THE chickadees are with me the year through. In winter they collect into a flock and remain near the cabin, but when the snow departs, they drift away in pairs, in search of a good nesting site. From this time, until the young birds are large enough to fly, the chickadees come to my cabin in pairs. The domestic life of the chickadee overflows with love, joy, and devotion. These little birds when once mated are mated for life. There is no divorce in the bird family, from eagles down to humming-birds. It is a rare treat to watch a pair of chickadees in the nesting season. I was walking along the old highway last season, when I heard one of my chickadees calling to me. This bird had a way of calling "Dee, dee, dee" whenever she met me in the woods. I usually carry food along, and she would come to my hand and help herself. After she had satisfied her appetite, she flew down the side-hill to Magnolia Swamp. I followed her, and found her mate excavating a nest in a small dead paper-birch. I expect that his wife told him that I was coming, but he did not quit work for five minutes. When I had approached, he bobbed his head out of the entrance, but instantly returned to his work. When he did come out, he appeared hungry, and attacked a doughnut with vigor, winding up with hemp-seed. From the way the birds attacked food, it was evident that they would have had to seek the cabin soon, if I had not happened along.
I talk to the chickadees as I would to human beings, so when I had seated myself on a boulder, within four feet of the nest, I told my friends that I was making them a friendly call, and begged them to keep right on with their work. The chickadees said something to me in reply, and may have understood what I said to them, for they returned at once to enlarging the hole in the birch. The hole in the paper-birch, which formed the entrance, was one inch and one eighth in diameter, and round as it could well be. The depth was six inches, and the birds were at work in the bottom making the hole deeper. While the husband was eating his breakfast, the little wife was down in the hole, and I could hear the blows of her sharp bill. After breakfast, the husband flew to the entrance and called to his wife. She bobbed out and he bobbed in. Instead of resting, she occupied the time with eating hemp-seed. At the end of three minutes, the mate appeared with a piece of dead wood in his bill. He flung the wood one side, and disappeared calling his mate. She flew to the entrance, and, clinging to the edge of the hole, she reached down inside and brought up a bill-full of chippings, which she dropped outside. This was followed up until the chippings were exhausted. Then the male hammered away, while the female ate some more hemp-seed. Three minutes later he came out for a rest, and the female took his place. The birds appeared to work under a regular system, for the little wife came to the mouth of the hole and called her husband; he clung to the edge and reached inside for chippings, just as his wife did. The bird inside must have passed the chippings up to the bird outside. Quite a scheme to save labor.
From time to time I visited this nest to inspect the work. When the hole was about nine inches in depth, the birds put in the nesting material. If these birds had not become partly domesticated, the foundation of the nest would have been moss (Sphagnum), with a lining of fur or grouse feathers. My chickadees have changed the nesting habit, using nothing but cotton-batting for foundation and lining. Eight eggs were laid in this nest, and every one hatched.
The flock of chickadees that have gathered at my cabin this winter for food will number about fifty. They are so tame that they enter the cabin and eat from the table. One bird has demonstrated to me that she possesses a keen memory and an intelligence that is phenomenal. For four winters she has made it a practice to rap on the window when she is hungry, or desires to come in the cabin. Her method, followed each day, is peculiar. She raps if I am inside, and not otherwise. If I am sitting outside, she never approaches the window. It is evident that she raps to attract my attention. After rapping, she goes to the door and waits for me. If I do not respond, she returns to the window and raps again, louder than before. She waits at the door a short time, and if I do not come, she returns to the window and stays right there, and raps vigorously all the time. Not only is it peculiar that she is intelligent enough to know that she can attract my attention, but it is also peculiar that she can remember from one winter to another how to go through the intelligent act.
One of my bird-loving friends, the late "Frank Bolles," for many years the secretary of Harvard College, was telling me of the intelligence of the chickadees around Chocorua. I told him that my chickadees could count four. Mr. Bolles laughed, and said: "I am quite a bird crank, but I think I will have to draw the line at counting. What have you for proof?" I called his attention to the method employed by the chickadees when eating hemp-seed. Not having the stout cone bill of the finch family, a chickadee was obliged to hold a seed between its toes and beat off the hull, to get at the meat. A chickadee would fly into the dooryard after a hemp-seed, then fly to a small twig, and, holding the seed between its toes, hammer away until the meat was threshed out. Some of the old birds would carry away as many as four seeds. These birds let their brains save their wings. When a bird carried away four seeds, three were usually placed in the rough bark of a limb until wanted. I fed the chickadees, and a dozen or more were soon busy taking seed from the dooryard. A pet bird, of long standing, was pointed out to Mr. Bolles as one that could count four. The bird picked up four seeds, and flew to a limb over my head. Near the bole of the tree she deposited three seeds, and took the fourth one to a small twig, about eight feet away. Before she got through with the first seed, I pushed one of the three off the limb. Mr. Bolles scouted the idea that the bird would miss the seed on the ground. After the bird had disposed of three seeds, it hunted in the bark of the limb at first, and then dropped to the ground and found the missing seed. If two seeds were pushed off, the chickadee would hunt for both. Mr. Bolles admitted that the bird could count four, and possibly more than that number if it was necessary.
Mr. Bolles was the author of several books on outdoor life. He possessed a delightful style, reminding one of John Burroughs. I will quote from his book, "From Blomidon to Smoky," a record of a visit to my cabin:
"I have a friend who lives alone, summer and winter, in a tiny hut amid the woods. The doctors told him he must die, so he escaped from them to Nature, made his peace with her, and regained his health. To the wild creatures of the pasture, the oak woods, and the swamps he is no longer a man, but a faun; he is one of their own kind,—shy, alert, silent. They, having learned to trust him, have come a little nearer to men. I once went to his hut when he was absent, and stretched myself in the sunlight by his tiny doorstep. Presently, two chickadees came to a box of bird-seed, swinging from the pine-limb overhead, and fed there, cracking the seeds one by one with their bills. Then from the swamp, a pair of catbirds appeared, and fed upon crumbs scattered over the ground just at my feet. A chipmunk ran back and forth past them, coming almost within reach of my hand; soon after a song-sparrow (Wabbles) drove away the catbirds, and then sung a little sotto voce song to me before helping itself to the crumbs. When my friend returned, he told me the story of this song-sparrow; how he saved its life, and had been rewarded by three years of gratitude, confidence, and affection on the part of the brave little bird. He seemed fearful lest I should think him overimaginative in recital, so he gave me details about the sparrow and its ways which would have convinced a jury of the bird's identity and strong individuality. The secret of my friend's friendship with these birds was that, by living together, each had, by degrees, learned to know the other.”
The chickadees are great bird-wags. In various ways they play tricks on other birds. When there is hemp-seed in the box, the chickadees are like a lot of children turned out of school. If a tree-sparrow happens along, he takes possession by driving the other birds away. A saucy chickadee will give the danger-call, which sounds to me like "butcher bird, butcher bird." The tree-sparrow darts into the bushes and the chickadees pile onto the seed-box. The sparrow finding that there is no enemy about soon returns to the seed-box. Inside of three minutes the same, or another chickadee, gives the alarm and away goes the sparrow into the bushes. This time he knows that he has been fooled, so when he comes back he chases the chickadee through the trees around the dooryard. The chickadee is too quick for the sparrow; he darts this way and that, laughing and shouting at the top of his voice. The other chickadees do a lot of laughing and shouting too, at the same time they attend to the seed-box. The sparrow always flies away when he hears the danger-call. I suppose he thinks it better to be safe than to be sorry.
Several years ago I placed a box in the top of an oak-tree, thinking that bluebirds might be induced to nest therein. While I was nailing the box to a limb, a pair of chickadees had overlooked the work. These chickadees were old friends, and naturally thought that I was making a nest for their benefit. The next day when I had returned from the city, I found the birds engaged in carrying cotton batting into the box. These chickadees were old and had made four nests, so the selection of a box and cotton batting was a marked departure from the regular nesting habit. While the little lady was sitting I made it a practice every day to climb the tree and offer her food. When I had turned the cover back the bird would flutter her wings as young birds do when begging food. But the little wife would take no food from me if her husband was present. She would call to him "chip, chip," and he would hop to me for food. When he got it, he would feed his wife, while she fluttered her wings and acted like a young bird. When eight little chicks thrust up their open bills for food, the parents appeared brimful of joy and happiness. They rushed around in search of food, calling to each other all the time. I climbed the tree one day at noontime. The young birds were full grown. I took one in my hand and the mother said something to me in her language. I thought that she asked me if the bird was old enough to leave the nest. I told her it was, and the sooner they got out the better, for the nest was too small and was hot besides. That noon I went over to Cedar Swamp, and did not return until after sunset. When I had reached the cabin the chickadees hopped to my shoulder and in heartrending bird language tried to tell me that something had happened to their babies. I climbed the tree and found the nest empty. On a boulder I had placed a pair of rubber boots to dry One of the boots was missing. Two boys had robbed the chickadees and had carried away the young birds in the rubber boot. The bereaved birds remained near the cabin all night, and I did not sleep, because they talked to me in the most pitiful language I had ever heard from a bird. The next day I traced the wretched thieves, but the little birds were dead.
Before leaving the chickadees, I wish to mention something that has impressed itself upon my mind, during the last eighteen years. That is, that the chackadees would make desirable park-birds. Compare these busy little birds with the English sparrow, and one can but feel sorry that we imported the alien, when we already possessed the native.
A flock of my chickadees, if removed to Boston Common, would thrive and increase rapidly, and from a small beginning all the parks of the country could be stocked. The chickadees rear two broods in a season, usually eight in a brood. These birds hunt the trees for insect life, while the undesirable alien hunts the streets for indigested food. Contrast the quarrelsome "chirps" of the one, with the cheery "chickadee, chickadee" of the other. Then the mating-song. How it would fit into the glorious spring mornings. This song is called the "phœbe note of the chickadee" by many writers. The only reason that explains why this name clings to the chickadee's song, is that some early writer adopted it, and later writers followed suit without taking pains to investigate. There is as great difference between the two as there is between black and white. The song of the phœbe-bird is in two notes, delivered in a querulous, plaintive tone, while that of the chickadee is in three notes, as loud and cheery as the whistle of Whittier's "Barefoot boy." "Tea's ready," it seems to say, with the accent on the first syllable.