Little Brothers of the Air

by Olive Thorne Miller

Whether or not it is mere play is perhaps yet an open question. The drumming of the sapsucker, one of the most common sounds of the woods and lawn, seemed sometimes simply for amusement, but again it appeared exceedingly like a signal. A bird frequently settled himself in plain sight of us, on one of the trespass notices in the woods, and spent several minutes in that occupation, changing his place now and then, and thus producing different sounds, whether with that intention or not. Now he would tap on top of the board, again down one side, and then on a corner, but always on the edge. Nor was it a regular and monotonous rapping; it was curiously varied. One performance that I carefully noted down at the moment reminded me of the click of a telegraph instrument. It was "rat-tat-tat-t-t-t-t-rat-tat,"—the first three notes rather quick and sharp, the next four very rapid, and the last two quite slow. After tapping, the bird always seemed to listen. Often while I was watching one at his hammering, a signal of the same sort would come from a distance. Sometimes my bird replied; sometimes he instantly flew in the direction from which it came. Around the house the woodpeckers selected particular spots to use as drums, generally a bit of tin on a roof, or an eave-gutter of the same metal. A favorite place was the hindquarters of a gorgeous gilded deer that swung with the wind on the roof of the barn.

So closely were they watched that the sapsuckers themselves were like old acquaintances before the babes in the woods began to make themselves heard. No sooner had these little folk found their voices than they made the woods fairly echo. Cry-babies in feathers I thought I knew before, but the young woodpecker outdoes anything in my experience. No wonder the woodpecker mamma sets up her nursery out of the reach of prowlers of all sorts; so loud and so persistent are the demands of her nestlings that they would not be safe an hour, if they could be got at. The tone, too, must always arrest attention, for it is of the nasal quality I have mentioned. The first baby whisper, hardly heard at the foot of the tree, has a squeaky twang, which strengthens with the infant's strength, and the grown-up murmurs of love and screams of war are of the same order.

It was during the nest-feeding days that we discovered most of the sapsucker homesteads; for, having many nests nearer our own level to study, we never sought them, and noticed them only when the baby voices attracted our attention. The home that apparently belonged to our bird of the lawn was beautifully placed in a beech-tree heavy with foliage. At first we thought the owner an eccentric personage, who had violated all sapsucker traditions by building in a living tree; but, on looking closely, it was evident that the top of the tree had been blown off, and from that break the trunk was dead two or three feet down. In that part was the opening, and the foliage that nearly hid it grew on the large branches below. Most of the nests, however, were in the customary dead trunks, on which we could gently rap, and bring out whoever was at home to answer our call.

Young woodpeckers are somewhat precocious; or, to speak more correctly, they stay in the nest till almost mature. We see in this family no half-fledged youngster wandering aimlessly about, unable to fly or to help itself, a sight very common among the feathered folk whose homes are nearer the ground. One morning, a young bird, not yet familiar with the mysteries of the world about him, flew into the open window of a room in the house, and for an hour we had a fine opportunity to study him near at hand. The moment he entered he went to the cornice, and although he flew around freely, he did not descend so low as the top of the window, wide open for his benefit. He was not in the least afraid or embarrassed by his staring audience, nor did he beat himself against the wall and the furniture, as would many birds in his position; in fact, he showed unusual self-possession and self-reliance. He was exceedingly curious about his surroundings: tapped the wall, tested the top of picture frames, drummed on the curtain cornice, and closely examined the ceiling. He was beautifully dressed in soft gray all mottled and spotted and barred with white, but he had not as yet put on the red cap of his fathers. While we watched him, he heard outside a sapsucker cry, to which he listened eagerly; then he drummed quite vigorously on the cornice, as if in reply. It was not till he must have been very hungry that he blundered out of the window, as he had doubtless blundered in.

The beauty of the drumming family, at least in that part of the country, is the red-headed woodpecker, which it happened I did not know. The first time I saw one, he was out for an airing with his mate, one lovely evening in June. The pair were scrambling about, as if in play, on the trunk of a tall maple-tree across the lane. They did not welcome our visit, nor our perhaps rather rude way of gazing at them; for one flew away, and the other perched on the topmost dead branch of a tree a little farther off, and proceeded to express his mind by a scolding "kr-r-r," accompanied by violent bows toward us. Finding his demonstration unavailing, he soon followed his mate, and weeks passed before we saw him again, although we often walked down the lane with the hope of doing so.

One beautiful morning, after the hay had been cut from the meadow, and all the hidden nests we had looked at and longed for while grass was growing, were opened to us, I had taken my comfortable folding-chair to a specially delightful nook between a clump of evergreens, which screened it from the house, and a row of maples, elms, and other trees, much frequented by birds. Close before me was a beautiful hawthorn-tree, in which a pair of kingbirds had long ago built their nest. On one side I could look over to an impenetrable, somewhat swampy thicket, where song sparrows and indigo birds nested; on the other, past the picturesque old-fashioned arbor, half buried under vines and untrimmed trees, far down the pretty carriage-drive between young elms and flowering shrubs, where the bobolink had raised her brood, and the meadow lark had chanted his vesper hymn for us all through June. Many winged strangers came to feast on the treasures uncovered by the hay-cutter, and then the shy red-head showed himself on our grounds. To my surprise, he was searching the freshly cut stubble not at all like a woodpecker, but hobbling about most awkwardly, half flying, half hopping, seeking some delectable morsel, which, when found, he carried to the side of a tree-trunk, thrust into a crack, and ate at his leisure. The object I saw him treat in this way was as large as a bee, and he was some time in disposing of it, even after it was anchored in the crack. Then, observing that, although a long way off, I was interested in his doings, he slipped around behind the trunk, and peered at me first from one side, then in an instant from the other.

The next performance with which this bird entertained me was poaching upon his cousin's preserves. Sitting one evening on the veranda, looking over the meadow, I heard his low "kr-r-r," and saw him alight upon the sapsucker's elm. Whether he stumbled upon the feast or went with malice aforethought, he was not slow to appreciate the charms of his position. It may have been the nectar from the tree, or the minute victims of its attractions, I could not tell which, but something pleased him, for he devoted himself to the task of exploring the tiny cups his industrious relative had carved, driving away one of the younger members of the family already in possession. The young bird could not refuse to go before the big beak and determined manner of the stranger, but he did refuse to stay away; and every time he was ousted he returned to the tree, though he settled on a different place. Before the red-head had shown any signs of exhausting his find, the sapsucker himself appeared, and at once fell upon his bigger cousin with savage cries. Disturbed so rudely from his pleasing occupation, the intruder retired before the attack, though he protested vigorously; and so great was the fascination of the spot, that he returned again and again, every time to go through the same process of being driven away.

The raspberry hedge before my windows was the decoy that gave me my best chance to study the red-headed woodpecker. Day after day, as the berries ripened, I watched the dwellers of wood and meadow drawn to the rich feast, and at last, one morning, to my great joy, I saw the interesting drummer alight on a post overlooking the loaded vines. He plainly felt himself a stranger, and not certain of his reception by the residents of the neighborhood, for he crouched close to the fence, and looked warily about on every side. He had been there but a few moments when a robin, self-constituted dictator of that particular corner of the premises, came down a few feet from him, as if to inquire his business. The woodpecker acknowledged the courtesy by drawing himself up very straight and bowing. The bow impressed, not to say awed, the native bird. He stood staring blankly, till the new-comer proclaimed his errand by dropping into the bushes, helping himself to a berry, and returning to the fence to dispose of his plunder. This was too much; the outraged redbreast dashed suddenly over the head of the impertinent visitor, almost touching it as he passed. The woodpecker kept his ground in spite of this demonstration, and I learned how a bird accustomed to rest, and even to work, hanging to the trunk of a tree, would manage to pluck and eat fruit from a bush. He first sidled along the top of the board fence, looking down, till he had selected his berry. Then he half dropped, half flew, into the bushes, and sometimes seized the ripe morsel instantly, without alighting, but generally hung, back down, on a stalk which bent and swayed with his weight, while he deliberately gathered the fruit. He then returned to the fence, laid his prize down, and pecked it apart, making three or four bites of it. After some practice he learned to swallow a berry whole, though it often required three or four attempts, and seemed almost more than he could manage. When he had accomplished this feat, he sat with his head drawn down into his shoulders, as though he found himself uncomfortably stuffed. Having eaten two or three raspberries, our distinguished visitor always picked another, with which he flew away,—doubtless for the babies growing up in some dead tree across the lane.

The little difficulty with the robin was easily settled by the stranger. Somewhat later in that first day, he took his revenge for the insulting dash over him by turning the tables and sweeping over the lofty head of the astonished robin, who ducked ingloriously, in his surprise, and called out, "Tut! tut!" as who should say, "Can such things be?" After that Master Robin undertook a closer surveillance of that highway the fence, and might be seen at all hours perched on the tall gatepost, looking out for callers in brilliant array, or running along its whole length to see that no wily woodpecker was hiding in the bushes. He could not be on guard every moment, for his nursery up under the eaves of the barn was full of clamorous babies, and he was obliged to give some attention to them; but the red-head was not afraid of him, and, finding the fruit to his taste, he soon became a daily guest.

Sometimes the spouse of the gay little fellow came also. She was always greeted by a low-whispered "kr-r-r," and the husky-toned conversation between the two was kept up so long as both were there. Now, too, as the male began to feel at home, I saw more of his odd ways. His attitudes were especially comical. Sometimes he clung to the edge of the top board, his tail pressed against it, his wings drooped and spread a little, exposing his whole back, and thus remained for perhaps ten minutes. Again he flattened himself out on top of a post for a sun bath. He sprawled and spread himself, every feather standing independent of its neighbor, till he looked as if he had been smashed flat, and more like some of the feather monstrosities with which milliners disfigure their hats than a living bird.