The Way of the Wild (Hawkes)/The Story of Bluie
The story of Bluie is one of the strangest of all the bird chronicles that has ever come under my observation, during thirty years of study of the ways of our little furred and feathered friends. I will tell it to you just as it happened, without any embellishments, so that you may be absolutely sure that you are reading a real story about a real bird.
To my mind it is just another one of those strange happenings in nature which shows that the wild creatures, especially the birds and squirrels, often long for human companionship and friendship.
This is why the song-birds flock into our country villages and even frequent great cities. Thus they may be on the outskirts of civilization, and watch men and women come and go. There is a wonderful companionship for us with the song-birds. It is a great compliment to man to have the swallows build in the eaves of his buildings and the robins and orioles plan their nests in his very dooryard. They teach us many valuable lessons. Their friendship should be cultivated as a priceless thing, and children should be taught at every opportunity to befriend them.
Bluie, as you may have guessed, was a bluebird. He came to us as the result of a tragedy in birdland—just one more of those tragedies which are always occurring. If it is not the cat, or some larger bird that preys upon the weaker, then it is the elements.
For several years a pair of bluebirds had made their home in a deserted woodpecker's nest in an old sweet-apple tree in the back yard. We were sure that this was the same pair of bluebirds that came to us year after year, because they did the same things each year. They were just as familiar with the place the day that they returned in the spring as they were the day that they flew away to the South. As soon as they arrived they would always look for food in the places where we had left it the year before, and also for material with which to patch up last year's nest. So they were our old friends without a doubt.
The year in question they had come as usual and repaired the nest. There had seemed to be some doubt in their minds as to whether to use the old home again. They had prospected about for a while house-hunting, but had finally come back to the old home.
The nest had been rebuilt as usual, the eggs laid and the fledglings hatched, when the tragedy occurred. It happened when the fledglings were two or three weeks old. They were fully feathered out and would have been able to fly in another week. As some of my readers doubtless know a small bluebird is not blue at all, but black as a young crow. It is not until some months later that the young birds put on the markings of their elders.
One afternoon late in May a violent thunder and wind storm came up. The rains fell in torrents and the wind blew a hurricane. When it finally cleared up and we looked outside, we found that the old sweet-apple tree had been laid low. Our first thought was not of the loss of the tree, but of the bluebirds' nest.
We found that the tree had split open in its fall and the nest lay upon the ground. The two young bluebirds were still in it, but they had received a bad shaking up. The old birds had evidently thought that the end of the world had come, for we never saw them again. If they did come back to look for their nest, we did not know it.
We set the nest with the fledglings in it upon the piazza, in a conspicuous place, in hopes that if the old birds returned they would see it. By nightfall, as they had not discovered the nest, we brought it into the house. One of the small birds died the first night, but Bluie survived and thrived from the very first.
We were full of misgivings as to our ability to raise him, but he surprised us at every turn. In fact he fitted into our life so well that one might have thought that we too had sometime been bluebirds.
At first we fed him on crackers and milk, but I finally concluded that he ought to have a worm diet as well, so I spent half an hour each day looking up small worms for him. These he ate out of my hands with great relish and much greed.
A bird will eat several times as much food, for its size, as any other creature. It is said on good authority that a young robin in the nest will eat fourteen feet of angleworms per day. I presume this is true, as I have seen the old birds carry worms to their nest nearly all day long. At night the young mouths would be stretched up as eagerly as in the morning.
In two weeks after we adopted him, Bluie was flying about the kitchen. He accomplished this by degrees. One day the mistress started to go into the living-room and just for a joke as she passed through the door, she turned and said, "Want to come in here, Bluie?" To her great astonishment the little fellow flew down on her shoulder from the top of a door and rode into the living-room. Here he flew about for half an hour having a fine time investigating.
When the cuckoo clock struck, it gave him quite a fright as he happened to be sitting on it at the time. But he soon got used to it; in fact this became his favorite perch in the living-room.
The following day as the mistress started to go up-stairs to do the chamber work, Bluie fluttered down to her shoulder and rode up-stairs.
After that he had the entire range of the house. Whenever he saw the mistress open a door, he knew that it meant an excursion to unknown parts, so he would fly upon her shoulder and ride away with great delight. In this manner he even made trips to the neighboring houses. But we were rather careful where we took him, fearing that he might be frightened.
At first we did not dare let him go outside, for fear that we would lose him, but he seemed to be bound to us by a golden cord, the golden cord of love. We were his father and mother and the big house was his nest, and he loved us accordingly.
We could call him from the trees or even from a distant lot simply by whistling to him. Each night when I came home from work I would whistle as soon as I came into the yard. If the little fellow was anywhere in hearing, he would fly and light upon my finger and ride into the house in state.
Bluie was a marvel to all our friends. Each week we thought he would grow tired of his half civilized life and fly away with his free fellows, but he stuck by us until autumn.
By that time he had put on the full livery of a male bluebird, with the pretty red ruffs. Then a call came to him, which his kind had obeyed from time immemorial, a call that was stronger than his love for his foster parents. It was not without a struggle, though, that we lost him.
One bright day about the last of October we saw him in a distant lot with several other bluebirds. I went into the house and reported to the mistress. "The bluebirds are flocking," I said, "and Bluie is with them. It is the call of nature. I am very much afraid we will lose him."
Together we went out into the field and I whistled for him. He answered with his shrill sweet little Cheerily, Cheerily, but would not come to me. Again and again I whistled. Each time he would answer, but would not come. Several times that evening I went out and tried to coax him into the house. He was still good friends with me, but mightily interested in his own kin. Perhaps a lady bluebird had already begun to flirt with him, although he was not of the courting age.
For two or three days the flock of bluebirds lingered in the field. Each day I went out and whistled for Bluie. Each time he answered me, but he would not light on my shoulder or even come near me.
"I see you, master," he seemed to be saying. "We are still good friends. You are all right. The house is a fine place, but the fields and the blue sky are better. I have found my own. It is great to be a real bluebird."
One bright morning, just as I came out to take the car for work, the flock of bluebirds whirred up out of the field and skimmed away southward. I watched them until they were mere specks in the distance, then sorrowfully said, "Good-bye, Bluie. You were a wonderful little fellow. We loved you strangely, but we gladly give you back to nature where you belong. Good luck, little chap, but we will miss you."