A Well-Constructed Home
(Note the Cowbird’s egg in nest.)
Madam Vireo at Home
The red-eyed vireo (Vireosylva olivacea) loves solitude. During the nesting season it seeks some dense thicket, selects a fork on a drooping limb, and constructs its wonderful basket-shaped, pensile nest. Intertwining about the fork a silky material for the basis of the structure, they put together with grasses, lichens, and plant fibres a wonderful little home for their progeny. When working away at building they are very cheerful, almost continually singing a sweet, pleasant warble, as though haranguing the dwellers of the silent places, hence their pseudonym, “preacher.” Very frequently in the dense foliage nearby skulks another member of the feathery tribe, watching every movement of the industrious pair, and now she gloats over them when, their work of art complete, they flit from limb to limb, closely observing the masterpiece and softly twittering their satisfaction, as though to say, “Well done.” Tired and hungry after their labors they wander away in search of food, singing cheerily as they twitch their heads now this way, now that, seeking a worm or insect. When they have gone, the somber-gowned, parasitic mate of a polygamist makes a bee-line for the nest, hastily drops a large speckled egg in the neat little basket, then quits the thicket and returns afield to the flock from which she came, leaving her ignominious progeny to be hatched and reared by the foster parents. When the vireos return, imagine the little red eyes looking with surprise at the egg that almost fills the cradle. They have not the strength, even if it occurred to them, to tumble the egg overboard, and unlike the yellow warblers, who sometimes build another nest on top of the egg, they resignedly proceed with the family duties.
The Usurper
The cowbird is a parasite of the worst kind; it lays its egg, not on the doorstep, like some foundlings, but in the bedchamber. The period of incubation being shorter than with most other birds, the egg is hatched sooner, the bird grows more rapidly, and consequently young molothrus frequently stifles the rightful owners of the home. One by one the vireo fledglings die and are carried from the nest by the mourning parents, and so the survivor flourishes and grows fat, rocked in the cradle by the gentle breezes and under the care and protection of the little red-eyed vireos. The vireos are noted as good providers and protectors. During incubation they are fearless and loath to leave their eggs,—at times indeed, will permit you to approach the nest within two feet and photograph. We made several attempts to get the picture on page 260 but without success, until with a hand-mirror as a reflector we threw the rays of the sun on the bird. The light seemed to bewilder her and had the same effect as a “flash-light” has on a moose or deer in the stillness of a dark night. Thus we were able to take a photograph by time-exposure.