THE
SONG SPARROW
The first
song sparrow's nest I observed in the spring of 1881 was in a field under a
fragment of a board, the board being raised from the ground a couple of inches
by two poles. It had its full complement of eggs, and probably sent forth a
brood of young birds, though as to this I cannot speak positively, as I
neglected to observe it further. It was well sheltered and concealed, and was
not easily come at by any of its natural enemies, save snakes and weasels. But
concealment often avails little. In May, a song sparrow, which had evidently
met with disaster earlier in the season, built its nest in a thick mass of woodbine
against the side of my house, about fifteen feet from the ground. Perhaps it
took the hint from its cousin the English sparrow. The nest was admirably
placed, protected from the storms by the overhanging eaves and from all eyes by
the thick screen of leaves. Only by patiently watching the suspicious bird, as
she lingered near with food in her beak, did I discover its whereabouts. That
brood is safe, I thought, beyond doubt. But it was not: the nest was pillaged
one night, either by an owl, or else by a rat that had climbed into the
vine, seeking an entrance to the house. The mother bird, after reflecting upon
her ill luck about a week, seemed to resolve to try a different system of
tactics, and to throw all appearances of concealment aside. She built a nest a
few yards from the house, beside the drive, upon a smooth piece of greensward.
There was not a weed or a shrub or anything whatever to conceal it or mark its
site. The structure was completed, and incubation had begun, before I
discovered what was going on. "Well, well," I said, looking down upon
the bird almost at my feet, "this is going to the other extreme indeed;
now the cats will have you." The desperate little bird sat there day after
day, looking like a brown leaf pressed down in the short green grass. As the
weather grew hot, her position became very trying. It was no longer a question
of keeping the eggs warm, but of keeping them from roasting. The sun had no
mercy on her, and she fairly panted in the middle of the day. In such an emergency
the male robin has been known to perch above the sitting female and shade her
with his outstretched wings. But in this case there was no perch for the male
bird, had he been disposed to make a sunshade of himself. I thought to lend a
hand in this direction myself, and so stuck a leafy twig beside the nest. This
was probably an unwise interference: it guided disaster to the
spot; the nest was broken up, and the mother bird was probably caught, as I
never saw her afterward.
One
day a tragedy was enacted a few yards from where I was sitting with a book: two
song sparrows were trying to defend their nest against a black snake. The
curious, interrogating note of a chicken who had suddenly come upon the scene
in his walk first caused me to look up from my reading. There were the
sparrows, with wings raised in a way peculiarly expressive of horror and
dismay, rushing about a low clump of grass and bushes. Then, looking more
closely, I saw the glistening form of the black snake, and the quick movement
of his head as he tried to seize the birds. The sparrows darted about and
through the grass and weeds, trying to beat the snake off. Their tails and
wings were spread, and, panting with the heat and the desperate struggle, they
presented a most singular spectacle. They uttered no cry, not a sound escaped
them; they were plainly speechless with horror and dismay. Not once did they
drop their wings, and the peculiar expression of those uplifted palms, as it
were, I shall never forget. It occurred to me that perhaps here was a case of
attempted bird-charming on the part of the snake, so I looked on from behind
the fence. The birds charged the snake
and harassed him from every side, but were evidently under no spell save that
of courage in defending their nest. Every moment or two I could see the head
and neck of the serpent make a sweep at the birds, when the one struck at would
fall back, and the other would renew the assault from the rear. There appeared
to be little danger that the snake could strike and hold one of the birds,
though I trembled for them, they were so bold and approached so near to the
snake's head. Time and again he sprang at them, but without success. How the
poor things panted, and held up their wings appealingly! Then the snake glided
off to the near fence, barely escaping the stone which I hurled at him. I found
the nest rifled and deranged; whether it had contained eggs or young, I know
not. The male sparrow had cheered me many a day with his song, and I blamed
myself for not having rushed at once to the rescue, when the arch enemy was
upon him. There is probably little truth in the popular notion that snakes
charm birds. The black snake is the most subtle, alert, and devilish of our
snakes, and I have never seen him have any but young, helpless birds in his
mouth.
If one has always built
one's nest upon the ground, and if one comes of a race of ground-builders, it
is a risky experiment to build in a tree. The conditions are vastly different.
One of my near neighbors, a little song sparrow, learned this lesson the past
season. She grew ambitious; she departed from the traditions of her race, and
placed her nest in a tree. Such a pretty spot she chose, too,—the pendent
cradle formed by the interlaced sprays of two parallel branches of a Norway
spruce. These branches shoot out almost horizontally; indeed, the lower ones
become quite so in spring, and the side shoots with which they are clothed
droop down, forming the slopes of miniature ridges; where the slopes of two
branches join, a little valley is formed, which often looks more stable than it
really is. My sparrow selected one of these little valleys about six feet from
the ground, and quite near the walls of the house. "Here," she
thought, "I will build my nest, and pass the heat of June in a miniature
Norway. This tree is the fir-clad mountain, and this little vale on its side I
select for my own." She carried up a great quantity of coarse grass and
straws for the foundation, just as she would have done upon the ground. On the
top of this mass there gradually came into shape the delicate structure of her
nest, compacting and refining till its delicate carpet of hairs and threads was
reached. So sly as the little bird was about it, too,—every moment on
her guard lest you discover her secret! Five eggs were laid, and incubation was
far advanced, when the storms and winds came. The cradle indeed did rock. The
boughs did not break, but they swayed and separated as you would part your two
interlocked hands. The ground of the little valley fairly gave way, the nest
tilted over till its contents fell into the chasm. It was like an earthquake
that destroys a hamlet.
No born tree-builder would
have placed its nest in such a situation. Birds that build at the end of the
branch, like the oriole, tie the nest fast; others, like the robin, build
against the main trunk; still others build securely in the fork. The sparrow,
in her ignorance, rested her house upon the spray of two branches, and when the
tempest came, the branches parted company and the nest was engulfed.
A little bob-tailed song
sparrow built her nest in a pile of dry brush very near the kitchen door of a
farmhouse on the skirts of the northern Catskills, where I was passing the
summer. It was late in July, and she had doubtless reared one brood in the
earlier season. Her toilet was decidedly the worse for wear. I noted her day
after day, very busy about the fence and quince bushes between the house and
milk house, with her beak full of coarse straw and hay. To a casual observer, she
seemed flitting about aimlessly, carrying straws from place to place just to
amuse herself. When I came to watch her closely to learn the place of her nest,
she seemed to suspect my intention, and made many little feints and movements
calculated to put me off my track. But I would not be misled, and presently had
her secret. The male did not assist her at all, but sang much of the time in an
apple-tree or upon the fence, on the other side of the house.
The song sparrow nearly
always builds upon the ground, but my little neighbor laid the foundations of
her domicile a foot or more above the soil. And what a mass of straws and twigs
she did collect together! How coarse and careless and aimless at first,—a mere
lot of rubbish dropped upon the tangle of dry limbs; but presently how it began
to refine and come into shape in the centre! till there was the most exquisite
hair-lined cup set about by a chaos of coarse straws and branches. What a
process of evolution! The completed nest was foreshadowed by the first stiff
straw; but how far off is yet that dainty casket with its complement of
speckled eggs! The nest was so placed that it had for canopy a large, broad,
drooping leaf of yellow dock. This formed a perfect shield against both sun and
rain, while it served to conceal it from any curious eyes from above,—from the
cat, for instance, prowling along the top of the wall. Before the eggs had
hatched, the docken leaf wilted and dried and fell down upon the nest. But the
mother bird managed to insinuate herself beneath it, and went on with her
brooding all the same.
Then I
arranged an artificial cover of leaves and branches, which shielded her charge
till they had flown away. A mere trifle was this little bob-tailed bird with
her arts and her secrets, and the male with his song, and yet the pair gave a
touch of something to those days and to that place which I would not willingly
have missed.
