each case the male was doing most of the work. Two of the nests I watched closely, watch and note-book in hand, in order to determine the exact proportion of work done by each bird. One nest was watched two hours and a half, during a period of five days, in which time the male went to the nest twenty-seven times, the female, only three. The other nest was watched seven hours and thirty-five minutes, during a period of ten days, in which time the male was at the nest fifty-seven times; the female, only eight. Taking the total for the two nests: in ten hours and five minutes the male went to the nest eighty-four times; the female, eleven. That is to say, the females made only thirteen per cent of the visits. In reality, although they went to the nest eleven times, the ratio of work might safely be reduced still further; for in watching them I was convinced that, as a rule, they came to the nest, not to build, but to inspect the building done by their mates. Indeed, at one nest, I saw nothing to make me suspect that the female did any of the work. Her coming was usually welcomed by a joyous song, but once the evidence seemed to prove that she was driven away; perhaps she was too free with her criticisms! In another case the work was sadly interrupted by the presence of the visitor, for while she sat in the nest her excited mate flew back and forth as if he had quite forgotten the business in hand. Perhaps he was nervous, and wanted to make sure what she was doing in the new house!
In several instances I found that while the males were at work building, the females went off by themselves. Once I saw Madame Phainopepla bring her friend home with her. No sooner had the visitor lit than—shocking to relate—the lord of the house left his work and drove her off with bill and claw—a polite way to treat his lady's friends, surely! On one occasion, when I looked up I saw a procession passing overhead—two females followed by a male. The male flew hesitatingly, as if troubled by his conscience, and then, deciding that if the nest was ever going to be built he had better keep at it, turned around and came back to work. One day when I rode over to the chaparral island, I found two of the males sitting around in the brush. They played tag until tired, and then perched on a branch in the sun, side by side, evidently enjoying themselves like light-hearted, care-free bachelors. Their mates were not in sight. But suddenly I glanced up and saw two females flying in to the island high overhead, as if coming from a distance. Instantly the indifferent holiday air of their mates vanished. They gave their low warning calls, for I was on the ground and they must not show me their nests. In answer to the warning the females wavered, and then, when their mates joined them, all four flew away together.
At other times when I rode in the males would make large circles, seventy-five feet above me, as if to get a clear understanding of the impending danger. This was when small nest hunters were about, and the birds were some whose nests I did not find, and who had no opportunity to become convinced of my good intentions.
After finding that the males did most of the building, I was anxious to see how it would be when the brooding began. Three of my nests were broken up beforehand, however, and the fourth was despoiled after I had watched the birds on the nest one day. Nevertheless, the evidence of that day was most interesting as far as it went. It proved that while the female lacked the architect's instinct, she was not without the maternal instinct. There were two eggs in the nest, and in the one hour that I watched, each bird brooded the eggs six times. Before this, the female had been to the nest so much less than the male that now she was much shyer; but although Billy frightened her by tramping down the brush near by, it was she who first overcame her fears and went to cover the eggs.