In the open

by Stanton Davis Kirkham

Birds have their home-trees, and one whose traditions are of the pine is not drawn to build in hardwoods. The woodthrush is associated with the dogwood, as the catbird with the smilax, and the oriole with the elm. There are ancient apple orchards which have come to serve only the bees and the birds; but what temples of music in May with the hum of bees, and in June with the song of wrens! At this season you cannot do better than to set out for one of these old-time orchards, neglected of man and favored of heaven.

The virile hum of honey-and carpenter-bees descends from the flowery summits to the listener beneath, the contented music of a race dwelling overhead and nearer the skies than we. It is such an apple—Baldwin, pippin, or russet—gnarled and archaic in trunk and a bower of beauty above, which becomes the home-tree of that feathered gnome, the house-wren, a sprightly elf, living in the depths of a tree trunk and yet full to the brim of song. He may derive of the flowing sap some genial trait and takes to the apple as a swift to the chimney, or a redwing to the swamp. After the cold rains of late May have taken off the blossoms and with them the bees, the place becomes melodious with his song. It is thenceforth his estate, and he dominates it with his small personality. With him his house is his castle, and in true medieval fashion he barricades his door. Within is snug enough, but without it has a feudal and forbidding look,—a formidable barrier of twigs, erected perhaps against the house-sparrow or for fear the robber-owl may peer too closely.

In this choice of a building site the bird reveals something of itself. Contrast the wren with the phœbe, a cliff-dweller, loving the contact of the ledge itself better than any bush or tree. The song-sparrow has an eye for the wild rose and the yellow warbler for apple blossoms, but the phœbe has some austere traits which make the stern rock more congenial to her. Some birds are architects, others builders merely. The vireos are a family of artists, whereas the improvident cuckoo will not even lay a proper floor to her nest.

A look into some nests is a glance at the domestic life of a savage people, and yet we find the virtues we most esteem—patience, perseverance and fortitude. Hour in and hour out the faithful kingfisher flies from the nest to the fishing-ground, bringing each time a small fish. He is a primitive and industrious fisherman who gets an honest living by his skill and supports his family, yet he is under ban, while the dilettante whips the stream for his pleasure. The hoarse rattle of the kingfisher is an altogether barbarous chant with which he beguiles himself as with a hunting song. His is an austere temperament with no room for melody. But that he returns every year to the same nest—the ancestral hall—is evidence of some more domestic and kindly trait in his character.

This nest is an excavation in the sand, high in a bluff, and is perhaps five feet deep,—a true cave, and its inmate a cave-dweller. We have thus both cave-and cliff-dwellers among us—primitive states of man still exemplified by birds. The cave-dweller had something in common with the kingfisher, which led him to burrow in the earth for a home.

That was truly an aboriginal abode which I came upon in the spruce woods in a region of perpetual twilight. The somber spruce was relieved only by some veteran yellow birches and by ghostly patches of false miterwort on a projecting ledge. High in a birch was a small hole from which the scarlet crown and chin of a sapsucker appeared in view, as the bird thrust out his head and looked inquiringly about. A harsh imperious call brought the female, who clung to the trunk till the male came out, whereupon she dived into the hole herself, while he in turn went foraging.

Whenever the pair were absent from the nest the insatiable young were heard squealing within. It was a fearsome place that was home to these young savages, a room within a tower, lighted by a single small window far above. To think of being born and raised in the dark heart of a tree! The old birds called to each other from time to time as they hunted over the neighborhood, and their speech was as that of wild men, the very rudiments of language—rude, uncouth and evidently of few words. But, as with the speech of savages, these words were doubtless packed with meaning, whole sentences and paragraphs in themselves, of hard and practical import. Now and then the scarlet crown appeared at the entrance of the dark wigwam. Any lurking foe would be espied from there. Probably not a twig moved below but it was noticed.

While the robin and the bluebird have come to wear a half domestic look, the woodpecker is the untutored savage still. As an Indian remains an Indian, a woodpecker remains a woodpecker. When he comes to the orchard he is an interloper from the forest. He carries the stamp of the wilderness with him. Defiance is in the poise of his head; his attitude is a challenge.

The life of owls and hawks is completely savage—a fierce, carnivorous, terrible existence which no circumstance can affect. Regarding their young with solemn ferocity, their fierce natures are not to be modified or softened in the least. A little red owl having her nest in the heart of a weeping willow, lived so secluded a life her presence was hardly suspected till she was discovered by the smaller birds dozing in a cedar. Some days later she appeared at dusk with four young owls, which she fed on large beetles. The owlets remained perched in a line on the fence while the old bird in ghostly silence departed into the night in search of food. It was wonderful to see what excess of dignity and ferocity was expressed in the personality of these little birds. As well have expected an Iroquois brave to ask for quarter. Approach them and they were on the defensive with all the tricks of appearance—staring eyes, snapping bill and uncanny wavering motion of the head. Like some phantom creature, the old bird came and went, leaping noiselessly into the darkness and reappearing as by magic.