“Most birds do prefer the leafy branches,” said Gray Lady; “that is why I call this little group, who do not, ‘tree-trunk birds,’ for all their little lives are spent so close to the heart of the wood that they seem almost to be parts of the tree.
R. H. Beebe, Photo.
WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH
“These birds not only make their nests in the wood itself by hollowing out partly decayed places in branch and trunk, but they gain the greater part of their food by searching the cracks in the tree bark for insects that live there, and which other birds, that spend their lives among the leafy twigs, cannot find.
“This quarrying food from the bark makes it possible for them to stay about the vicinity of their nesting-haunts all winter; for many forms of insect life winter in the bark crevices of forest as well as fruit trees where the eggs hatch out, and the larvae undergo transformation early in the season and begin to do mischief before the migrant birds return.
“If it were not for sleet storms, that cover the tree with a coating of ice for days at a time, these hardy, sociable little birds would be sure of a good living in a neighbourhood like this, with many orchards and strips of woodland. But when ice puts a lock on the pantry doors, what can the poor birds do?
“Owing to their frail structure and warm blood, they require more constant fuel to keep the life-fire alive than the four-footed animals, so that when hunger and cold travel hand in hand, they have to make a brave fight for life. For generations this freezing up has happened to them, and so, by experience, they have learned when food is plenty to try and save it up.
“The Nuthatch, that Sarah has just seen stowing something away under the shingles, is living very well at present. In spite of hard frost, wild food is plentiful; then, too, the lunch-counter is amply supplied with suet. The birds do not really need help as yet, but we put the food there so that they may know where to find it when hard times come.”
“I should think the lunch-counter, with lots of easy food, would make the birds lazy so’s they wouldn’t work for a living,” said Dave. “Pop says, feeding tramps everywhere only makes more folks turn tramp, so now he can’t get anybody to work at haying or wood-cutting for food and fair pay.”