I soon found that somebody else, too, liked suet and peanuts. This was the red squirrel, and when he was on the table the birds would not come near. However, it was birds I wanted and not squirrels,—especially not the red squirrel, who is said to bother birds in many ways. To keep him away I nailed tin sheeting around the post of the bird table.
I am sorry to say that the nuthatch was not at all polite to other birds. He always wanted all the food himself, no matter how much there was on hand. He would flit from one feeding place to another and chase the other birds away. I stopped putting peanuts on the table, so that he would have no excuse to go there and the birds who liked the suet might eat in peace. I put all the peanuts on the tree farthest back in the vacant lot and made the selfish nuthatch eat there by himself.
Another thing that was not nice about the nuthatch was his way of eating. He was always in a hurry. He would take the kernel out of a nut, walk up the tree with it, and fly away. Then he would come back quickly and do the same thing again, as if afraid another bird might get something. Sometimes he kept this up for an hour or more. Even after all the peanuts were moved to his tree, he would bluster around at the other feeding places and try to drive those peaceable birds away.
The dearest of all my winter birds were some that came singing in all sorts of weather. I called them my little minstrels.
“Chicaday, chicaday, chicaday-day-day-day,” was their song. Somebody has named them chickadees, and the name just fits. If you should see a little gray bird with a black cap and bib, who comes singing that song, you may know that you have seen a chickadee.
The chickadees were not at all particular what they ate. They sang just as cheerily when they had only breadcrumbs as they did when they found suet and peanuts and sunflower seeds. They never wasted their food. If any fell to the ground they picked it up. They were the politest of birds and, like the downy and the hairy, they worked at the trees most of the time.
These winter birds are some of nature’s best house-cleaners. They work all through the cold and stormy season when the other birds are away in their sunny winter homes. Should we not remember to give them a treat once in a while, and so brighten the cold days with good cheer?
From the very first, I heard many bird voices coming from the ravine. So one morning I took a walk out that way. Scattered all along were tall sunflowers, now gone to seed. Foraging on some were the noisy bluejays, on others the dear happy chickadees. The trees were bare, so that I could see as well as hear the birds. Woodpeckers were tapping, pecking, delving. All along I heard this pleasing, friendly music, as if the birds were following me. So pleasant was my walk that I did not realize how far I was going until I was at the end of the city, where the country begins.
THE DEAR HAPPY CHICKADEE