Chapter II: New Adventures in Birdland

I got my wish: Our present home is a whole house, with a yard. We have big trees and little ones, and on one side there is a grape arbor. All around us are vacant lots, where thornapple bushes, dogwood trees, and tall sunflowers grow. These attract birds. Behind the vacant lots there is a ravine with wild cherry trees, elder bushes, wild grape tangles, and other attractions for birds.

The wrens and the robins had gone to their winter homes when we moved, and the woodpeckers had come. I had bought a bird guide with colored pictures, and a pair of field glasses which brought those black and white birds very near to me. Some had red on the back of the head. They were the downy woodpeckers. A bird very much like the downy, but larger, was the hairy woodpecker. And there were birds just like the downy and hairy but without the red patch on the head. They were the mates of the downy and the hairy.

Whenever I heard a brisk “chsip,” I could see downy approach in graceful, curving flight toward some tree. Usually he perched near the bottom and climbed up, pecking and scratching as he went. Sometimes he alighted higher up and came down cat-fashion, but always busily pecking at the bark. The hairy did the same. This must be why these birds are called woodpeckers.

Knowing how well the winter birds like peanuts and suet, I fastened strings of peanuts across a bird table that I had made, and in the tray below I kept suet. I also scattered chickfeed on the ground beside a tree, and added to it buckwheat and sunflower seeds. But I soon learned better than to put anything for birds near a tree behind which a cat could hide!

It was great fun to watch the different birds select their favorite food. The woodpeckers liked the suet so well that, while it was on hand, they hardly ever touched the peanuts. Downy also liked the chickfeed; but he did not like to step down to the ground. In trying to get it, he would back down the tree until his tail touched the ground. Then, without leaving the tree and while propped on his tail, he reached over to the right or left and picked up kernels. In this way he could eat without stepping on the ground.

And downy had good eating manners. He never hurried, never fidgeted. Sometimes he stayed twenty minutes at a meal and ate slowly and quietly, like a well-bred person.

Another bird that came to my place in winter had a light blue back and a white front. His wings and tail were dark blue, and so was the top of his head. I always knew he was near when I heard a sound like “gack” or “yack.” He liked the peanuts better than anything else. With his sharp bill he would punch a nut, then hold down the shell while he pulled out the kernel. Maybe this is why he is called the nuthatch. Sometimes, when I did not have peanuts, I gave him doughnuts. He liked them just as well. He would nibble at a doughnut until it dropped from the nail, then go to the ground and forage there. He liked cheese also.

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.

A good way off were some widely scattered houses. On a tall pole near the first house was a very large bird house. As I drew nearer, three small bird houses came in sight.

I made up my mind to get acquainted with the people in that home. A pleasant lady opened the door and invited me in.

“Who put up those bird houses?” I asked, the first thing.

“That’s my boy,” said the lady. “He just loves to tinker with his tools.” She pointed with pride to a clock shelf which she said he had made for her birthday.

“And he made that big bird house, too?” I asked.

“He made every one,” answered the lady, “and he is making more. He is learning it in the manual training school.”

I told her I wanted to make some bird houses, but didn’t know just how to go about it.

Then she led me into a tiny room off the kitchen. There by the window stood an old dry goods box that had been fitted up as a work bench, with a vise and a rack for small tools. Larger tools were hanging on the wall. On some shelves were wooden boxes and boards. On the work bench lay a bird house. I picked it up and looked at it.

“He says that’s to be for wrens,” explained the lady. From a chest she produced another bird house which she said was for bluebirds.

“He makes them out of these boxes that he gets from our grocer,” she added, “and I save the starch boxes for him.”

The lady had much to do, so I made ready to go. But she went on talking:

“At first, I couldn’t bear to give up this little storeroom. But since I have seen how happy it makes Laddie to have this little ‘shop,’ as he calls it, I am glad I gave in to him. Would you believe it: from the time he begins to work with these tools until he lays them down again he whistles and sings like a bird himself! I think anything that makes a boy so contented must be good for him.”

The lady then went about her work, telling me not to hurry. So I stayed to take some measurements of the bird houses. Both were made so that they could be opened in front.

“He makes them that way so they can be easily cleaned,” explained the lady.

On the way home I stopped at our grocer’s and got some small wooden boxes. Two were yeast foam boxes, and one was a cocoa box. I, too, had learned in manual training school how to use simple tools, so I bought also a saw, plane, shaving knife, brace and set of bits, and a small vise. Then out of an old sewing machine stand I made a work bench, and a light corner of the basement became my “shop.” I made those yeast foam boxes into wren houses, and out of the cocoa box I made a bluebird house. The boy’s mother had told me that his manual training teacher was a lady, and that she was “just as good as a man,” so I felt quite proud of my new fancy work.

The house for bluebirds and one for wrens were put up in trees. The other wren house was mounted on a post above the grape arbor. But it did not stay there long, for I soon found that a grape arbor is no place for a bird house. Can you guess why not?

It was while waiting for the wrens and the bluebirds to come that I had such delightful times with the woodpeckers, the nuthatches and the chickadees.