The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-05-07
Birds That Like Humans


 aZine.
 The robin, the phoebe and the chipping sparrow are all birds which will often nest on our houses but also often nest elsewhere. The tame and pretty phoebes frequently raise two broods, and build their second nest top of the ruins of their first. One year a pair built a nest on & beam on our dining porch so early in the season that we had not begun to eat out there. In midsummer, when it come time to rear their second brood they tore the old nest down, letting the rubbish of moss, lichen and hair fall di- rectly on the table, and started building anew. We had some difficulty in per- suading them to go away from there. For three successive years, too, robin nest ed on our front porch each year build ing a new nest on the grape vine under the caves, two or three feet from the site of the old one. I say a robin, because in all the three years we were unable to detect the father giving the slightest ald. In fact, he never showed up until the nest was built. It was most mys- terious menage, suggesting the thought to our maid Katie, that the father was probably travelling man" The mother however made no complaint, and gave him wifely welcome when he did appear and reared her three broods She was ex- ceedingly tame and would permit us to
 
 with hers, not two feet away, and look us calmly in the eye Last year she did not come back
 The clippings sparrow5, with their pret- ty, pert minute little bodies tame ways and sflvery tinkle of sound, hide their nests very cleverly, but they don't mind hiding them on vine which grows beside house In one summer in our yard we round three chipping-sparrows nests One was so cleverly concealed about four feet from the ground in the thicket of a young cedar tree that it wasn't discover ed until long after the birds were gone and then only because a night wind blew the branches open. A second was hidden in clematis vine on a trellis The third was about seven feet up in a richly tan gled Virginia creeper on the east side of my summer house in the garden, where 1 write. The summer house is pierced with arches. and from my table I could look through an arch directly to the snot where the nest was But the nest was invisible. The birds did not mind me in the least, but would come and go o,,ite fearlessly It was pretty, after the in fnitesimal young were matched to hear thelr tiny squeaks in under the leaves and to see the parents come winging to the spot perch a second on a leaf-twis looking about for danger, and then dart m out Of sight On the same summer 'iSS ie''l sSai pidceu DOX for the wrens' but 1t was promptly leased by a pair of chicadees, who are usually shy woodland nesters, for all their tameness through the rest of the year. As I can imitate (so can anyone, for that matter the call of the chickadee. I always wbis- tied softly in the morning as I drew near the nest, to Tool the mother. In answer 10 my call, out of the hole in the box would pop tiny black-and- gray head and two sharp eyes would neer all aho,,t While l came close and looked at her. If there IS any sight in the world prettier than that of mother chickadee's head popped out of her nest in answer to the call or her mate, I have vet to see it. when her mate was bringing her food. however It was neither the love song nor the full ch1ck-a-dee-dee-d call which ne uttered, but only a sweet wiry dee dee Why my call deceived her I cannot say.