Florence Merriam Bailey

“ I wondered how such a midget could ever be fed, but found, as in the case of the hummer under the little lover's tree, that the mother gave its food most gently, reserving her violent pumping for a more suitable age; though one would as soon think of poking a needle down a baby's throat as that bill.
Often, while watching the nest, my thoughts wandered away to the grove itself. The brown earth between the rows was barred by alternate lines of sunlight and shadow, and the vista of each avenue ended in blue sky. Sometimes cool ocean breezes would penetrate the forest. ”

“ Then came the thrashers, with their loud rollicking songs; and when they had pitched down into the brush, out rang the clear bell-like tones of the wren-tit, filling the air with sound. Afterwards the impatient whipped-out notes of the chaparral vireo were followed by the soft cooing of doves; and then, as the wind stirred the trees and sent [170] the loosened oak blossoms drifting to the ground, from high out of an oak top came a most exquisite song. At the first note of this grosbeak all other songs were forgotten—they were noise and chatter—this was pure music. ”

“ When it saw Billy under the tree it whistled, and the bit of grass it had brought for its nest went sailing down to the brush disregarded. It did not think us as bad as the blue jay, however, for it came back with a long stem of grass in its bill, and, lighting on a high branch, called pee-ree. To be sure, when it had gone to the nest and I was inconsiderate enough to turn a page in my note-book, it dashed off. But if murder will out, so will good intentions; and before long the timid bird was brooding its nest with Billy and me for spectators. ”

“ When a bird first leaves the nest it goes about very gingerly, but this little fellow now began to feel his strength and the excitement of his freedom. He wiped his tongue on a branch, and then, to my astonishment, his wings began to whirl as if he were getting up steam, and presently they lifted him from his twig, and he went whirring off as softly as a hummingbird moth, among the oak sprays. ”

“ A song sparrow appeared and stood on a branch with its tail perked up in a business-like way as if it had been feeding a brood. A wren came to the tree,—a mere pinch of feathers in the giant sycamore,—and though I lost sight of it, many a hollow up in the fourteenth story might have afforded a home for the pretty dear without any one's being the wiser, unless it were the bee-bird in the attic. ”

“ On this day, when the wren came up from the dark nest pocket and found me below, she called back to her little ones in such distress that I felt reproached. By gazing fixedly through my glass into the dark hole I could see the head of a sprightly nestling pop up and turn alertly from side to side as if returning my inspection. The old wren's calls made me think of a human mother who can no longer control her big wayward offspring and has to entreat them to do as she bids. ”

“ On looking it up in Ridgway the stranger proved to be the Louisiana tanager, a high mountain bird. That was a red letter day for me. No one can know, without experiencing it, the delight of such discoveries. The pleasure is as genuine as if the world were made anew for you. In the excitement the oriole's nest was neglected; but ordinarily the rare unknown birds did not detract from the enjoyment of the old, more familiar ones.
So when the brilliant stranger flew away and was seen no more I turned with pleasure to the pair of sparrow hawks who had come to live on the ranch. ”

“ One day, hearing the sound of battle up in the treetops, I hurried over to the scene of action, when out dashed a pair of courageous little dull-colored birds in hot pursuit of a blue jay, whom they dove at till they drove him from the field. My sympathies were enlisted at once. Fearless little tots to brave a bird four times as big as themselves in defense of their home! How hard to have to build and rear a brood in the face of such a powerful foe! ”

“ I had not spent many days in The Little Lover's door-yard before realizing that there was something in the wind. If an inoffensive person fancies sitting in the shade of a sycamore with her horse grazing quietly beside her, who should say her nay? If, at her approach, a—feathered—person steals away to the top of the highest, most distant oak within sight and, silent and motionless, keeps his eye on her till she departs; if, as she innocently glances up at the trees, she discovers a second—feathered—person's head extended cautiously from behind a trunk, its eyes fixed on hers ”

“ Billy's oak was the last of the high trees in the garden. Above it was a grassy space where bright wild flowers bloomed, and pretty cottontail [167] rabbits often went ambling over the soft turf. On one side of the opening was a low stocky oak, full of balls of mistletoe, and on the other a great blossoming bush buzzing with hummingbirds. The mistletoe had begun to sap the little oak, and on one of its dead twigs a hummingbird had taken to perching. I wondered if he were the idle mate of one of my small garden builders, but he sat and sunned himself as if his conscience were quite clear. ”

“ For more than five weeks, all through the building and brooding, the little lover had been acting as if on his honeymoon—as if the nest were a joke and there were nothing for him to do in the world but sing and make love to his pretty mate—as if life were all 'a-courtin'.' On this day he first came to the tree with food, sang out for his spouse, gave her the morsel, and flew off. ”

“ Two weeks later I was much grieved to find that the nest had been broken up. A horse had been staked under the tree, but he could not have done the mischief; for while the eggs were there, the nest itself was all jumbled up in the mouth of the can. I could not get it out of my mind for days. You become so much interested in the families you are watching that you feel as if their troubles were yours, and are haunted by the fear that they will think you have something to do with their accidents. ”

“ But when getting to feel like an old friend of the family, on riding down one day I found the nest lying in the dust of the road broken and despoiled. It made me as unhappy as if the outlaws had been unimpeachable bird citizens—which comes of knowing both sides of a person's character! Do birds hand down traditions of ill luck? However it may be, five years later I found the nest of a pair in a dark mat of mistletoe at the end of a high oak branch, which was a much safer place than the low willow.
While I was watching the first shrike family, Canello had two scares. ”

“ Patient waiting is no loss, observers must remember if they would be consoled for their lost hours. In this case I waited till I felt like a lotus-eater who could have stayed on forever. A dove brooded her eggs on a branch of the spreading sycamore whose arms were outstretched protectingly above me; the sun rested full on its broad leaves, and bees droned around the fragrant mustard, whose exquisite golden flowers waved gently against a background of soft blue California sky. ”

“ As the memory of my morning rides down to the sycamore brings to mind the wonderful freshness of California's fog-cleared skies, so my sunset rides home from the great tree recall the peacefulness of the quiet valley at twilight. One sunset stands out with peculiar distinctness. As Mountain Billy turned from the sycamore marsh its leaning blades gleamed in the evening light, and the sun warmed the sides of the line of buff [122] Guernseys wading in procession through the high swamp grass to their out-door milking stand. ”

“ Nature appears to be slumbering. She is aroused slowly and gently by the soft breaths that come in from the Pacific. On this day I watched the awakening. Up to this time not a grass blade had stirred, but while I dreamed a brown leaf went whirling to the ground, the stray stalks of oats left from the mowing began [69] to nod, and the sycamore branches commenced to sway. Then the breeze swelled stronger, coming cool and fresh from the ocean; the yellow primroses, around which the hummingbirds whirred, bowed on their stately stalks, and I could hear the wind in the moving treetops. ”

“ In the back of the stub occupied by one of the sparrow hawks it was a pleasure to find a flicker excavating its nest. Planting its claws firmly in the hole with tail braced against the bark, the bird leaned forward, thrusting its head in, over and again, as if feeding young. It used its feet as a pivot, and swung itself in, farther and farther, as it worked. Such gymnastics took strong feet, for the bird raised itself by them each time. ”

“ In the East we are accustomed to speak of "the peace of evening," but in southern California in spring there is a peculiar interval of warmth and rest, a langorous pause in the growth of the morning, between the disappearance of the night fog and the coming of the cool trade wind, when the southern sun shines full into the little valleys and the peace of the morning is so deep and serene that the labor of the day seems done. ”

“ As a violinist, lingering to perfect a note, draws his bow again and again over the strings, so this rapt musician dwelt tenderly on his highest notes, trolling them over till each was more exquisite and tender than the last, and the ear was charmed with his love song—a song of ideal love fit to be dreamed of in this stately green oak garden filled with golden sunlight. ”

“ She probably divined his thought, and, let us hope, was glad to have him show an interest in his children at last; at all events, when he came again with food and clung to the tip of a drooping twig waiting [33] although she first lit above him and came down toward him with bill wide open and wings fluttering in the pretty, helpless, coquettish way female birds often tease to be fed; suddenly, as if remembering, she flew off, and—he went in to the nest himself! It was a conquest; the little lover was not altogether lacking in the paternal instinct after all! ”

“ As I listened to their merry roundelay day after day during that beautiful California spring, it sounded to me as though they said, "How-pretty-it-is'-out, how-pretty-it-is'-out, how-pretty-it-is'!" The linnets are ardent little wooers, singing and dancing before the indifferent birds they would win for their mates. I once saw a rosy lover throw back his pretty head and hop about before his brown lady till she was out of patience and turned her back on him. ”

“ While I was sitting in the crotch of an oak a thrasher came out of the brush into an open space in front of me. Her feathers were disordered and apparently she had come from her nest. She walked with wings tight at her sides and her tail up at an angle well out of the way of the rustling leaves; altogether a neat alert figure that contrasted sharply with the lazy brown chippie which appeared just then in characteristic negligée, its wings hanging and tail dragging on the ground. The thrashers of Twin Oaks have bills that are curved like a sickle, and this bird used her tool most skillfully. ”

“ He liked to watch birds in the high alfalfa under the sycamores, but when it came to standing still where the hot sun beat down through the brush and there was nothing to eat, his interest in ornithology flagged perceptibly. Then he sometimes carried the rôle of grazing horse too far, marching off to a fresh clump of grass out of sight of my nest at the most interesting moment; or when I was intently gazing through my glass at a rare bird, he would sometimes give a sudden kick at a horsefly, bobbing the glass out of range just as I was making out the character of the wing-bars. ”

“ These were not the only hawks of the valley. Once, seeing one of the large Buteos winging its way with nesting sticks hanging from its claws, I turned Canello into the field after it, following till it lit in the top of a high sycamore. The pair were both gathering material. Sometimes they flew with the twigs in their claws; sometimes in their bills; now they would fly directly to the nest, again circle around the tree before alighting. When one was at work, the other sometimes flew up and soared so high in the sky he looked no larger than a sparrow hawk. ”

“ He started to wind into the crotch of the oak as if meaning to climb the tree, but instead, crept to a stump and festooned himself about it worming around the holes as he might do if looking for nest holes. Imagine how a mother bird would feel to have him come stealing upon her little brood in that horrid way! When he crawled over the dead leaves I noted with a shiver that he made no sound. Thinking of the gnats, I watched his every movement till he had left the premises and wormed his way off through [56] the brush. ”

“ A family of bush-tits flew about in the sycamore top, looking like pin-heads in a grove of trees. A black phœbe sometimes lit on the fence posts under the branches—it wanted to find a nesting place about the windmill in the opposite field, I felt sure, though a boy had told me that the bird sometimes plastered its nest onto the branches of the big tree itself. Besides all the rest, rosy linnets and blue lazuli buntings made the old tree ring with their musical roundelays. ”