A-Birding on a Bronco

ittle

n House

ors 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 Franci

le 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

s 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 i

wn 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 astonishm

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

rly way and settling herself comfortably to rest, apparently ignoring the fact that Billy was grazing close beside

e nest and fled at sight of me? Remembering the evidence Bradford Torrey collected to prove that the male bird is rarely seen at t

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

ght 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

emale 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 aroun

no material. She was afraid to go to the 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

her mind. Possibly it would be wiser to take out her sticks and build elsewhere. She went about looking at vacant r

t of her immediate landscape, and I watched the premises a number of days,

gling 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 tatter

tionate 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

iana 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 pair of bush-tits, cousins of the chickadees, came with one of their big families; Califo

magined 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 se

d, 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-co

e 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

him. I was perplexed by his nervousness at first, but after much pondering reasoned it out, to my 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

le horse and I had a start one morning, for as we rode in, a covey

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,

ake 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 b

mong 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 bi

ing M

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 a

usly 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

mate flew into the nest right over its head. The astoni

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,

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, dar

k 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

nished every morning when I come and find the wrens still here, but perhaps it's easier feeding

rity 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

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

f they had been flitting around in the big world always; but their stubby tails

different from being safe inside a tree trunk! I hardly recognized their weak

from which the old birds scolded me when I followed too close on their heels. The youngsters sometimes app

nyon, 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

m 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