the little lover. (western house wren.) the little lover.

(western house wren.)

on my second visit to california, i spent the winter in the santa clara valley, riding among the foothills of the santa cruz mountains, where flocks of oregon robins were resting from the labors of the summer and passing the time until they could fly home again; but when the first spring wild flowers bloomed on the hills i shipped my little roan mustang by steamer from san francisco to san diego, and hurried south to meet him and spend the nesting season in the little valley of the coast mountains which, five years before, had proved such an ideal place to study birds.[21]

i went down early in march, to be sure to be in time for the nesting season; but spring was so late that by the last of april hardly a nest had been built, and it seemed as if the birds were never coming back. the weather was gloomy and the prospect for the spring's work looked discouraging, when one morning i rode over to the line of oaks and sycamores at the mouth of ughland canyon i had not visited before. in this dry, treeless region of southern california only a little water is needed to cover the bare valley bottoms with verdure. the rushing streams that flow down the canyons after the winter rains fill their mouths with rich groves of brush, oaks and sycamores; while lines of trees border the streams as far as they extend down the valleys. before the streams go far, the thirsty soil drinks them up, leaving only dry beds of sand bordered by trees, until the rains of the following winter. in april, the water in this particular canyon mouth had already disappeared, and the wide sand bed under the trees alone remained to tell of the short-lived stream. but the resulting verdure was enough to attract the birds. apparently a party of travelers had just arrived. the brush and trees were full of song—yellowbirds, linnets, chewinks, doves, wrens, and, best of all, a song sparrow,—bless his heart!—singing as if he were on a bush in new york state. it was more cheering than anything i had heard in california.[22]

when able to listen to something besides song sparrows, i realized that from the trees in front of me was coming the rippling merry song of a wren. wrens are always interesting,—droll, individual little scraps,—and having found their nests in sycamore holes before, i let my horse, mountain billy, graze nearer to the tree from which the sound came. before long the small brown pair flew away together across the oat field that spread out from the mouth of the canyon. while they were gone, i took the opportunity to inspect the tree, and found a large hole with twigs sticking out suggestively. presently, back flew one of the wrens with more building material. but this line of sycamores was off from the highway, and the bird was not used to prying equestrians; so when she found mountain billy and me planted in front of her door, she doubted the wisdom of showing us that it was her door. chattering nervously, she would back and fill, flying all but to the door and then flitting off again. she could not make up her mind to go inside. but soon her mate came and—unmindful of visitors, ardent little lover that he was—sang to her so gayly that it put her in heart; and before i knew it she had slipped into the tree.

here was a nest, at last, right over my eye. to encourage myself while waiting for something to happen, i began a list with the heading nests, when something caught my eye overhead, and[23] glancing up, behold, a goldfinch walked down a branch and seated herself in a round cup! a few moments later—buzz—whirr—a hummingbird flew to a nest among the brown leaves of one of the low-hanging oak sprays not ten feet away! i simply stared with delight and astonishment. no need of a list for encouragement now. from billy's back i could look down into the little cup, which seemed the tiniest in the world. forgetting the little lover and his mate, i sat still and watched this small household.

the young were out of the eggs, though not much more, and their mother sat on the edge of the nest feeding them. she curved her neck over till her long bill stood up perpendicularly, when she put it gently into the gaping bills of her young; the smallest of bills, not more than an eighth of an inch long, i should judge. i never saw hummingbirds fed so gently. probably the small bills and throats were so delicate the mother was afraid they would not bear the usual jabbing and pumping.

when the little ones were fed, the old bird got down in the nest, fluffing her feathers about her in a pretty motherly way and settling herself comfortably to rest, apparently ignoring the fact that billy was grazing close beside her. she may have had her qualms, but no mother bird would leave her tender young uncovered on such a cold morning.[24]

while she was on the nest, there was an approaching whirr, followed by a retreating buzz—had the father bird started to come to the nest and fled at sight of me? remembering the evidence bradford torrey collected to prove that the male bird is rarely seen at the nest, i wondered if his absence might be explained by his usually noisy flight, for it would attract the notice of man or beast.

two days later i carefully touched the tip of my finger to the back of one of the tiny hummingbirds,—it was very skinny, i regret to state,—and at my touch the little thing opened its wee bill for food. that day the mother fed the birds in the regulation way, when we were only four feet distant. i was near enough to see all the horrors of the performance. she thrust her bill down their throats till i felt like crying out, "for mercy's sake, forbear!" she plunged it in up to the very hilt; it seemed as if she must puncture their alimentary canals.

while waiting for the wrens, i buckled billy's bridle around the sycamore and threw myself down on the warm sand under the beautiful tree. the little horse stood near, outlined against the blue sky, with the sunlight dappling his back, while i looked up into the light green foliage of the white sycamore overhead. there seemed to be a great deal of light stored in these delicate trees. the undersides of the big, soft, white leaves[25] looked like white canton flannel; the sunlight mottled the whitish bark of the trunks and branches; and a great limb arched above me, making a high vaulted chamber whose skylights showed the deep blue above.

but there were the little lover and his mate, and i must turn my glass on them. she came first, with long streamers hanging from her bill, and at sight of me got so flustered that one of her straws slipped out and went sailing down to the ground. when the pair had gone again, two linnets came along. the female saw the wren's doorway, and being in search of apartments flew up to look at the house. when she came out she and her mate talked it over and, apparently, she told him something that aroused his curiosity—perhaps about the wren's twigs she found inside—for he flew into the dark hole and looked around as she had done. then both birds went off to inspect other holes in the tree. the master of the wren cottage came back in time to see them on their rounds, and taking up his position in front of his door sang out loudly, with wings hanging and a general air of, "this is my house, i'd have you understand!"

when the lord of the manor had flown away, his lady came. i thought perhaps he had told her of the visitors and she had come to see if they had disturbed any of her sticks, for she brought no material. she was afraid to go to the[26] nest in my presence, but flew to a branch near by and leaned down so far it was a wonder she didn't tip over as she stared anxiously at the hole—a bad way to keep a secret, my little lady! i thought. when her merry minstrel came, his song again gave her courage and she flew inside, turning in the doorway, however, to look out at me.

but what with horses grazing under her windows and linnets making free with her nest, the poor wren was unsettled in her mind. possibly it would be wiser to take out her sticks and build elsewhere. she went about looking at vacant rooms and examined one opening in the side of the trunk where i could see only her profile as she hung out of the hole.

for some time the timid bird would not accept mountain billy and me as part of her immediate landscape, and i watched the premises a number of days, getting nothing but my labor for my pains, as far as wrens were concerned.

one day when she did not come, i thought it was a good chance to get a study of the hummingbird's nest; but alas!—the delicate little structure hung torn and dangling from the twig, with nothing to tell what had become of the poor little hummers. i moralized sadly upon the mutability of human affairs as i took the tattered nest and tied it up in a corner of my handkerchief; for it was all that was left of the little home built with such exquisite care and brooded over so tenderly.[27]

the yellowbird's nest came to an untimely end, too, although its start was such a bright one. it was a disappointment, for the goldfinches are such trustful birds and so affectionate and tender in their family relations that they always win one's warm interest. at first, when this mother bird went to the nest, her mate stationed himself on the nest tree, leaning over and looking down anxiously at billy and me; but before their home was broken up the watchful guardian fed his pretty mate at her brooding when we were below.

we had a great many visitors while waiting for the wrens: neighbors came to sit in our green shade, young housekeepers came looking for rooms to rent, and old birds who were leading around their noisy families came to dine with us. once a pair of flickers started to light in the tree, but they gave a glance over the shoulder at me and fled. later i found their secret—down inside an old charred stump up the canyon. occasionally i got sight of gay liveries in the green sycamore tops. a louisiana tanager in his coat of many colors stopped one day, and another time, when looking up for dull green vireos, my eye was startled by a flaming golden oriole. the color was a keen pleasure. lazuli buntings, relatives of our eastern indigo-bird, sang so much within hearing that i felt sure they were nesting in the weeds outside the line of sycamores—i did find a pair building in the malvas beyond; a[28] pair of bush-tits, cousins of the chickadees, came with one of their big families; california towhees often appeared sitting quietly on the branches; linnets were always stopping to discuss something in their emphatic way; clamorous blue jays rushed in and set the small birds in a panic, but seeing me quickly took themselves off; and a pair of wary woodpeckers hunted over the sycamore trunks and worked so cautiously that they had finished excavating a nest only just out of my sight on the other side of the wren tree trunk before i seriously suspected them of domestic intentions.

one day, when watching at the tree, a great brown and black lizard that the children of the valley call the 'jerusalem overtaker' came worming down the side of an oak that i often leaned against. the rough bark seemed such a help to it that i imagined the wrens had done wisely in choosing a smooth sycamore to build in. i looked narrowly at their nest hole with the thought in mind and saw that the birds had another point of vantage in the way the trunk bulged at the hole—it did not seem as if a large lizard could work itself up the smooth slippery rounding surface, however much given to eggs for breakfast. but in the west indies lizards walk freely up and down the marble slabs, so it is dangerous to say what they cannot do.

billy had a surprise one day greater than mine[29] over the lizard. he was grazing quietly near where i sat under the wren tree, when he suddenly threw up his head. his ears pointed forward, his eyes grew excited, and as he gazed his head rose higher and higher. i jumped from the ground and put my hand on the pommel ready to spring into the saddle. as i did so, across the field i caught a glimpse of a great fawn-colored animal with a white tip to its tail, bounding through the brush—a deer! then i heard voices through the trees and saw the red shawl of a woman in a wagon rumbling up the road the deer must have crossed.

when mountain billy and i pulled ourselves together and started after the deer, the poor horse was so unstrung he made snakes of all the sticks he saw and shied at all imaginable bugaboos along the way. we were too late to see the deer again, but found the marks of its hoofs where it had jumped a ditch and sunk so deep in the fine sand on the other side that it had to take a great leap to recover itself.

the sight of the deer made billy as nervous as a witch for days. every time we went to visit the wrens he would stand with eyes glued to the spot where it had appeared, and when a jack-rabbit came out of the brush with his long ears up, billy started as if he thought it would devour him. i was perplexed by his nervousness at first, but after much pondering reasoned it out, to my[30] own satisfaction at least. his name was mountain billy, and in the days when he had been a wayward bucking mustang he lived in the sierra. now, even in the hills surrounding our valley, colts were killed by mountain lions. how much more in the sierra. mountain lions are large fawn-colored animals: that was it: mountain billy was suffering from an acute attack of association of ideas. the sight of the deer had awakened memories of the nightmare of his colthood days.

we made frequent visits to the wren tree, and both my nervous little horse and i had a start one morning, for as we rode in, a covey of quail flew up with a whirr from under the tree in front of us.

when the wren had become reconciled to us she worked rapidly, flying back and forth with material, followed by her mate, who sang while she was on the nest and chased away with her afterwards. often when she appeared in the doorway ready to go, his song, which had been just a merry round before, at sight of her would suddenly change to a most ecstatic love song. he would sit with drooping tail, his wings sometimes shaking at his sides, at others raised till they almost met over his back, trembling with the excitement of his joy. this peculiar tremulous motion of the wings was marked in both wrens; their emotions seemed too large for their small bodies.

i found the wrens building, the last of april.[31] the third week in may the little lover was singing as hard as ever. i wrote in my note-book—"wrens do not take life with proper seriousness, their duties certainly do not tie them down." when the eggs were in the nest, if her mate sang at her door, the mother bird would fly out to him and away they would go together; for it never seemed to occur to the care-free lover that he might brood the eggs in her absence.

when the young hatched, however, affairs took a more serious turn. mother wren at least was kept busy looking for spiders, and later, when both were working together, if not hunting among the green treetops, the pretty little brown birds often flew to the ground and ran about under the weeds to search for insects. once when the mother bird had flown up with her bill full, she suddenly stopped at the twig in front of the nest, looking down, her tail over her back wren fashion, the sun on her brown sides, and her bill bristling with spiders' legs.

a trying moment. a trying moment.

on june 7 i noticed a remarkable thing. 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. later in the[32] morning he brought food and his mate carried it to the young. but afterwards, when she started to take a morsel from him, behold! he—the gay, frivolous little beau, the minstrel lover—actually acted as if he didn't want to give it up, as if he wanted to feed his own little birds himself. with wings trembling at his sides he turned his back on his mate and started to walk down the branch away from her! but he was too fond of her to even seem to refuse her anything, and so, coming back, gave her the morsel. 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! i looked at him with new respect.

on june 12 i wrote: "the wrens seem to have settled down to business." it was delightful to find the small father actually taking turns feeding the young. i saw him feed his mate only once or twice, and noticed much less of the quivering wings, though after leaving the nest he would sometimes light on a branch and move them tremulously at his sides for a moment. june 15 i wrote: "the birds are feeding rapidly to-day. i hear very little song from the male; probably he has all he can attend to. i'd like to know how many young ones there are in that hole." at all events, the voices of the young were getting stronger and more insistent, and it is no bagatelle to keep half a dozen gaping mouths full of spiders, as any mother bird can tell. this particular mother wren, however, seemed to enjoy her cares. she often called to the young from a branch in front of the nest before going in, and stopped to call back to them with a motherly-sounding krup-up-up as she stood in the entrance on leaving.[34]

one day as one of the old birds stood in the doorway its mate flew into the nest right over its head. the astonished doorkeeper was so startled that it took to its wings.

before this, in watching the wrens, i had looked off across a sunny field of golden oats, against the background of blue hills. on june 14, when i went to the nest, the mowers had been at work around the sycamores and the oat-field was full of cocks. just as the wren was most anxious for peace and quietness, for a safe world into which to launch her brood, up came this rout of haymakers with all their clattering machines, laying low the meadows to her very door.

no wonder the little bird met me with nerves on edge. when the eggs had first hatched, she had objected to me, but mildly. to be sure, once when she found me staring she flew away over my head, scolding as much as to say, "stop looking at my little birds," and finding me there when she came back, shook her wings at her sides and scolded hard, though her bill was full; but still her disapproval did not trouble me; it was too sociable. but now, for some time, affected by the shadow of coming events, she had been growing more and more fidgety under my gaze, darting inside, then whisking back to the door to look at me, in again to her brood and out to me, over and over like a flash—or, like a poor little troubled mother wren, distracted lest her unruly youngsters[35] should pop out of the hole in the tree trunk when i was below to catch them.

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. it was as if she said, "oh, do be good children, do keep still; do put your heads back; you naughty children, you must do as i tell you!"

on june 16, six weeks after i had found the birds building, i wrote in my note-book: "i am astonished every morning when i come and find the wrens still here, but perhaps it's easier feeding them in one spot than it would be chasing around after them in half a dozen different places."

the young were chattering inside the nest. they all talked at once as children will, but one small voice assumed the tones of the mother; probably the oldest brother speaking with the air of authority featherless children sometimes assume with the weaker members of the family. when a parent came, i saw the big brother's head pop up from behind the wall,—the nest was in a pocket below,—and by the time the old bird got there[36] with food the big throat blocked the way for the little ones down behind. sometimes i could see a flutter of small wings and tails, when the birds were being fed.

as nothing happened, i went off to watch another nest, but in an hour was back to make sure of seeing the small wrens when they left the nest. a loud continuous scolding met me on approaching, and one of the old wrens, with bill full of insects, flew—not up to the nest—but down in among the weeds! in less than an hour that whole brood of wrens had flown, and were three or four rods away in the high weeds—safe! i was taken aback. they had stolen a march on me. surely i had not been treated as was fit and proper, being one of the family!

it was amusing to see the young ones fly. they whirled away on their wings as if they had been flitting around in the big world always; but their stubby tails sadly interfered with their progress, and they came to earth before they meant.

weak cries came from the young hidden in the weeds. they could fly, but it was different from being safe inside a tree trunk! i hardly recognized their weak appealing voices, after the stentorian tones that had issued from the old nest.

the weeds were a most admirable cover, and the dead stalks sticking up through them served as sentry posts, from which the old birds scolded me when i followed too close on their heels. the[37] youngsters sometimes appeared on the stalks, and looked very pert on their long legs with their short tails cocked over their backs.

in the afternoon i went again to see the little family to which i had become so much attached and which were now slipping away from me. they had been led farther up the canyon, where, at a turn in the dry bed of the stream, the thick cover of weeds was still more protected by brush and overhanging trees, and the whole thicket was warmed by the afternoon sunshine. the old birds were busily flying back and forth feeding their invisible young. they scolded me as they flew past, but kept right on with their work.

there was little use trying to keep track of the brood after that, and i thought i had given them up quite philosophically, reflecting that it was pleasant to leave them in such a sunny protected place. still, day after day in riding along the line of sycamores on my way to other nests, it gave me a pang of loneliness to pass the old deserted wren tree where i had spent so many happy hours; and though the sycamores were silent, i could always hear and see the little lover singing to his pretty mate.