A Bird-Lover in the West

by Olive Thorne Miller

But now, at last, word came to me of an occupied nest to be seen at a certain house, and I started at once for it. It was up a shady country lane, with a meadow-lark field on one side, and a bobolink meadow on the other. The lark mounted the fence, and delivered his strange sputtering cry,—the first I had ever heard from him (or her, for I believe this is the female's utterance). But the dear little bobolink soared around my head, and let fall his happy trills; then suddenly, as Lowell delightfully pictures him,—

"Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops,
Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink,
And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops,
A decorous bird of business, who provides
For his brown mate and fledglings six besides,
And looks from right to left, a farmer mid his crops."

Nothing less attractive than a cardinal family could draw me away from these rival allurements, but I went on.

The cardinal's bower was the prettiest of the summer, built in a climbing rose which ran riot over a trellis beside a kitchen door. The vine was loaded with buds just beginning to unfold their green wraps to flood the place with beauty and fragrance, and the nest was so carefully tucked away behind the leaves that it could not be seen from the front. Whether from confidence in the two or three residents of the cottage, or because the house was alone so many hours of the day,—the occupants being students, and absent most of the time,—the birds had taken no account of a window which opened almost behind them. From that window one could look into, and touch, if he desired, the little family. But no one who lived there did desire (though I wish to record that one was a boy of twelve or fourteen, who had been taught respect for the lives even of birds), and these birds became so accustomed to their human observers that they paid no attention to them.

The female cardinal is so dainty in looks and manner, so delicate in all her ways, that one naturally expects her to build at least a neat and comely nest, and I was surprised to see a rough-looking affair, similar to the one already mentioned. This might be, in her case, because it was the third nest she had built that summer. One had been used for the first brood. The second had been seized and appropriated to their own use by another pair of birds. (As this was told me, and I cannot vouch for it, I shall not name the alleged thief.) This, the third, was made of twigs and fibres of bark,—or what looked like that,—and was strongly stayed to the rose stems, the largest of which was not bigger than my little finger, and most of them much smaller.

On my second visit I was invited into the kitchen to see the family in the rosebush. It appeared that this was "coming-off" day, and one little cardinal had already taken his fate in his hands when I arrived, soon after breakfast. He had progressed on the journey of life about one foot; and a mere dot of a fellow he looked beside his parents, with a downy fuzz on his head, which surrounded it like a halo, and no sign of a crest. The three nestlings still at home were very restless, crowding, and almost pushing each other out. They could well spare their elder brother, for before he left he had walked all over them at his pleasure; and how he could help it in those close quarters I do not see.

While I looked on, papa came with provisions. At one time the food consisted of green worms about twice as large as a common knitting needle. Three or four of them he held crosswise of his beak, and gave one to each nestling. The next course was a big white grub, which he did not divide, but gave to one, who had considerable difficulty in swallowing it.

I said the birds did not notice the family, but they very quickly recognized me as a stranger. They stood and glared at me in the cardinal way, and uttered some sharp remonstrance; but business was pressing, and I was unobtrusive, so they concluded to ignore me.

The advent of the first redbird baby seemed to give much pleasure, for the head of the family sang a good deal in the intervals of feeding; and both of the pair appeared very happy over it, often alighting beside the wanderer, evidently to encourage him, for they did not always feed. The youngster, after an hour, perhaps, flew about ten feet to a peach-tree, where he struggled violently, and nearly fell before he secured a hold on a twig. Both parents flew to his assistance, but he did not fall, and soon after he flew to a grape trellis, and, with a little clambering, to a stem of the vine, where he seemed pleased to stay,—perhaps because this overlooked the garden whence came all his food.

I stayed two or three hours with the little family, and then left them; and when I appeared the next morning all were gone from the nest. I heard the gentle cries of young redbirds all around, but did not try to look them up, both because I did not want to worry the parents, and because I had already made acquaintance with young cardinals in my four o'clock studies.