A-Birding on a Bronco

It became evident that a pair of these singular birds had taken up quarters in the chaparral on the hillside back of the ranch-house, for one of them was often seen with the hens in the dooryard. One day I was talking to the ranchman when the road-runner appeared. He paid no attention to us, but went straight to the hen-house, apparently to get cocoons. Looking between the laths, I could see him at work. He flew up on the hen-roosts as if quite at home; he had been there before and knew the ways of the house. He even dashed into the peak of the roof and brought down the white cocoon balls dangling with cobweb. When he had finished his hunt he stood in the doorway, and a pair of blackbirds lit on the fence post over his head, looking down at him wonderingly. Was he a new kind of hen? He was almost as big as a bantam. They sat and looked at him, and he stood and stared at them till all three were satisfied, when the blackbirds flew off and the road-runner walked out by the kitchen to hunt among the buckets for food.

These curious birds seem to be of an inquiring turn of mind, and sometimes their investigations end sadly. The windmills, which are a new thing in this dry land, naturally stimulate their curiosity. A small boy from the neighboring town—Escondido—told me that he had known four road-runners to get drowned in one tank; though he corrected himself afterwards by saying, "We fished out one before he got drowned!"

Another lad told me he had seen road-runners in the nesting season call for their mates on the hills. He had seen one stand on a bowlder fifteen feet high, and after strutting up and down the rock with his tail and wings hanging, stop to call, putting his bill down on the rock and going through contortions as if pumping out the sound. The lad thought his calls were answered from the brush below.

In April the ranchman reported that he had seen dusky poor-wills, relatives of our whip-poor-wills, out flycatching on the road beyond the ranch-house after dark. He had seen as many as eight or nine at once, and they had let him come within three feet of them. Accordingly, one night right after tea I started out to see them. The poor-wills choose the most beautiful part of the twenty-four hours for their activity. When I went out, the sky above the dark wall of the valley was a quiet greenish yellow, and the rosy light was fading in the north at the head of the canyon. White masses of fog pushed in from the ocean. Then the constellations dawned and brightened till the evening star shone out in her full radiant beauty. Locusts and crickets droned; bats zigzagged overhead; and suddenly from the dusty road some black objects started up, fluttered low over the barley, and dropped back on the road again. At the same time came the call of the poor-will, which, close at hand, is a soft burring poor-will, poor-wil'-low. Two or three hours later I went out again. The full moon had risen, and shone down, transforming the landscape. The road was a narrow line between silvered fields of headed grain, and the granite bowlders gleamed white on the hills inclosing the sleeping valley. For a few moments the shrill barking of coyote wolves disturbed the stillness; then again the night became silent; peace rested upon the valley, and from far up the canyon came the faint, sad cry, poor-wil'-low, poor-wil'-low.

VIII.

The bush-tits are cousins of the eastern chickadees, which is reason enough for liking them, although the California fruit growers have a more substantial reason in the way the birds eat the scale that injures the olive-trees. The bush-tits might be the little sisters of the chickadee family, they are so small. They look like gray balls with long tails attached, for they are plump fluffy tots, no bigger than your thumb, without their tails. One of them, when preoccupied, once came within three feet of where I stood. When he discovered me a comical look of surprise came into his yellow eyes and he went tilting off, for his long tail gave him a pitching flight as if he were about to go on his bill, a flight that reminds one of the tail that wagged the dog.

There were so many of the gray pocket nests in the oaks that it was hard to choose which to watch, but one of the most interesting hung from a branch of the big double oak of the gnatcatchers, above the ranch-house, where I could see it when sitting in the crotch of the tree. While watching it I looked beyond over the chaparral wall away to a dark purple peak standing against a sky flecked with sun-whitened clouds. The nest was like an oriole's, but nearly twice as long, though the builders were less than half the size of the orioles. Instead of being open at the top, it was roofed over, and the only entrance was a small round hole, the girth of the bird, about two inches under the roof.

One might imagine that such big houses would be dark with only one small dormer window, and the valley children assured me that the birds hung living firefly lamps on their walls! I suggested that a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Fireflies would be needed if that were the case; but when it comes to that, what bird would choose to brood by gaslight?

When I first saw the bush-tit in its round doorway, it suggested Jack Horner's famous plum, comical little ball of feathers! When first watching the nest the small pair put me on their list of enemies, along with small boys, blue jays, and owls. To go down into the pocket under my stare seemed a terrible thing. When one of them came with a bit of moss for lining, it started for the front door, saw me, stopped, and turned to go to the back of the nest. Then it tried to get up courage to approach the house from the side, got in a panic and dashed against the wall as if expecting a door would open for it. When at last it did make bold to dart into the nest it was struck with terror, and, whisking around, jabbed the moss into the outside wall and fled!

Seeing that nothing awful happened, the birds finally took me off the black list and allowed me to oversee their work, as long as I gave no directions. Sometimes both little tots went down into the bag to work together; surely there was plenty of room for many such as they. But it is not always a matter of cubic inches, and one morning when the second bird was about to pop in, apparently it was advised to wait a minute. There was no ill feeling, though, for when the small builder came out it flew to the twig in front of the door, where its mate was waiting, and sat down beside it, a little Darby by his Joan.

They worked busily. Sometimes they popped in only to pop out again; at other times they stayed inside as long as if they had been human housekeepers, hanging pictures, straightening chairs, and setting their bric-a-brac in order for the fortieth time; each change requiring mature deliberation.

One morning—after the birds had been putting in lining long enough to have wadded half a dozen nests—if my judgment is of any value in such matters—I discovered that the roof was falling in; it was almost on top of the front door! The next day, to my dismay, the door had vanished. What was the trouble? Were the pretty pair young builders; was this their first nest, and had they paid more attention to decorating their house inside than to laying strong foundations; or had their pocket been too heavy for its frame?

However it came about, the wise birds concluded that they would not waste time crying over spilt milk. They calmly went to work to tear the first nest to pieces and build a second one out of it. One of them tweaked out its board with such a jerk it sent the pocket swinging like a pendulum. But the next time it wisely planted its claw firmly to steady itself, while it cautiously pulled the material out with its bill.

If the birds were inexperienced, they were bright enough to profit by experience. This time they hung their nest between the forks of a strong twig which had a cross twig to support the roof, so that the accident that had befallen them could not possibly occur again. They began work at the top, holding onto the twig with their claws and swinging themselves down inside to put in their material; and they moulded and shaped the pocket as they went along.

After watching the progress of the new nest, I went to see what had become of the old one. It was on the ground. On taking it home and pulling it to pieces, I found that the wall was from half an inch to an inch thick, made of fine gray moss and oak blossoms. There was a thick wadding of feathers inside. I counted three hundred, and there were a great many more! The amount of hard labor this stood for amazed me. No wonder the nest pulled down, with a whole feather-bed inside! Why had they put it in? I asked some children, and one said, "To keep the eggs warm, I guess;" while the other suggested, "So the eggs wouldn't break." Most of the feathers were small, but there must have been several dozen chicken's feathers from two to three inches long. Among them was a plume of an owl.

Much to my surprise, in the bush-tit's nest there was a broken eggshell. Had the egg broken in falling, or had a snake been there? One of the boys of the valley told me about seeing a racer snake go into a bush-tit's pocket. The cries of the birds rallied several other pairs, and they all flew about in distress, though not one of them dared touch the dreadful tail that hung out of the nest hole. As the snake was about three feet long, the pocket bulged as it moved around inside. There were four nestlings about a quarter grown, and the relentless creature devoured them all. The boy waited below with a stick, and when it came out, killed it and shook it by the tail till the small birds popped out of its mouth. If my broken eggshell pointed to any such tragedy, it cleared the birds of the accusation of being poor builders.

The nest, which the first day was a filmy spot in the leaves, by the next day had become a gray pocket over eight inches long, although I could still see daylight through it. In working, the birds flew to the top of the open bag and hopped down inside. I could see the pocket shake and bulge as they worked within. When they flew away to any distance, on their return they almost always came with their little call of schrit, schrit.

This nest was so low that I used to throw myself on the sand beneath the tree to watch it, taking many a sunbath there, with hat drawn down till I could just see the nest in the pendent branches, and watch the changing mosaics made by the sky through the moving leaves. When resting on the sand the thought of rattlesnakes came to me, for the brush on either side was a shelter for them, and they might easily have crept up beside me without my hearing them.

The second bush-tit's nest was shorter than the first one. Perhaps the builders thought the length had something to do with the fall of the first; or perhaps they didn't feel like collecting three hundred more feathers, with oak blossoms and moss to match. They first put the frame of the front door below the supporting cross twig, and then, as if they thought it needed more support, changed it and put the door above the twig, so that the roof could not possibly close the hole, even if it did fall in. The doorway was also made much larger than that of the first nest.

After making away with the old nest, my conscience smote me. Perhaps the little pocket makers were not through with it, even if it was on the ground; so I brought a piece of it back and tied it with a grass stem to a twig below the nest they were at work on, to save them as much trouble as might be. When my bird came, her bright eyes were quick to espy the old nest. She looked around, bewildered, as if wondering whether she was really awake, and making sure that this strange looking affair were not her second nest, come to grief in her absence. Being reassured by her examination, she came back and hopped from twig to twig inspecting the old piece of nest. At last she caught sight of a feather. That, apparently, was just what she wanted. She quickly flew over, pulled out the white plume, and went straight to the new house with it!

I was not able to watch any of my bush-tits through the season, that year, but five years later, when again in southern California, to my delight I found the tits building in almost the same tree where they had been before.

One day an interesting brood was out in the brush, and I took notes on their proceedings: "A family of young were abroad this morning filling the leaves with their little moving forms, and the air with their fledgling cry of schrit. As nearly as I could judge, there were ten in the family—eight young tagging after two old birds. While I watched, a droll thing happened, proving that a family of eight may affect a parent's breakfast as well as his nerves. One of the family, which I took to be the father bird, had some goody in his bill, and one of the young, presumably, followed him for it, flying up on his twig. The old bird turned his back upon the little one and went on shaking the grub. Presently a second one flew down on the other side of him,—he was between two fires; they touched him on both sides. I watched with interest to see what he would do about it, and was much amused when he opened his wings and flew up over their heads out of reach! Would he come back to feed them after his food was properly prepared? No,—he sat up on the branch and ate the morsel himself! I was rather shocked by such a deliberate proceeding, but then it occurred to me that parent birds have to take a bite themselves once in a while; though of course their business is to feed the children!"

IX.

Before going home from my morning sessions with the little lover and other feathered friends, I often took a gallop at the foot of the hills to visit a gigantic old tree, the king of the valley. One such ride is especially marked in my memory. It was on one of California's most perfect mornings. When the sun had risen over the valley, the fog dissolved before it, sinking away until only small white clouds were left in the tender blue of the notches between the red hills; while the bared vault overhead had that pure, deep, satisfying color peculiar to fog-cleared skies; and the cool fresh air was full of exhilaration. It put Mountain Billy so in tune with the morning that, when I chirrupped to him, shaking the reins on his neck, he quickly broke into a lope and his ringing hoofs beat time to my song as we sped down the valley, past vineyards and orchards and yellow fields of ripening grain. The free swift motion was a delight in itself, and after days and weeks given to the details of nest-making, shut away from the world in our little remote valley at the foot of the mountains, now, when we came to a break in the hills and our nostrils were greeted by the cool salt breeze coming from the Pacific, suddenly the whole horizon broadened; the inclosing valley walls were overlooked; we were galloping under the high arching heavens in a wind blowing from far over the wide ocean.

Here stood the great sycamore, with branches swaying; for the tree faced this break in the hills. It seemed as if the old monarch, with roots firmly planted, had battled for its ground; and now, as a conqueror, stood with arms uplifted to meet the ocean gales. I had never before appreciated the dignity of those straight upreared shafts, the vital strength of those deep grappling roots, the mighty grandeur of this old battle king.

When one of the trunks fell, I had to hunt the sycamore over to find where it came from, not missing it in the massive framework that was left. The giant measured twenty-three feet and a half in circumference, three feet from the ground. Its enormous branches stretched out horizontally so far that, between the body of the tree and the tips that hung to the earth, there was a wide corridor where one could promenade on horseback. In fact, the tree spanned, from the tip of one branch to the tip of the other, one hundred and fifty-eight feet. In the photograph, the figure of a person is almost lost in the complicated network of the frame of the tree. The treetop was a grove in itself. A flock of blackbirds flying up into it was lost among the branches.

The ranchman knew the sycamore as the 'swallow tree,' because in former years, before the valley was settled, swallows that have since taken to barns built there. Between three and four hundred of them plastered their nests on the underside of the big limbs, about half way up the tree, where the bark was rough. They built so close together that the nests made a solid mass of mud. For several seasons, it was said, "they had bad luck." They began building before the rainy season was over, and all but a few dozen nests which were in especially protected places were swept away. The number of nests was so enormous that the ground was covered several inches deep with mud.

Billy used to improve his time by nibbling barley while I watched birds in the sycamore corridor. We had not been there long before I discovered a bee's nest in the hollow of one of the trunks. The owners were busily flying in and out, and a pair of big bee-birds flew down from their nest in the treetop and saved themselves trouble by lunching at this convenient ground floor restaurant. As I sat on Billy, facing the nest, one of the pair swept down over the mouth of the hole, caught a bee and settled back on the branch to swallow it. This seemed to be the regular performance, and was kept up so continuously, even when we were standing close by, that if, as is supposed, the birds eat only drones, few but workers would be left in that hive.

The flycatchers seemed well suited to the sycamore; they were birds of large ideas and sweeping flights. Their nest was at the top of the tree; probably eighty feet from the ground, but when one of them flew down, instead of coming a branch at a time, he would set his wings and, giving a loud cry,—as a child shouts when pushing off his sled at the top of a steep hill,—he would sail obliquely down from the treetop to the foot of the hillside beyond. When looking for his material he would hover over the field like a phœbe. Then, on returning, unlike the other birds who lived in the tree and used the branches as ladders, he would start from the ground and with labored flights climb obliquely up the air to the treetop. Once his material dangled a foot behind him. The birds seemed to enjoy these great flights.

Their nest was not finished, and while one went for material, the other—presumably the male—guarded the nest. As there was nothing to guard as yet, it often seemed a matter of venting his own spleen! When not occupied in arranging his plumes, he would shoot down at every small bird that came upstairs; a cowardly proceeding, but perhaps he thought it necessary to keep his hand in against meeting bigger boys than he! When coming with material, one of the bee-birds got caught in a heavy rope of cobweb that dangled from the nest, and had to flutter hard to extricate itself. About their nests these birds seemed as home-loving as any others. Their domesticity quite surprised me; they had always seemed such harsh, scolding, aggressive birds! When one of them sat among the green leaves, pluming the soft sulphur yellow feathers of its breast, it looked so gentle and attractive that it was a shock when the familiar petulant screams again jarred the air. The birds often hunted from the fence beyond the sycamore, and flew from post to post with legs dangling, shaking their wings as they lit, with a shrill kit' r' r' r' r'.

The sycamore was a regular apartment house; so many birds were moving among the boughs it was impossible to tell where they all lived. One day I found a pair of doves sitting on a sunny branch above me. The one I took to be the male sat perched crosswise, while his mate sat facing him, lengthwise of the limb. He calmly fluffed out his feathers and preened himself, while his meek spouse watched him. She fluttered her wings, teasing him to feed her, but he kept on dressing out his plumes. Then she edged a little closer, and almost essayed to touch his majesty with her pretty blue bill, but he sat with lordly composure quite ignoring her existence till a blackbird bustled up, when they both started nervously, and turning, sat demurely side by side on the limb, the wind tilting their long tails.

A pair of bright orange orioles had a nest in the sycamore, though I never should have known it had I not seen them go to it to feed their young. It was a well shaded cradle surely, with its canopy of big green leaves.

There were a good many hints to be had, first and last. 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. 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.

One day when I rode down to the sycamore, the meadow bordering it was full of haycocks, and a rabbit ran out from under one of them, frightened by the clatter of Billy's hoofs. That morning the tree was fairly alive with blackbirds and doves—what a deafening medley the blackbirds made! In the fields near the sycamore flocks of redwings went swinging over the tall gleaming mustard. This was a great place for blackbirds, for the big tree was on the edge of the one piece of marsh land in the valley, and they were quick to take advantage of its reeds for nesting places.

The cienaga—as they called the swamp—was used as a pasture. It was pleasant to look out upon, from under the branches of the great tree. A group of horses stood in the shade of a cluster of oaks on the farther side of it, while the cows, a beautiful herd of buff and white Guernseys, waded through the swamp grass to drink near the sycamore, and the blackbirds wound in and out among them. I had been in a dry land so long it was hard to believe there was actual water in the marsh till I saw it drip from their chins and heard the sucking sound as they laboriously dragged their feet out of the mud—a noise that took me back to eastern pastures, but sounded strangely unfamiliar here in this rainless land. One of the pretty Guernseys with a white star in her forehead strayed up under the tree, and the shadows of the leaves moved over her as she raised her sensitive face to see who was there.

The son of the ranchman who owned the dairy—the one who invited me down to see the play between his dog Romulus and the burrowing owl—said that when herding cows by the sycamore he once caught sight of a coyote wolf. He clapped his hands to send his dog, Romulus, after the wolf; and the noise frightened the wild creature so that he started to run up the hill across the road from the sycamore. Romulus followed hard at his heels till they got well up the hillside, when the coyote felt that he was on his own ground and turned on the dog, who fled back to his master with his tail between his legs. The lad, clapping his hands, set the dog on the coyote again, and this animated but bloodless performance was repeated and kept up till both were tired out, the animals chasing each other back and forth from the sycamore to the hillside with as much energy and perhaps as much courage as was displayed by that historic king of France who had five thousand men and—

On one side of the sycamore was a great wall of weeds higher than my head when on horseback; a dense mass of yellow mustard, and fragrant wild celery which was covered with delicate white bloom. I saw blackbirds carrying material into this thicket, but as I had known of neighbors' horses getting bitten by rattlesnakes among the high weeds, did not think it worth while to wade around in it much for such common birds as they. But one day, seeing a pair of rare blue grosbeaks fly down into the tangle, I turned Billy right in after them, though holding his head well up in consideration of the snakes. The birds vanished, so we stood still to wait. Suddenly I heard a slight sound as of something slipping through the weeds at Billy's feet, and looking down saw a snake marked like a rattler; and as it slid by Billy's hoof I noticed with horror that the end of its tail was blunt—the harmless gopher snake that resembles the rattler has a tapering tail! I gazed at it spellbound, but in the dim light could not make out whether it had rattles or not. I had seen enough, however, and whipping up Billy was out of those weeds in a hurry. Safely outside, I looked at my little horse remorsefully—what if my desire to see a new nest had been the cause of his getting a rattlesnake bite!

The next day when I went down to the sycamore a German was mowing there with a pair of mules. He was a typical Rhinelander, with blue eyes and long curling hair and beard, and as he drove he sang in a deep rich voice one of the beautiful melodies of his fatherland. Screened by the branches, I listened quite unmindful of my work till my reverie was interrupted by the man's giving a harsh cry to his mules. It was only an aside, however, for he dropped back into his song in the same rich sympathetic voice.

In riding out from the tree on my way home, I saw that he was mowing just where the snake had been, and warned him to be careful lest the horses get bitten. At the word rattlesnake his blue eyes dilated, and he assured me that he would be on his guard. Seeing my glasses and note-book, he asked if I were studying birds. When told that I was, from his seat on the mowing-machine he took off his hat and bowed with the air of a lord, saying in broken English, "I am pleased to meet you!"—a pleasant tribute to the profession. A few days later, on meeting him, he asked if I had found the rattlesnake—he had killed it under the sycamore and hung it on a branch for me to see.

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 Guernseys wading in procession through the high swamp grass to their out-door milking stand. Beyond, a load of hay was crossing the meadows with sun on the reins and the pitchforks the men carried over their shoulders; and beyond, at the head of the valley, the western canyons were filled with golden haze, while the last shafts of yellow light loitered over the apricot orchards below, where the tranquil birds were singing their evening songs. Slowly the long shadows of the mountain crept over orchard and vineyard until, finally, the sun rounded the last peak and left our little valley in darkness.

X.

The first year I was in California the thought of the orchards that were to be set out on my ranch appealed to me much less than what the place already possessed. As an inheritance from the stream that came down in spring through the Ughland canyon—past the homes of the little lover, the gnatcatchers, the little prisoners, and the lazulis and blue jays—there was a straggling line of old sycamores, full of birds' nests; and a patch of weeds, wild mustard, and willows, which was a capital shelter for wandering warblers; and a bright sunny spot always ringing with songs.

So many houses were being put up without so much as a by-your-leave that it was high time for an ornithological landlady to bestir herself and look to her ornithological squatters; so, day after day I turned my horse toward the ranch and spent the morning getting acquainted with my tenants, riding along the shady line and making friendly calls at each tree.

Half of the blackbirds who worked in the vineyard must have been beholden to me for rent, I should judge by the jolly choruses of the sable hordes moving about my treetops. There was a bee's nest in one of the sycamores, and one day the buzzing mob 'took after me' so madly that I had to whip up Canello and beat about with my hat to get clear of them.

Another day, when we stopped under a sycamore, such a loud shrill whistle sounded suddenly overhead that the horse started. A big bird in black sat with feathers bristled up about him like a threatening raven, croaking away sepulchrally directly overhead, bending down gazing at us out of his yellow eyes as if to see how we took it. It was a laughable sight. Blackbirds seem such human, humorous birds one can almost fancy them playing such pranks just for the fun of it.

The blackbird colony was a busy one nesting-time. The builders would fly down to the road to get material, stepping along quickly, looking from side to side with an alert, business-like air, as if they knew just what they wanted. Some of them used the button-balls to line their nests.

A pair had built in one of the round mats of mistletoe at the end of a branch, and while looking at the nest one day I was amazed to see a butcherbird come flying in a straight line toward it. He did not reach his destination, for while still in air both blackbirds darted down at him and drove him back faster than he had come. The guardian of the nest escorted him almost home, and when the victorious pair were returning they were joined by a noisy band of indignant members of the blackbird clan.

I watched this attack with great interest, not knowing that shrikes were concerned in blackbird matters, and also because it was welcome news that one of these strange characters had rented a lot of me. I made a note of the direction my outlaw tenant took when driven ignominiously home, and at my earliest convenience called. Such cruel tales are told of his cold-blooded way of impaling birds and beasts upon thorns and barbed wires that one naturally looks upon him as a monster; but I found that he, like many another villain, turns a gentle face to his nest.

He had pitched his tent on the farthest outpost of my ranch in a little bunch of willows, weeds, and mustard—long since converted into a well-kept prune orchard. The nest, which was a big round mass of sticks, was inside the willows in a clump of dry stalks about six feet from the ground. I had hardly found it before one of the builders swooped down to it right before my eyes, with the hardihood of one who fears no man; though it must be acknowledged that the shrikes, like other birds on the ranch, were so used to grazing horses they quite naturally took me for a cattle herder.

In this case Canello did not act as my ally. He had been quiet and docile most of the morning, but now was hungry and saw some grass he was bent on having, so took the bit in his teeth and made such an obstinate fight that, before I had conquered him, the shrikes had left the premises and my call was finished without my hosts.

On my next visit Canello behaved in more seemly manner, and permitted me to see something of the ways of the maligned birds. You would not have known them from any one else except for the remarkable stillness of their neighborhood. Some finches flew overhead as if meaning to stop, but saw the shrike and went on. I could hear the merry songs of the assembly down in the sycamores, but not a bird lit while we were there—the shrikes certainly have a bad name among their neighbors. They had a proud bearing and an imperative manner, but seemed so gentle and human in their domestic life that my prejudices were softened, as one's generally are by near acquaintance, and I became really very fond of my handsome tenants.

It looked as if the shrike fed his mate. At any rate, they worked together and rested together, perching in lordly fashion high on the willows overlooking their home. They did not object to observers when at work. One day, when Canello's nose appeared by the nest, the builder looked at him over her shoulder and then quietly slid off the nest, flying up on her perch to wait till he should leave. It was a temptation to keep her waiting some time, for the shrike's corner was a pleasant place to linger in. The sea-breeze was so strong it turned the willow leaves white side out, and the beautiful glistening mustard grew so high there that when Canello walked into it, the golden blossoms waved over our heads. We haunted the premises till the birds had finished their framework, put in a lining of snow-white plant cotton, and had laid four eggs.

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. Once when we were standing still by the willow we heard what sounded like a rattlesnake springing its rattle. The nervous horse pricked up his ears, raised his head, and looked in the grass as if he saw snakes, and though I succeeded in quieting him, when we went home he started at every stick and was ready to shy at every shadow. Another morning he saw a Mexican riding along by the vineyard, a man with a very dark face and a red shirt. Canello acted much as he had when hearing the rattlesnake, and did not quiet down till horse and rider were out of sight. The ranchman told me he had been cruelly treated by the Mexican who broke him, so perhaps it was another case of association of ideas.

East of the willows, and separated from them by the dark green mallows and bright yellow California forget-me-nots, was the sycamore where the shrike was driven off by the blackbirds. Here a little brown wren had taken up her abode. The nest was in a dead limb with a lengthwise slit, and a scoop at the end like an apple-corer, so when one of the wrens flew down its hole with a stick, the twig stuck out of the crack as she ran along with it. She quite won my heart by her frank way of meeting her landlady. Instead of flying off, she looked me over and then quietly sat down in her doorway to wait for her mate.

On the road to my sycamores was a deserted whitewashed adobe. The place had become overgrown with weeds, vines, and bushes, and was taken possession of by squirrels and birds. Nature had reclaimed it, covering its ugly scars with garlands, and making it bloom under her tender touch. One morning, as I rode by, a black phœbe was perched on the old adobe chimney of the little house, while his mate sat on the board that covered the well, in a way that made it easy to jump to a conclusion. When she flew up to the acacia beside the well and looked down anxiously, I put the pair on my calling list. It did not take many visits to prove my conclusion—there was a nest down in the well with white eggs in it. The phœbes were most trustful birds, and not only let Canello tramp around their yard, but when a pump was put down the well, and water pumped up day by day, the brave parents, instead of deserting their eggs, went on brooding as if nothing had happened.

Five years later, on going back to the ranch, I found the phœbes around the old place, but hunted in vain for the nest. A schoolhouse had been built in the interval, near the old adobe, and the birds perched on its gables, on the hitching posts in front of it, and on my prune-trees, that had taken the place of the willows, across the road. They even came up to my small ranch-house and filled me with delightful anticipations by inspecting the beams of the piazza; but they could not find what they wanted and flew off to build elsewhere. Later in the season, a neighbor whose ranch was opposite mine showed me a phœbe's nest inside his whitewashed chicken house. It was a mud pocket like a swallow's, made of large pellets of mud plastered against a board in the peak of the house. Of course I could never prove that these birds were my old friends, but it seemed very probable.

The smallest of my tenants was a hummingbird. I saw it fly into a low spray, and it stayed there so long that when it left I rode up to look, and found that it was building on the tip of a twig under a sycamore leaf umbrella, one whose veining showed against the light. By rising in the saddle I could just reach the twig and pull it down to look inside the nest; but afterwards I found so many other hummers who could be watched with fewer gymnastics, I rested content with knowing that this little friend was there.

One morning, when on the way to the sycamores, I found an oriole's nest high in a tree. Canello was hungry, but when permitted to eat barley under the branches kept reasonably quiet. There were two species of orioles in the valley; and not knowing to which the nest belonged, I prepared to wait for the return of the owner. The heat was so oppressive that I took off my hat, and a bird flew into the tree with bill open, gasping. After my hot ride down the valley the shade of the big tree was very grateful; and the cool trade wind coming through a gap in the hills most refreshing.

Suddenly there was a flash—we all waked up—was that the house owner? What a remarkable bird! and what a display of color!—it had a red head, fiery in the sun; a black back, and a vivid yellow breast. 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. A branch had fallen from one of the trees, and the hawks found its hollow just suited to their needs. It was a good, spacious house, but a pair of their cousins who had built in a tree over the whitewashed hovel had made a sad mistake in choosing their dwelling—for the front door was so small they could hardly enter! I used to stop to watch them, and was very much amused at their efforts to make the best of it.

Canello could stand up to his knees in alfilaree clover under their tree, so he allowed me to watch the birds in peace. The first day the male sparrow hawk flew to the tree with what looked like a snake dangling from his bill, and as he alighted screamed kit-kit'ar' r' r' r', spreading his wings and shaking them with emphasis. When this brought no response, he flew from branch to branch, crying out lustily. He revolved around the end of a broken limb in whose small hollow was framed the head of Madame Falco. From her height she looked like a rag doll at her window. Her funny round face, which filled the doorway, had black spots for bill and eyes, and dark lines down the cheeks that might have simulated rag doll tattooing.

Evidently there was some reason why she did not want to come to breakfast. Once she started to turn back into the nest, but at last laboriously wedged her way out of the hole and flew to a branch. Her mate was at her side in an instant, and handed her the snake. She took it greedily and flew off with it, let us hope because she was afraid of me, not because she did not want to divide with him, or thought he would ask her to, after all his devotion and patience!

When the bird went back to her nest, her hesitation about leaving it was explained. For a long time she sat on a limb near by with tail bobbing, apparently trying to make up her mind to go in. When she did fly up at the hole she could not get in, and half fell down. After this failure she sat down on a branch, her tail tilting as violently as a pipit's, and when Canello moved around too much, took the excuse and flew off. Her mate came back with her, but when he saw us, he screamed and flew away, leaving her to her fate.

She sat looking at her hole a long time before she tried it again, and when she did try, failed. It was not till her fourth attempt that she succeeded. The hole was very much too small for her, and the surface of the branch below it was so smooth and slippery that it gave her nothing to hold to in trying to wedge herself in. She would fly against the hole and attempt to hook her bill over the edge, and so draw herself up, but her shoulders were too big for the space. She tried to make them smaller by drawing down her wings lengthwise. Once, in her efforts, she spread her tail like a fan. After her third struggle, she sat for a long time smoothing her ruffled feathers, shaking herself, scratching her face with her foot and trying to get her plumes in order.

While making her toilet she apparently thought of a new plan. She went back to the hole and, raising her claw, fastened it inside the hole and with a spasmodic effort wedged in her body and disappeared down the black hollow. Her mate came a moment after, but she did not even appear in the doorway when he called. Again he came, crying keek' keek' kick-er' r' r', in tender falsetto; but it was no use. Madame Falco had had altogether too hard a time getting in, to go out again in a hurry. He held a worm in his bill till he was tired, changed it to his claw, letting it dangle from that for a while; and then, as she would make no sign, finally flew off.

The next day we had another session with the sparrow hawk. She had evidently profited by experience. She did not fly at the hole in the violent way she had done the day before, but ambled along a limb to get as close to it as possible, and then quietly flew up. She made two or three unsuccessful attempts to enter, but kept at the branch,—falling back but once. She got half way in once or twice, but could not force her wings through. She acted as if determined not to give up, and at last, when she found herself falling backwards, with a desperate effort drew herself in.

There was another sparrow hawk family across the road from my ranch. In riding by one day, I saw a youngster looking out from the nest hole with big frightened eyes. Was it the only child, or was it monopolizing the fresh air while its brothers were smothering below? Another day there were two heads in the window; one was the round domed, top of a fluffy nestling whose eyes expressed only vague fear; but the other was the strongly marked head of an old sparrow hawk, who eyed us with keen intelligence. As I stared up, the young one drew back into the hole behind its parent, probably in obedience to her command; and the old bird bent such an anxious inquiring gaze upon me that I took the hint and rode away to save the poor mother worry.

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. In swooping to the ground suddenly, the hawks would hollow in their backs, stick up their tails, drop their legs for ballast, and so let themselves come to earth. While one of the birds was peacefully gathering sticks, two blackbirds attacked it, apparently on general grounds, because it belonged to a family that had been traduced since history began. To tell the honest truth, I trembled a little myself at thought of what might happen to some of my small tenants, though I reassured myself by remembering that the facts prove the maligned hawks much more likely to eat gophers than birds.

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. It worked like an automatic toy wound up for the performance. When tired, the flicker hopped up on a branch and vented its feelings by shouting if-if-if-if-if-if-if, after which it quietly returned to work. The wood was so soft that the excavating made almost no noise, but it was easy to see what was going on, for the carpenter simply drew back its head and tossed out the glistening chips for all the world to see. At the end of a week the flicker was working so far down in its excavation that only the tip of its tail stuck out of the door.

The nest of another Colaptes, I found by accident—a fresh chip dropped from mid-air upon my riding skirt. Just then Canello gave a stentorian sneeze and the bird came to her window to look down. She did not object to us, and was loath to turn back inside the dark hole—such a close stuffy place—when outside there were the rich green leaves of the tree, the sweet breath of the hayfield and the gentle breeze just springing up; all the warmth and sunshine and fragrance of the fields. How could she ever leave to go below? Perhaps she bethought her that soon the dark hole would be a home ringing with the voices of her little ones; at all events, she quickly turned and disappeared in her nest.

At the foot of the ranch I discovered a comical, sleepy little brown owl, dozing in a sycamore window. When we waked it up, it went backing down the hole. I wondered if it kept awake all day without food, for surely owl children do not get many meals by daylight. I spoke to the ranchman's son about it, and he said he thought the old birds fed the young too much, that he had found about a dozen small kangaroo rats and mice in their holes! He told me that he had known old owls to change places in the daytime, and both birds to stay in the hole during the day. Down the valley, where an old well was only partly covered over, at different times he had found a number of drowned owls. They seemed to fly into any dark hole that offered. Three barn owls had been taken from a windmill tank in the neighborhood in about a month. In a mine at Escondido the man had found a number of owls sitting in a crevice where the earth, had caved; and he had seen about a dozen of them fifty to a hundred feet underground, at the bottom of the mine shaft.

I did not wonder the birds wanted to keep out of sight in the daytime, knowing what happened to those that stayed out. A pair nested in the top of a high sycamore on my neighbors' premises, and when one stirred away from home, it did so to its sorrow. One morning there was such a commotion I rode down to see what was the matter. A big dark brown form flew down the avenue of sycamores ahead of us, followed by a mob of all the feathered house owners in the neighborhood. They escorted it home to the top of its own tree, where it seated itself on a limb, its big yellow eyes staring and its long ears dropped down, as if home were not home with a rout of angry bee-birds and blackbirds screeching and diving at you over your own doorsill. Two orioles started to fly over from the next tree, but went back, perhaps thinking it wiser not to make open war upon such near neighbors; while a sparrow hawk who came to help in the attack was judged too dangerous an ally and escorted home by a squad of blackbirds dispatched for the purpose. The poor persecuted owl screwed its head around to its back as if hoping to see pleasanter sights on that side; but the uncanny performance did not seem to please its enemies, and a blackbird flew rudely past, close under its bill, as if to warn it of what might happen.

The queerest of all my tenants was an old mother barn owl who lived in the black charred chimney of one of the sycamores. I found a white feather on the black wood one day in riding by, and pulling Canello up by the tree, broke off a twig and rapped on the door. She came blundering out and flew to a limb over our heads—such a queer old crone, with her hooked nose and her weazened face surrounded by a circlet of dark feathers. The light blinded her, and with her big round eyes wide open she leaned down staring to make out who we were. Then shaking her head reproachfully, she swayed solemnly from side to side. As the wind blew against her ragged feathers she drew her wings over her breast like a cloak, making herself look like a poverty-stricken wiseacre. Finding that we did not offer to go, the poor old crone took to her wings; but as she passed down the line of sycamores she roused the blackbird clan, and a pair of angry orioles flew out and attacked her. My conscience smote me for driving her out among her enemies, but on our return to the sycamores all was quiet again, and a lizard was sunning himself on the edge of the old owl's chimney.

XI