The Bird Study Book | Page 9

Young birds that require a longer
period for growth before leaving the nest are furnished usually with
more enduring abiding places. {31} In the case of the Bald Eagle, the
young of which do not fly until they are many weeks old, a most
substantial structure is provided.
[Illustration: Nest of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird]
It was on the twentieth of January, a number of years ago, that the
writer was first delighted by the sight of a Bald Eagle's nest. It was in

an enormous pine tree growing in a swamp in central Florida, and
being ambitious to examine its contents, I determined to climb to the
great eyrie in the topmost crotch of the tree, one hundred and thirty-one
feet above the earth. By means of climbing-irons and a rope that passed
around the tree and around my body, I slowly ascended, nailing cleats
for support as I advanced. After two hours of toil the nest was reached,
but another twenty minutes were required to tear aside enough of the
structure to permit climbing up one of the limbs on which it rested. In
doing this there were brought to view several layers of decayed twigs,
pine straw, and fish bones, showing that the birds had been using the
nest for many years. Season after season the huge structure had been
enlarged by {33} additions until now it was nearly five feet in thickness
and about four feet across the top.
[Illustration: The Bald Eagle's Eyrie]
[Illustration: Gannets nesting on the cliffs. Bonaventure Island, Gulf of
St. Lawrence.]
At this date it contained two fledglings perhaps three weeks old.
Having been led to believe that Eagles were ferocious birds when their
nests were approached, it was with feelings of relief that I noticed the
parents flying about at long rifle-range. The female, which, as is usual
with birds of prey, was the larger of the pair, once or twice swept
within twenty yards of my head, but quickly veered off and resumed
her former action of beating back and forth over the tree-tops two
hundred yards away.
Nests in Holes.--The members of the Woodpecker family, contrary to
certain popular beliefs, do not lay their eggs in hollow trees but deposit
them in cavities that they excavate for the purpose. The bird student
will soon learn just where to look for the nest of each species. Thus you
may find the nesting cavity of the Red-headed Woodpecker in a tall
stump or dead tree; in some States it is a common bird in towns, and
often digs its cavity in a telephone {34} pole. Some years ago a pair
excavated a nest and reared their young in a wooden ball on the staff of
the dome of the State House in Raleigh, North Carolina.

On the plains, where trees are few, the telegraph poles provide
convenient nesting sites for Woodpeckers of various species. While
travelling on a slow train through Texas I counted one hundred and
fifty telegraph poles in succession, thirty-nine of which contained
Woodpeckers' holes. Probably I did not see all of them, for not over
two-thirds of the surface of each pole was visible from the car window.
Not all of these holes, of course, were occupied by Woodpeckers in any
one season.
Flickers, or "Yellowhammers," use dead trees as a rule, but sometimes
make use of a living tree by digging the nest out of the dead wood
where a knot hole offers a convenient opening. The only place I have
ever known them regularly to nest in living trees is in the deserts of
Arizona, where the saguaro or "tree cactus" is about the only tree large
enough to be employed for such a purpose. In the {35} Northern States
Flickers sometimes chisel holes through the weatherboarding of
ice-houses and make cavities for their eggs in the tightly packed
sawdust within. They have been known also to lay their eggs in nesting
boxes put up for their accommodation.
In travelling through the pine barrens of the Southern States one
frequently finds grouped about the negroes' cabins and plantation
houses the popular chinaberry, or Pride of India tree. Here are the
places to look for the nest of the Hairy Woodpecker. In that country, in
fact, I have never found a nest of this bird except in the dead, slanting
limb of a chinaberry tree.
The member of this family which displays most originality in its nest
building is the Red-cockaded Woodpecker. It is a Southern bird, and
the abode for its young is always chiselled from a living pitch-pine tree.
This, in itself, is very unusual for any of our eastern Woodpeckers. The
bird, however, has a still stranger habit. For two or three feet above the
{36} entrance hole, and for five or six feet below