Under the Maples. John Burroughs
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together for a brief season, as if in celebration of some special event or purpose. I have observed it in my vicinity every spring for many years, usually in April or early May, and it is the prettiest and most significant bird episode, involving a whole species, known to me.
The goldfinch has many pretty ways. He is one of our most amiable birds. So far as my knowledge goes, he is not capable of one harsh note. His tones are all either joyous or plaintive. In his spring reunions they are joyous. In the peculiar flight-song in which he indulges in the mating season, beating the air vertically with his round, open wings, his tones are fairly ecstatic. His call to his mate when she is brooding, and when he circles about her in that long, billowy flight, the crests of his airy waves being thirty or forty feet apart, calling, "Perchic-o-pee, perchic-o-pee," as if he were saying, "For love of thee, for love of thee," and she calling back, "Yes, dearie; yes, dearie" – his tones at such times express contentment and reassurance.
When any of his natural enemies appear – a hawk, a cat, a jay – his tones are plaintive and appealing. "Pit-y, pit-y!" he cries in sorrow and not in anger.
When with his mate he leads their brood about the August thistles, the young call in a similar tone. When in July the nesting has begun, the female talks the prettiest "baby talk" to her mate as he feeds her. The nest-building rarely begins till thistledown can be had – so literally are all the ways of this darling bird ways of softness and gentleness. The nest is a thick, soft, warm structure, securely fastened in the fork of a maple or an apple-tree.
None of our familiar birds endear themselves to us more than does the bluebird. The first bluebird in the spring is as welcome as the blue sky itself. The season seems softened and tempered as soon as we hear his note and see his warm breast and azure wing. His gentle manners, his soft, appealing voice, not less than his pleasing hues, seem born of the bright and genial skies. He is the spirit of the April days incarnated in a bird. He has the quality of winsomeness, like the violet and the speedwell among the flowers. Not strictly a songster, yet his every note and call is from out the soul of harmony. The bluebird is evidently an offshoot from the thrush family, and without the thrush's gift of song; still his voice affords us much of the same pleasure.
How readily the bluebirds become our friends and neighbors when we offer them suitable nesting-retreats! Bring them something from nature, something with the bark on – a section of a dry beech or maple limb in which the downy woodpecker has excavated his chamber and passed the winter or reared his brood; fasten it in early spring upon the corner of your porch, or on the trunk of a near-by tree, and see what interesting neighbors you will soon have. One summer I brought home from one of my walks to the woods a section, two or three feet long, of a large yellow birch limb which contained such a cavity as I speak of, and I wired it to one of the posts of the rustic porch at Woodchuck Lodge. The next season a pair of bluebirds reared two broods in it. The incubation of the eggs for the second brood was well under way when I appeared upon the scene in early July. My sudden presence so near their treasures, and my lingering there with books and newspapers, disturbed the birds a good deal. The first afternoon the mother bird did not enter the cavity for hours. I shall always remember the pretty and earnest manner in which the male tried to reassure her and persuade her that the danger was not so imminent as it appeared to be, probably encouraging a confidence in his mate which he did not himself share. The mother bird would alight at the entrance to the chamber, but, with her eye fixed upon the man with the newspaper, feared to enter. The male, perched upon the telegraph wire fifty feet away, would raise his wings and put all the love and assurance in his voice he was capable of, apparently trying to dispel her fears. He would warble and warble, and make those pretty wing gestures over and over, saying so plainly: "It is all right, my dear, the man is harmless – absorbed there in his newspaper. Go in, go in, and keep warm our precious eggs!" How long she hesitated! But as night grew near she grew more and more anxious, and he more and more eloquent. Finally she alighted upon the edge of the overhanging roof and peered down hesitatingly. Her mate applauded and encouraged till finally she made the plunge and entered the hole, but instantly came out again; her heart failed her for a moment; but she soon returned and remained inside. Then her mate flew away toward the orchard, uttering a cheery note which doubtless she understood.
The birds soon became used to my presence and their household matters progressed satisfactorily. Both birds took a hand in feeding the young, which grew rapidly. When they were nearly ready to leave the nest, a cruel fate befell them: I slept upon the porch, and one night I was awakened by the cry of young bluebirds, and the sound of feet like those of a squirrel on the roof over me. Then I heard the cry of a young bird proceed from the butternut-tree across the road opposite the house. I said to myself, "A squirrel or an owl is after my birds." The cry coming so quickly from the butternut-tree made me suspect an owl, and that the bird whose cry I heard was in his talons. I was out of my cot and up to the nest in a moment, but the tragedy was over; the birds were all gone, and the night was silent. In the morning I found that a piece of the brittle birch limb had been torn away, enlarging the entrance to the cavity so that the murderous talons of the owl could reach in and seize the young birds. I had been aroused in time to hear the marauder on the roof with one, and then hear its cry as he carried it to the tree. In the grass in front I found one of the young, unable to fly, but apparently unhurt. I put it back in the nest, but it would not stay. The spell of the nest was broken, and the young bird took to the grass again. The parent birds were on hand, much excited, and, when I tried to return the surviving bird to the nest, the male came at me fiercely, apparently charging the whole catastrophe to me.
We had strong proof the previous season that an owl, probably the screech owl, prowled about the house at night. A statuette of myself in clay which a sculptor was modeling was left out one night on the porch, and in the morning its head was unusually bowed. The prints of a bird's talons upon the top told what had happened. In the bronze reproduction of that statuette the head has more of a droop than the artist at first planned to give it.
The next season the bluebirds occupied the cavity in the birch limb again, but before my arrival in July the owls had again cleaned them out. In so doing they had ripped the cavity open nearly to the bottom. For all that, early the following May bluebirds were occupying the cavity again. It held three eggs when I arrived. I looked over the situation and resolved to try to head off the owl this time, even at the risk of driving the bluebirds away. I took a strip of tin several inches wide and covered the slit with it and wired it fast. Then I obtained a broad strip of dry birch-bark, wrapped it about the limb over the tin, and wired it fast, leaving the entrance to the nest in its original form. I knew the owl could not slit the tin; the birch-bark would hide it and preserve in a measure the natural appearance of the branch. When the bluebirds saw what had happened to their abode, they were a good deal distressed; they could no longer see their eggs through the slit which the owl had made, and they refused to enter the cavity. They hung about all day, uttering despondent notes, approaching the nest at times, but hesitating even to alight upon the roof above it. Occasionally the female would fly away toward the distant woods or hills uttering that plaintive, homesick note which seemed to mean farewell. The male would follow her, calling in a more cheery and encouraging tone. Once the couple were gone three or four hours, and I concluded they had really deserted the place. But just before sundown they were back again, and the female alighted at the entrance to the nest and looked in. The male called to her cheerily; still she would not enter, but joined him on the telephone wire, where the two seemed to hold a little discussion. Presently the mother bird flew to the nest again, then to the roof above it, then back to the nest, and entered it till only her tail showed, then flew back to the wire beside her mate. She was evidently making up her mind that the case was not hopeless. After a little more maneuvering, and amid the happy, reassuring calls of her mate, she entered the nest cavity and remained, and I was as well pleased as was her mate.
No owls disturbed them this time, and the brood of young birds was brought off in due season. In July a second brood of four was successfully reared and sent forth on their career.
The oriole nests in many kinds of trees – oaks, maples, apple-trees, elms – but her favorite is the elm. She chooses the end of one of the long drooping branches where a group of small swaying twigs affords her suitable support. It is the most unlikely place imaginable for any but a pendent nest, woven to half a dozen or more slender, vertical twigs, and swaying freely in the wind. Few nests are so secure, so hidden,