10
Duncan's Bird Tenants
Mr. Rutledge told you that birds and animals will come to live with us if we give them a home. Duncan, a fifth-grade boy, found that Mr. Rutledge was right.
It was the fifteenth of March, and Duncan was exactly eleven years old. His parents had given him a tool chest for a birthday present, and as he walked proudly out of the back door into the morning sunshine, he was wondering what he should make first with the new tools. He had hardly gone as far as the pump when he heard a soft, gurgling bird voice from the old apple tree in the yard, and a bluebird fluttered down almost to his feet. In an instant he decided to make a bird house, and he walked off to find his father and talk the matter over with him.
His father gladly agreed to help him and suggested that they build a house suitable for both bluebirds and tree swallows, and for purple martins, too, if they wished to come, though martins had not nested in Meriden for many years. First they wrote to the Department of Agriculture in Washington for a pamphlet called Homes for Birds, and with this as a guide they went to work. Early in April the little dwelling was ready to put up. In appearance it was like an old-fashioned, two-story New England farmhouse, painted white, and it was fastened to the end of a stout pole about eighteen feet long.
The bluebirds had already chosen a hole in the apple tree for their first home; so for the present they were not interested in any other. But on the telephone wire sat a pair of tree swallows, their steel-blue coats and white shirt fronts glistening in the sunlight. As soon as Duncan and his father began to raise the pole into the air, the swallows left their perch, and twittering excitedly, flew round and round the little bird house as if they knew that it was for them. It had barely come to rest as the end of the pole dropped into the hole which had been dug for it, when the swallows alighted boldly on the roof and took possession as its first tenants.
During the next few days Duncan noticed that the swallows were very busy. Much of their time was spent in looking over their new home, creeping first into one room, then into another as if trying to decide which they liked best. Then they would sit on the telephone wire in full view of the bird house, perhaps admiring it, and ready to attack and drive away any other bird which came near. And of course they never neglected their regular work of darting back and forth to catch the insects which they needed for their daily food.
At last one of the rooms was selected, and the birds began to gather bits of hay to make a nest, and then followed swift visits to the poultry yard for feathers with which to line it. One morning when Duncan opened the door of the henhouse and let out the hens, he was surprised and amused to see the swallows swoop down, pluck soft feathers from an indignant old hen, and bear them home in triumph
.
Five white eggs had been laid when a flock of English sparrows arrived. One tree swallow was in the nest and the other on guard outside. A fierce but one-sided battle took place, and the nest and eggs might have been thrown to the ground, had not Duncan protected his tenants by driving the sparrows away.
In about two weeks the eggs were hatched, and the parents were on the wing from daylight until dusk, scooping up in their wide mouths many hundreds of flies to feed their babies. In about two weeks the young swallows, dressed very much like their parents, came out on the roof to be fed. A few days later they left their little home forever, and were soon hunting insects over the fields and through the barnyard.
But the bird house was not long unoccupied. The bluebirds had reared their first brood, and about a week after the swallows had left, Duncan saw new tenants inspecting the little dwelling. A few busy days of nest building, and then the male, in sky-blue coat and reddish vest, perched on the roof, singing softly to his hidden mate, who sat on four blue eggs in a simple nest of hay. Still busier times followed when the eggs were hatched, and every day the parents made scores of trips to the fields near by for caterpillars and other insects to feed four gaping mouths.
About a fortnight later the youngsters began to show their heads and their speckled breasts at the doorway, and presently they attempted to fly to the roof. Three of them succeeded, but the fourth fluttered to the ground; and Duncan's mother, who happened to be watching, was just in time to save it from a neighbor's cat. The hired man got a ladder and put the young bird back in the nest, and very soon the little family got safely away.
Duncan was so much encouraged by his success that he began to plan for the following season. He built smaller, single-roomed houses for the bluebirds and tree-swallows, and put them up in the fall. He saved the larger house for the martins this time, by blocking the doorways with strips of wood until it was about time for them to return.
Just as he had hoped, the first bluebirds built in one of the smaller boxes, and a pair of tree swallows in the other. But when he spoke of trying to get the purple martins, most of the neighbors shook their heads and laughed. Nevertheless, about the third week in April, Duncan removed the strips of wood and hoped and waited.
At last, on the first of May, a bright warm morning, he leaped from his bed at the sound of strange, sweet bird voices outside. There they were, the longed-for purple martins, sailing gracefully around the bird house, singing as they sailed. They examined the little dwelling inside and out, and a small colony of them, five pairs, decided to nest in it. Duncan had scored a triumph. The purple martin, largest and noblest of American swallows, after an absence of many years, had come back to Meriden.
NOTES AND QUESTIONS
1. Read again the sentence at the beginning of the story; then tell in one sentence how Duncan found out that Mr. Rutledge was right.
2. Find a part of the story which shows that Duncan learned much about tree swallows, and make a list of at least five things he learned. Maybe you can find more than five. Start like this: 1. Swallows eat insects.
3. If you have bird houses in your yard or near your home, write or tell what birds nest in them.