The Children's Book of Birds Part 32

This bird is rather a dainty feeder. He does not swallow his food wherever he finds it, as many birds do. He likes a regular dining-table.

So he takes it to some place on top of a fence-post or an old stump, where he has found or made a little hollow. There he puts his nut or acorn, picks it to pieces, and eats it in bits.

The young red-head is a good deal like his father, only his head is brown instead of red. A queer thing happened to a baby red-head in Indiana one summer. He was found on the ground, hopping about in a pitiful way, unable to fly. The parents and others of the woodp.e.c.k.e.r tribe were flying about him, much troubled, and trying to help him. But this young one had been hurt, or was not yet strong enough to get about.

He acted as if he were half paralyzed, and he was wholly helpless. Once while the little bird was hobbling about and calling for something to eat, and no one was there to feed him, a robin happened to notice him.

He took pity on the hungry baby, and brought him a nice worm, which he took very gladly.

But still more strange was the way the family cat acted toward the little stranger. When she saw him on the ground, she started for him. No doubt she meant to catch him, for she was a great bird hunter. When she got almost up to the little fellow, she seemed suddenly to notice that he was a baby, and helpless. At once her manner changed. She went up to him, and actually played with him in the gentlest way, not hurting him in the least. She did this several times before the bird got strong enough to fly. This is a true story.

The CALIFORNIAN WOODp.e.c.k.e.r takes the place of the red-head in California. He is most interesting because of one habit which gives him the common name of "carpenter woodp.e.c.k.e.r." This habit is of storing sweet acorns for winter use.

Other birds store acorns, but this bird has found out a new way. He drills a hole in the bark of a tree for each acorn by itself. It is generally a soft pine or cedar, and sometimes thousands of acorns are put in one tree. Often a trunk will be filled from near the ground up forty feet. The acorns are driven in point first, and so tightly that they have to be cut out with a knife. When a tree is filled, it is carefully guarded till they are needed.

Many people think they lay up these acorns for the worms that sometimes come into them. But Mr. John Muir, who lives right there, and knows them as well as anybody in the world, says the birds eat the sound acorns themselves. Sometimes, when food is scarce, Indians go to these trees and steal the poor birds' store. They have to chop the acorns out with hatchets. They often take a bushel from one tree.

These birds are more social than most woodp.e.c.k.e.rs. Often a party of them will be seen together. In his flight and his ways of eating this bird is like the red-headed woodp.e.c.k.e.r. Like him also, he is fond of clinging to a dead limb, and drumming, hours at a time.

But in looks the Californian and the red-headed woodp.e.c.k.e.rs are very different. The Western bird has only a cap of bright red. His back is glossy blue-black, and he has the same color on the breast. His other under parts are white, and he has a white patch on the wings, and another just above the tail.

The smallest of our woodp.e.c.k.e.rs is the Downy Woodp.e.c.k.e.r, who is not much bigger than an English sparrow. The picture shows two of these birds. In "The First Book of Birds" there is a picture of a flicker at his nest-hole.

FOOTNOTE:

[23] See Appendix, 22.

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THE KINGFISHER FAMILY

(_Alcedinidae_)[24]

MOST of the Kingfisher family belong to the tropics, but we have one who is found all over the United States. This is the BELTED KINGFISHER.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BELTED KINGFISHER]

The belted kingfisher is large and rather chunky. He is dark blue above and white below, with a bluish band across the breast. He has a fine crest and a big head, and he sits up straight as a hawk.

The tail of the kingfisher is short, and square at the end. His plumage is thick and oily, so that it does not hold wet. This is very important to him in the way he gets his food, for he is an expert fisherman. He lives alone, or with his mate, near the water,--a lake, or pond, or small stream.

This bird's way of getting fish is to dive for them. You may have seen him splash into the water out of sight, and in a moment come up with a small fish in his beak. Then he goes back to his perch and beats the fish to death, before he swallows it. He swallows it whole and head first, because the fins might stick in his throat if he took it tail first. After a while he throws up a little ball of the bones, scales, and skin of the fish he has eaten. It is said that the kingfisher can take a very large fish. One was shot who had swallowed a fish so long that the tail stuck out of his mouth, and could not get down.

The nest of the kingfisher is in the bank of a river or lake. The birds first cut a pa.s.sage or hallway. Sometimes this is only four feet long, and straight. But when stones or roots are in the way, it will be much longer and have many turns. At the end of this pa.s.sage is the kingfisher nursery. This is a round room nearly a foot across, with a roof rounded up over it. It is a little higher than the pa.s.sageway so that water will not run into it.

Sometimes it takes the birds two or three weeks to make one of these nests, as we might expect when we think they have only beaks and feet to work with. Usually it does not take so long. If the pair are not disturbed, they will use the same nest year after year. Sometimes the bed for the nestlings is of dry gra.s.s. One was found in which the bed was entirely of the bones and scales of fish.

Mr. Baily has told us about a family of kingfisher little folk whom he studied and photographed. He dug down to the nest from above, and was careful not to hurt them and to put them back safely. First Mr. Baily took a picture of them when two days old. They were queer-looking objects, with eyes not open, and not a feather to their backs. They were not so young but that they had one notion in their little round heads.

That was to cuddle up close together. They were not used to much room in their dark cradle.

When Mr. Baily laid them out on the ground, they at once crawled up together and made themselves into a sort of ball. They put their bare wings and their bills over one another, and held on so that one could not be moved without the others. After they had sat for their picture they were carefully put back, and the nest was covered up again.

When the nestlings were nine days old, the nest was opened again, and another picture taken. The little ones had grown a good deal in these few days. Their eyes were open, and they were fast getting their feather coats on. But they were just as fond of being close together as before.

After this the birds were left in their home till they were twenty-three days old, and it seemed about time for them to come out. When the nest was opened this time, it was found that the family had moved. The old room was filled up with earth, and a new one made farther up. No doubt the old birds thought the man too curious about their babies. The young birds were ready to fly, and two of them did take to their wings when they came to daylight.

There is a very old fable about the kingfisher, who was called the halcyon. It is told in the first book that was ever written about birds (so far as I know). The author was Aristotle, a Greek who lived three hundred years before Christ. The story is, that the bird builds a nest that floats on the sea, and for seven days before and seven days after the shortest winter day, the sea stays calm, so that the nest may not be hurt. During the first seven days she builds her nest, and in the second seven she hatches out the young. These fourteen days were called halcyon days. You may find more about this curious story in the encyclopaedias.

FOOTNOTE:

[24] See Appendix, 23.

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THE CUCKOO FAMILY

(_Cuculidae_)[25]

MOST of the cuckoo family live in a hotter climate than ours, but we have a few of them. They are beautiful birds, with some peculiar ways.

[Ill.u.s.tration: YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO]

Cuckoos are rather slim in form, with very long tails, and bills a little curved. Their toes are divided like woodp.e.c.k.e.rs' toes, two turned forward and two back. In the Eastern States we have but two, the yellow-billed and the black-billed. Best known in the East is the YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO, and in California the Western Yellow-billed, or California, Cuckoo.

This bird has several names. In some places he is called the rain crow, and in other places the wood pigeon; but of course he is neither a crow nor a pigeon. He is a graceful bird, with plumage like satin. He is a soft brown above and white below, but he is so shy that he is not so often seen as heard. His call or song is a loud, yet not harsh "kuk-kuk-kuk" many times repeated. Sometimes it begins slow and grows faster till the notes run into each other, and then grows slow again, ending in a sort of "cow-cow-cow;" but it does not always do so.

The cuckoo does not manage her nursery affairs as other birds do. Most birds lay an egg a day, or every other day, so that they hatch about the same time; but this bird doesn't mind if several days come between. Thus it happens that one or more little cuckoos hatch out before the rest are ready, and it is common to find little ones of several ages in the same nest. There may be one nearly grown, another just beginning to get feathers, and a third one not yet out of the egg.

There is another droll thing that may be found in a cuckoo's nest. When the feathers begin to grow out on young birds, they come wrapped in little sheaths. In most cases these sheaths burst open and the feathers show, when they are a little way out. But in this family it is different. The sheath does not open, says Mr. Dugmore, till the feathers have grown their full length. Till that happens, the youngster looks as if he were stuck all over with white pins on his black body.

You have heard, or read, that the cuckoo lays eggs in other birds'

nests, and leaves her young to be brought up by others. Do not forget that the bird who does that is the European cuckoo--not ours. Our cuckoos build nests, though very poor ones, sometimes hardly more than a platform of sticks.

This bird is useful to us, for he eats some of our most troublesome insects,--such as tent caterpillars, which few birds like to eat because they are so hairy, and other insects with spines that are poisonous, and so generally avoided.

The cuckoo is graceful in flight. He goes swiftly, without noise, and seems to glide through the thickest foliage with ease.

I once found a young bird tumbling about on the ground. He was trying to fly, but was not able to go much more than a foot at a time. He was giving strange calls, which were answered from the woods beside the road by a low tapping sound. I thought of course the little one was a woodp.e.c.k.e.r and his mother was doing the knocking. It was so dark I could not see him well. After some trouble I caught him and was going to take a good look at him to see who he was before I let him go. As I grasped him he gave a shriek, and out from the thick trees popped a cuckoo. She alighted on a low branch outside and gave such a cry of distress that I knew at once it was her baby I held in my hand.