We may say that we care naught for the world and its ways, but most of us are more or less tricked by the high-sounding titles of the mighty. Even plain-thinking observers come under the same curse of Adam, and, like the snobs who turn scornfully from Mr. Jones to hang upon the words of Lord Higginbottom, will pass by a plain brown chippie to study with enthusiasm the ways of a phainopepla! Sometimes, however, in ornithology as in the world, a name does cover more than its letters, and we are duped into making some interesting discoveries as well as learning some of the important lessons in life. In the case of the phainopepla, no hopes that could be raised by his cognomen would equal the rare pleasure afforded by a study of his unusual ways.
THE PHAINOPEPLAS ON THE PEPPER-TREE THE PHAINOPEPLAS ON THE PEPPER-TREE
On my first visit to Twin Oaks I caught but brief glimpses of this distinguished bird. Sometimes for a moment he lit on a bare limb and I had a chance to admire his high black crest and glossy blue-black coat, which with one more touch of color would become iridescent. He was so slenderly formed, and his shining coat was so[195] smooth and trim, he made me think of a bird of glass perched on a tree. But while I gazed at him he would launch into the air and wing his way high over the valley to the hillsides beyond, leaving me to marvel at the white disks on his wings, hidden when perching, but in air making him suggest a black ship with white sails.
His appearance was so elegant and his ways so unusual that I went back East regretting I had not given more time to a bird who was so individual, and resolved that if I ever returned to California my first pleasure should be to study him. When the time finally came, an ornithologist friend who knew my plans wrote, exclaiming, "Do study the phainopeplas!" and added that she felt like making a journey to California to see that one bird.
From the middle of March till the middle of May I watched and waited for the phainopeplas. There had been only a few of the birds before, and I began to fear they had left the valley. When despairing of them, suddenly one day I saw a black speck cross over to the hills. I wanted to drop my work and follow, but went on with my rounds, and one bright morning on my way home after a discouraging hunt for nests, a pair of phainopeplas flew up right before my eyes almost within sight of the house. I dropped down behind a bush, and in a moment more the birds flew to a little oak by the road—a tree I had[196] been sitting under that very morning! The female seated herself on top of the oak, watching me with raised crest, while her mate disappeared in a dark mat of leaves, probably mistletoe, where he stayed so long that the possibility of a nest waxed to a probability, and I made a rapid but ecstatic ascent to the observer's seventh heaven. A phainopepla's nest right on my own doorsill! I could hardly restrain my impatience, and was tempted to shoo the birds away so I could go to the nest; when suddenly they opened their wings and, crossing the valley, disappeared up a side canyon! Pulling myself together and reflecting that I might have known better than to imagine there would be a nest so near home, I took up my camp-stool and trudged back to the house.
After that came a number of tantalizing hints. When watching the third gnatcatcher's nest I had seen a pair of phainopeplas flying suggestively back and forth from the brush to the various oaks, and thought the handsome lover fed his mate as his relative the gentle high-bred waxwing does. Surely the wooing of these beautiful birds should be carried on with no less fine feeling, courtesy, and tenderness; and so it seems to be. The black knight flew low over my head slowly, as if inspecting me, and then came again with his lady, as if having said, "Dear one, I would consult you upon this impending danger."
After that, something really delightful came[197] about. Day by day, on riding back to our ranch-house, I found phainopeplas there eating the berries of the pepper-trees in our front yard. Before long the birds began coming early in the morning; their voices were the first sounds we heard on awakening and almost the last at night, and soon we realized the delightful fact that our trees had become the feeding ground for all the phainopeplas of the valley. Altogether there were five or six pairs. It was a pretty sight to see the black satiny birds perched on one of the delicate sprays of the willowy pepper-trees, hanging over the grape-like clusters, to pluck the small pink berries. The birds soon grew very friendly, and, though they gave a cry of warning when the cats appeared, became so tame they would answer my calls and let me watch them from the piazza steps, not a rod away.
When they first began to linger about the house we thought they were building near, and when one flew into an oak across the road, almost gave me palpitation of the heart by the suggestion. But no nest was there, and when the bird flew away it rose obliquely into the air perhaps a hundred feet, and then flew on evenly straight across to the small oaks on the farther side of a patch of brush that remained in the centre of the valley, known to the ranchmen as the 'Island.' The flight looked so premeditated that the first thing the next morning, although the phainopeplas[198] were at the peppers, I rode on ahead to wait for them at their nest. We had not been there long before hearing the familiar warning call. Turning Billy in the direction of the sound, I threw his reins on his neck to induce him to graze along the way and give our presence a more casual air, while I looked up indifferently as if to survey the landscape. To my delight the phainopepla did not seem greatly alarmed, and, throwing off the assumed indifference that always makes an observer feel like a wretched hypocrite, I called and whistled to him as I had done at the house, to let him know that it was a familiar friend and he had nothing to fear. The beautiful bird started toward me, but on second thought retreated. I turned my back, but, to my chagrin, after giving a few low warning calls, my bird vanished. Alas, for the generations of murderers that have made birds distrust their best friends—that make honest observers tremble for what may befall the birds if they put trust in but one of the human species!
THE PHAINOPEPLA'S NEST IN THE OAK BRUSH ISLAND THE PHAINOPEPLA'S NEST IN THE OAK BRUSH ISLAND
It was plain that if I would get a study of these rare birds I must make a business of it. Slipping from the saddle, I sat down behind a bush and waited. When the bird came back and found the place apparently deserted, to my relief he seated himself on a twig and sang away as if nothing had disturbed his serenity of spirit. But presently the warning call sounded again. This[199] time it was for a schoolgirl who had staked out her horse on the edge of the island and was crossing over to the schoolhouse. A few moments later the bell rang out so loudly that Billy stepped around his oak with animation, but the phainopeplas were used to it and showed no uneasiness.
Before long a flash of white announced a second bird, and then, after a long interval in which nothing happened, the male pitched into a bush with beak bristling with building material! My delight knew no bounds. Instead of nesting in the top of an oak in a remote canyon, as I had been assured the shy birds would do, here they were building in a low oak not more than an eighth of a mile from the house, and in plain sight. Moreover, they were birds who knew me at home, and so would really be much less afraid than strangers, whatever airs they assumed. In the photograph, the bare twigs of the perch tree show above the line of the horizon; the nest tree is the low oak beside it on the right. One thing puzzled me from the outset. While the male worked on the nest, the female sat on the outside circle of brush as if having nothing to do, in spite of the fact that her gray dress toned in so well with the brush that she was quite inconspicuous, while his shining black coat made him a clear mark from a distance. What did it mean? I invented all sorts of fancies to account for it.[200] Had she been to the pepper-trees so much less than he that she was over-troubled by my presence, and therefore the gallant black knight who sang to her so sweetly and was so tender of her, seeing her fears, took the work upon himself? Perchance he had said, "If you are timid, my love, I will build for you while she is by, for I would not have you come near if it would disquiet you."
In any event, he built away quite unconcernedly not three rods from where I sat on the ground staring at him. He would fly to the earth for material, but return to the nest from above, pitching down to it as if having nothing to hide. Once, when resting, he perched on the tree, and I talked to him quite freely. That noon the phainopeplas were at the house before me, and I went out to talk to them while they lunched to let them know it was only I who had visited their nest, so they would have new confidence on the morrow.
But on the morrow they flew to another part of the island, and when we followed, although I hitched Billy farther away from the nest tree and sat quietly behind a brush screen, they did not come back. A brown chippie plumed his feathers unrebuked in their oak, making the place seem more deserted than before. A lizard ran out from the grape cuttings at my feet, and a little black and white mephitis cantered along over[201] the ground with his back arched and his head down. He nosed around under the bushes, showing the white V on his back, exactly like that of our eastern species. As I rode home, five turkey buzzards were flying low over the edge of the island, and one vulture rose from a meal of one of the little black and white animal's relatives, but I saw nothing more of my birds that day.
The next day the phainopeplas came again to the pepper-trees and ate their fill while I sat on the steps watching. The male was quite unconcerned, but when his mate flew near me, he called out sharply; he could risk his own life, but not that of his love. Again the pair flew back to the high oaks on the far side of the island. All my hopes of the first low inaccessible nest vanished. I had driven the birds away. My intrusiveness had made me lose the best chance of the whole nesting season. But I would try to follow them. It did not seem necessary to take Billy. There were only a few trees on that side of the island, and it would be a simple matter to locate the birds. I would walk over, find in which tree they were building, and spend the morning with them. I went. Each oak was encircled by a thick wall of brush, over which it was almost impossible to see more than a fraction of the tree, and the high oak tops were impenetrable to eye and glass. After chasing phantoms all the afternoon I went home with renewed respect for Billy[202] as an adjunct to field work. In order to locate anything in chaparral, one must be high enough to overlook the mass............