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No sound in nature more cheery and refreshing than the alternating calls of a little troop of this kind echoing through the glades of the woods on a still, sunny day in winter: the vivacious chatter of the chickadee, the slender, contented pipe of the gold-crest, and the emphatic, business-like hank of the nuthatch, as they drift leisurely along from tree to tree.
"'Yank! yank! says the White-breasted Nuthatch, as he runs up tree-trunks and comes down again head foremost, quite as a matter of course. "At first, or from a distance, you may mistake him for his cousin the Chickadee, who wears clothes of much the same color and is seen in the same places; or perhaps for the little Downy Woodpecker, who also hammers his insect food out of the tree bark.
They frequent the road through the timber and have some of the habits of the English sparrow. The winter woods would miss them. Chickadees were busy in the birches. Surely the chickadee is one of the dearest little fellows that fly. He has four modes of expression: 1. The well-known "Chick-a-dee-dee-dee."
A curiosity to him never grows old. He does not scream now; it is his nesting time. And so on through the afternoon. The old fence is becoming a part of the woods; and every wild thing that passes by stops to get acquainted. I was weaving an idle history of the old fence, when a chickadee twittered in the pine behind me. As I turned, he flew over me and lit on the fence in front.
He didn't mind the light snows, golden-rod and some high grasses were too tall to be easily covered, and he got seeds from them. But now that the heavy snows have come, the poor little fellow is almost starved, and if he doesn't have a warm place to sleep in these cold nights, he'll surely die!" Mrs. Chickadee paused a minute. The birds were so still one could hear the pine trees whisper.
At last he went clear to the edge of the Green Forest, but there was no whistle and no sign of Farmer Brown's boy. It was the same way the next day and the next. Happy Jack forgot to frisk about the way he usually does. He lost his appetite. He just sat around and moped. When Tommy Tit the Chickadee came to call, as he did every day, Happy Jack found that Tommy was anxious too.
The fruit was hard and green, but looked as if it would be palatable in the winter. Some was dangling on the twigs, but more half-buried in the wet leaves under the tree, or rolled far down the hill amid the rocks. The owner knows nothing of it. The day was not observed when it first blossomed, nor when it first bore fruit, unless by the chickadee.
Chickadee, dee, he calls, chickadee, dee; and though the words have no exact equivalent in English, their meaning is felt by all such as are worthy to hear them. Are the smallest birds really the most courageous, or does an unconscious sympathy on our part inevitably give them odds in the comparison? Probably the latter supposition comes nearest the truth.
There is also a Western chickadee, a Western chewink, a Western blue jay, a Western bluebird, a Western song sparrow, Western grouse, quail, hen-hawk, etc. One of the most remarkable birds of the West seems to be a species of skylark, met with on the plains of Dakota, which mounts to the height of three or four hundred feet, and showers down its ecstatic notes.
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