EASTERN PHOEBE 



147 



short turns— quick as a flash. We liear the click of the bill as it 

 closes on the insect, sometimes high in the air, sometimes low down. 

 When feeding over calm water, the bird almost meets its reflection- 

 two birds that almost touch, then fly apart again without breaking 

 the surface, or sometimes they do touch, leaving a little ripple. 



We often find phoebes near water. We may meet a pair of them 

 quietly flitting about a pond, keeping near together as they feed. 

 One may toss itself high in the air toward an insect, floating in an 

 upward dive, and then drift down again, its tail high, as if blown 

 upward by the bird's descent. All the motions are graceful and 

 airy with little apparent force. Again, a bird may hover deftly 

 before a branch, holding itself upright and stationary, balancing 

 with waving wings, or one may make a wide sweep through the air 

 and snap up a dragonfly, or stoop above a shrub and pluck off a 

 berry in passing. 



As we see the phoebe in the field, the dragonfly appears to be a 

 more prominent article of food than Professor Beal's examinations 

 of stomachs indicate. Phoebes eat medium-sized dragonflies 

 frequently and feed them to their young. 



Behavior. — The phoebe has lived so long and so familiarly in our 

 farmyards that we have come to look on it, not as a wild bird, 

 but as a member of the happy community that makes up rural life — 

 the pigs in their sty, the hens in their coops, the horses and cows in 

 the barn, and the phoebe in the back shed. Busy all day catching 

 insects, unobtrusive, never noisy, it is popular with the farmers. 

 They all know the phoebe as, over and over, it calls out its name. 

 It is a pleasanter neighbor than the robin, for it does not burst into 

 a distressing panic whenever you come near its nest. It has rather 

 the nature of the chipping sparrow, another member of the family 

 on a farm. Both birds have a quiet reserve combined with a capacity 

 for hard work, not unlike the New England farmer himself. 



Audubon (1840) held the phoebe in high esteem. He spent much 

 time studying a pair of birds that bred in "a small cave scooped out 

 of the solid rock by the hand of nature." He goes on: "Several 

 days in succession I went to the spot, and saw with pleasure that as 

 my visits increased in frequency, the birds became more familiarized 

 to me, and, before a week had elapsed, the Pewees and myself were 

 quite on terms of intimacy." Audubon studied this pair throughout 

 their first breeding period, and to prove true his supposition that the 

 young birds returned to their birthplace, he became America's first 

 bird-bander. He continues: "When they were about to leave the 

 nest, I fixed a light silver thread to the leg of each, loose enough not 

 to hurt the part, but so fastened that no exertions of theirs could 

 remove it. * * * 



