THE
BROWN THRASHER
Our long-tailed
thrush, or thrasher, delights in a high branch of some solitary tree, whence it
will pour out its rich and intricate warble for an hour together. This bird is
the great American chipper. There is no other bird that I know of that can chip
with such emphasis and military decision as this yellow-eyed songster. It is
like the click of a giant gunlock. Why is the thrasher so stealthy? It always
seems to be going about on tip-toe. I never knew it to steal anything, and yet
it skulks and hides like a fugitive from justice. One never sees it flying
aloft in the air and traversing the world openly, like most birds, but it darts
along fences and through bushes as if pursued by a guilty conscience. Only when
the musical fit is upon it does it come up into full view, and invite the world
to hear and behold.
Years pass without my
finding a brown thrasher's nest; it is not a nest you are likely to stumble
upon in your walk; it is hidden as a miser hides his gold, and watched as
jealously. The male pours out his rich and triumphant song from the tallest
tree he can find, and fairly challenges you to come and look for his treasures in his
vicinity. But you will not find them if you go. The nest is somewhere on the
outer circle of his song; he is never so imprudent as to take up his stand very
near it. The artists who draw those cozy little pictures of a brooding mother
bird, with the male perched but a yard away in full song, do not copy from
nature. The thrasher's nest I found was thirty or forty rods from the point
where the male was wont to indulge in his brilliant recitative. It was in an
open field under a low ground-juniper. My dog disturbed the sitting bird as I
was passing near. The nest could be seen only by lifting up and parting away
the branches. All the arts of concealment had been carefully studied. It was
the last place you would think of looking in, and, if you did look, nothing was
visible but the dense green circle of the low-spreading juniper. When you
approached, the bird would keep her place till you had begun to stir the
branches, when she would start out, and, just skimming the ground, make a
bright brown line to the near fence and bushes. I confidently expected that
this nest would escape molestation, but it did not. Its discovery by myself and
dog probably opened the door for ill luck, as one day, not long afterward, when
I peeped in upon it, it was empty. The proud song of the male had ceased from
his accustomed tree, and the pair
were seen no more in that vicinity.
After
a pair of nesting birds have been broken up once or twice during the season,
they become almost desperate, and will make great efforts to outwit their
enemies. A pair of brown thrashers built their nest in a pasture-field under a
low, scrubby apple-tree which the cattle had browsed down till it spread a
thick, wide mass of thorny twigs only a few inches above the ground. Some
blackberry briers had also grown there, so that the screen was perfect. My dog
first started the bird, as I was passing near. By stooping low and peering
intently, I could make out the nest and eggs. Two or three times a week, as I
passed by, I would pause to see how the nest was prospering. The mother bird
would keep her place, her yellow eyes never blinking. One morning, as I looked
into her tent, I found the nest empty. Some night-prowler, probably a skunk or
a fox, or maybe a black snake or a red squirrel by day, had plundered it. It
would seem as if it was too well screened; it was in such a spot as any
depredator would be apt to explore. "Surely," he would say,
"this is a likely place for a nest." The birds then moved over the
hill a hundred rods or more, much nearer the house, and in some rather open
bushes tried again. But again they came
to grief. Then, after some delay, the mother bird made a bold stroke. She
seemed to reason with herself thus: "Since I have fared so disastrously in
seeking seclusion for my nest, I will now adopt the opposite tactics, and come
out fairly in the open. What hides me hides my enemies: let us try greater
publicity." So she came out and built her nest by a few small shoots that
grew beside the path that divides the two vineyards, and where we passed to and
fro many times daily. I discovered her by chance early in the morning as I
proceeded to my work. She started up at my feet and flitted quickly along above
the ploughed ground, almost as red as the soil. I admired her audacity. Surely
no prowler by night or day would suspect a nest in this open and exposed place.
There was no cover by which they could approach, and no concealment anywhere.
The nest was a hasty affair, as if the birds' patience at nest-building had
been about exhausted. Presently an egg appeared, and then the next day another,
and on the fourth day a third. No doubt the bird would have succeeded this time
had not man interfered. In cultivating the vineyards the horse and cultivator
had to pass over this very spot. Upon this the bird had not calculated. I
determined to assist her. I called my man, and told him there was one spot in that vineyard, no bigger than his
hand, where the horse's foot must not be allowed to fall, nor tooth of
cultivator to touch. Then I showed him the nest, and charged him to avoid it.
Probably if I had kept the secret to myself, and let the bird run her own risk,
the nest would have escaped. But the result was that the man, in elaborately
trying to avoid the nest, overdid the matter; the horse plunged, and set his
foot squarely upon it. Such a little spot, the chances were few that the
horse's foot would fall exactly there; and yet it did, and the birds' hopes
were again dashed. The pair then disappeared from my vicinity, and I saw them
no more.
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