Thursday morning, May 27, 1886, a small bird hopped out of the bushes into my dooryard. The bird was a female chestnut-sided warbler. She was collecting dry grass blades for a nest.
May 27, 1897, the same little bird was in my dooryard engaged as before, collecting nesting material.
Eleven years had been credited to the past for man and bird. The man had not escaped the weight of the added years. Deeper wrinkles and gray hair told the story, but the little bird, strange to tell, was apparently as blithe and young as on that Thursday morning eleven years before.
I provide an abundance of nesting material for all birds that frequent my cabin dooryard. The chestnut-sided warbler seemed to appreciate my motive and gave me her confidence in return. After the first year I could sit by her nest from the hour the first straw was laid to the day when the young were large enough to take wing, and she would go on with her domestic affairs without fear.
CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER.
During eleven years the bird has constructed thirteen nests. Two nests were robbed by snakes and were replaced. No two of these nests were alike. All were loosely built, and with the exception of the last were saddled on the forks of small bushes. The nest of 1897 was suspended between two shoots of a currant bush, about twenty inches from the ground. This was a new departure, and led me to have a picture made of the nest. There was a bunch of currants in the way and the bird fastened it to the side of the nest with spiders-web. The currants show in the picture.
The book informs us that the nest of this warbler is never pensile, but if the nest in my currant bush was not pensile, what may we call it? It was fastened at the brim to two upright currant stems without support at the bottom. The brim was fashioned first. It was composed of straws, shreds of cedar bark, and dry grass blades. The same material was fastened to the brim and arranged to cross, thus forming the bottom and sides. The tying material used was spiders-web and silken threads from some cocoon unknown to me. The nest was lined with fine straw and horsehair. All the nests previously made by this bird contained a liberal amount of plant down on the outside. This last nest was nearly wanting in plant down, although a good supply was in the dooryard.