Willmar tribune., 1908-03-25

quickly tney found out that forage had
been provided for them. They would
not give way to the pugnacious little
English sparrows, either, but fought
and drove them away until the British
ers were satisfied to let them severely
alone.
In the trunk of dead apple tree,
and in post at one end of the orchard
fence, two families of flickers, or gol-
den-winged woodpeckers, were raising
their young, and their shrill, challeng-
ing cackling was to be heard every
morning as they dashed and sky-lark-
ed about among the trees, or darted
away to the pastures and adjacent
meadows to hunt for bugs, insects,
and such small deer" Their strong,
snappy flight, the resonant and JOY
GUS cackle they gave out from the
dead treetops and the surrounding
fences made them conspicuous figures
in the bird life about the place, and
their vivid coloring lent q picturesque
touch to the green background of
waving leaves.
Later, when their progeny began to
creep out of their in0ide "flats," they
would perch on branch and fence-post,
looking as fuzzy and foolish as possi-
BILE, but bravely enduring the proximi-
ty OF human kind, although their anx-
ious parents fairly made the air rag
ged with expostulations.
Over the west door of the farm
house phoebe's nest had been con-
structed, the birds sturdily bringing
the material in Notwithstanding the
coming and going of the occupants of
the house; and when the nest was
! completed the mother bird sat there
composedly enough, unless when
strangers came to knock at the door,
or approach in numbers of more than
two or three. Then she would fly
| with one quick swoop to a nearby ma
pie, and poise on a low branch until
the disappearance Of the disturbing
cause gave her courage to return to
her nest. She did not mind the pres
ence of either Cecile or myself, but
eyed us unconcernedly enough as we
came and went. Finally her brood
was hatched, and one came tumbling
to the porch, there to become part of
dire tragedy in which a fierce-whisk-
cred tom-cat played the role of villain.
In a small, but dense -branched cedar
at the west gate, jaybird had its
nest, and all day the blue tail-feathers
and the arrogant head of the she bird
stood out from this cedar. Nothing
would disturb this bird from her task
! excepting a particularly close and in
quisitive approach; and when this was
the case what storm of raucus squall-
ing would be sent out, attracting vari-
GUS jays to the vicinity, and making a
f1uttering and fuming in the sur
rounding trees on the part of the an
cry parents and their immediate men,
bers of the same tribe. We did not
relish very much the jays presence,
as they are quarrelsome and sanguin-
cry birds, but SO long as they had
built there, we did not feel like evict-
ing them.
It was not very long before this
nest was emptied of it's occupants, and
the parents went screaming and fut-
ing away, now in the orchard, now in
the great pin-oak across the road, and
again far down in the ravines below
the house, alert, saucy, suspicious, and
as restless as blue-coated sprites.
Cecile was sitting at the kitchen
window one day when she noticed a
yellow warbler dart into high tuft
of grass close to the grape-vines that
clung to an over-grown stump close
by. This bird had spear of grass in
] its bill, and after a little while it re-
appeared and flew away. She watched
closely and after while the bird
came back, again with a blade of
grass, and dropped into the sheltering
tuft of grass. Then we both watched
the bird come and go for several days,
bringing grass, strips of newspaper,
and fine particles of bark. After a
while, when the building process seem
ed finished, we went out and surveyed
| the tuft.
It was the daintiest nest imaginable,
so slight and fragile as to be almost
transparent. In it were two eggs,
| speckled grey and black, and the lit
tie nest just held the eggs. It was
woven into and supported by the tall
green grass about it, and when the she
bird dropped in to sit on the nest she
slipped in like a ray of sunlight, her
yellow breast showing against the
green as she disappeared from sight.
The brown thrashers, or brown
thrushes, rather eluded us for while;
a last years nest which they kept
lurking near making US think that this
was where they intended nesting. An
approach to this old nest almost al
ways disclosed thrush, his long
brown tail and brownish-red wings
taking flight as we approached. But
no eggs were laid in this nest, al
though the birds sang from a dead
stub of tree under which was the
growth that hid the nest. We were
convinced, however, that this was
their domicile-to-be, and refrained
from looking at it for a couple of
weeks, hoping that a strict absence
from the place might induce them to
commence housekeeping.
Finally we both went to this nest
and found no thrushes near. There
were no eggs in the nest and every.
thing was quite deserted there. A few
yards to the east, perhaps Is feet, was
cluster of old vines about another
dead sapling, and as we came by this
and peered sharply into it we saw
the eyes of the female thrush staring
out warily from the maze, and. the