“Ah, but that shows the difference between wild birds and what is called ‘civilized’ man,” said Gray Lady. “The Nuthatches do not sit still and gorge themselves, but are busy providing for the future. Yesterday, I saw one of these same birds packing away little bits of suet in a crevice under the roof of the side porch, and another using the thatch on the summer-house for a larder. So it would seem that they distribute the food in different places. If one cupboard is frozen up, one of the others may be in the sun.
“A pair of Nuthatches found that the cornice of the main roof, under the tin gutter, was in poor shape, and kindly called my attention to it by boring into the wood and nesting in the space within. Five little birds were hatched, and I believe that the party of seven, that are so tame and come about the house so freely, are the birds hatched in the cornice and their parents.”
“I shouldn’t think that you would like them to make holes in the house,” said Tommy, “for the water might get in and do lots of harm, just the same as Woodpeckers that make holes in the trees and spoil them.”
“That is where people make a mistake about these tree-trunk birds that bore holes, and think that they are mischievous and destructive, whereas they never pierce bark unless an insect lurks beneath, and when they bore a nest-hole in a tree, it is the same as saying to its owner, ‘See, this wood is dead; I am making use of what is otherwise useless to you and I will pay you rent by protecting your other trees from harm. If you watch well, you will see how many hairy caterpillars, birch-lice, and wood-boring beetles I will kill in the year.’ ”
“The gutter is all mended and painted now, so the Nuthatches can’t nest there next season, and I guess they will be very sorry,” said Clary, who had taken her turn at looking out the window.
“Yes, the cornice has been mended, but Jacob has hollowed out a bit of hickory branch with the bark on it, and has fastened it firmly under the cornice with screws, so that when the birds look up their home in spring, they will find a new one so close to the old place that I hope they will move into it. In fact, those pictures in the workroom, of bird-homes made of hollowed-out logs, were designed especially to attract these tree-trunk birds and their little companions, the Chickadees, who, though they search the twigs for food, love the trunk also, and nest in a wood hollow like the Woodpeckers, themselves.”
“He’s come back again, but he hasn’t brought suet this time; it’s some kind of a big seed that won’t stay in the shingle crack, so he’s pounding it in,” said Sarah, looking over Clary’s shoulder and dropping her sewing, so interested was she in the movements of the bird. “There, he’s going away and walking down the roof head first; I don’t see why he doesn’t slip and fall, the same as I did once when I tried to walk down the back stairs on my hands and knees head first, ’cause brother dared me.”
Gray Lady hurried to the window in time to see the Nuthatch give a final pound to the object that was wedged between the shingles. With her opera-glasses, she discovered that it was the empty shell of a beechnut.
“This little bird has been kind enough to write the meaning of its singular name here on the roof, evidently for the benefit of the Kind Hearts’ Club, for I have been expecting that some of you would ask from what the term ‘Nuthatch’ came.”
“I thought it was a funny name, but then lots of birds’ names seem queer, until you hear about them,” said Eliza Clausen.