To Cheer Us With His Sprightly Call
David Bunch
A feathered woodsprite, he of the sable crown and throat, with his bright black eye half hidden beneath his cap. Few there be who have not seen him somewhere east or west, between the temperate zone and the arctic. North of the trees he cannot go, for all his life is passed in their service, and in ours. From dawn to dark he scarcely pauses in his search for insects, many of them so small that they are never seen by most of his feathered fellow-hunters. In winter, when many of his fair-weather companions have gone to sunnier climes, Blackcap remains to guard his friends of the forest, and to cheer us with his sprightly call.
Who ever heard of weather within the temperate zone too cold or disagreeable for a chickadee? When spring comes around once more and the earlier of his wandering friends come back, Blackcap sings his love-song, and soon he and Mrs. Blackcap have picked out their home. In the dry limb of some orchard tree, or the top of a low white-barked birch stub their house is carved, for, like the woodpeckers, they are carpenters as well as hunters. In this snug cavity, hidden from summer storms, is woven the warmest nest ever made by bird.
Finest shreds of moss, the fur of wood-rabbit, and the orange-down from cinnamon fern-of these the deep-cupped bed is felted. Here are entrusted the tiny eggs, faint-tinged with pink, and many-specked, six or seven, even eight or nine, so that one wonders how two small birds may hope to feed so many hungry mouths. When mother Blackcap leaves her treasures she covers them deep with a downy blanket, that any chance unwelcome visitor may not see them. But one family, even a large one, is not enough for Blackcap, so while his mate broods her nestful, he improves his time by digging another home near by. Then when the first flock is self-supporting, the simpler nest, suitable for warmer weather, is quickly finished for a second set of eggs.
None of the books will tell you this, for, sad to say, most of the men who write books have forgotten the time when they were boys, and could find birds' nests. Industry, constancy, cheerfulness, and many other virtues might we learn from Blackcap. So long as trees grow, may he thrive; and, if he and his fellow-protectors of the forests thrive, so long may trees grow.
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