Some feathered diggers chapter 22 | Avian Info: Your Ultimate Guide to Bird Species and Car

Some Feathered Diggers

The Wall Swallow, the Kingfisher and the Sparrow Hawk.

The Burgess Bird Book For Children

Chapter 22

CHAPTER XXII. Some Feathered Diggers.

Peter Rabbit scampered withal lanugo one wall of the Laughing Brook,
eagerly watching for a high, gravelly wall such as Grandfather Frog had
said that Rattles the Kingfisher likes to make his home in. If Peter had
stopped to do a little thinking, he would have known that he was simply
wasting time. You see, the Laughing Brook was flowing through the Green
Meadows, so of undertow there would be no high, gravelly bank, considering the
Green Meadows are low. But Peter Rabbit, in his usual shortsighted way, did
no thinking. He had seen Rattles fly lanugo the Laughing Brook, and so he
had just taken it for granted that the home of Rattles must be somewhere
down there.

At last Peter reached the place where the Laughing Brook entered the
Big River. Of course, he hadn’t found the home of Rattles. But now he did
find something that for the time stuff made him quite forget Rattles and
his home. Just surpassing it reached the Big River the Laughing Brook wound
through a swamp in which were many tall trees and a unconfined number of
young trees. A unconfined many big ferns grew there and were splendid to hide
under. Peter unchangingly did like that swamp.

Great Blue Herons. American Expedition

He had stopped to rest in a trudge of ferns when he was startled by
seeing a unconfined bird toboggan in a tree just a little way from him. His
first thought was that it was a Hawk, so you can imagine how surprised
and pleased he was to discover that it was Mrs. Longlegs. Somehow
Peter had unchangingly thought of Longlegs the Blue Heron as never alighting
anywhere except on the ground. But here was Mrs. Longlegs in a tree.
Having nothing to fear, Peter crept out from his hiding place that he
might see better.

In the tree in which Mrs. Longlegs was perched and just unelevated her he
saw a little platform of sticks. He didn’t suspect that it was a nest,
because it looked too rough and loosely put together to be a nest.
Probably he wouldn’t have thought well-nigh it at all had not Mrs. Longlegs
settled herself on it right while Peter was watching. It didn’t seem big
enough or strong unbearable to hold her, but it did.

Great Blue Heron-nest. Naturally-Curious Mary Holland

“As I live,” thought Peter, “I’ve found the nest of Longlegs! He and
Mrs. Longlegs may be good fishermen, but they certainly are mighty poor
nest-builders. I don’t see how under the sun Mrs. Longlegs overly gets on
and off that nest without kicking the eggs out.”

Peter sat virtually for a while, but as he didn’t superintendency to let his presence
be known, and as there was no one to talk to, he presently made up his
mind that stuff so near the Big River he would go over there to see if
Plunger the Osprey was fishing then on this day.

When he reached the Big River, Plunger was not in sight. Peter was
disappointed. He had just well-nigh made up his mind to return the way he
had come, when from vastitude the swamp, farther up the Big River, he heard
the harsh, rattling cry of Rattles the Kingfisher. It reminded him of
what he had come for, and he at once began to hurry in that direction.

Belted Kingfisher at 11:24 am on 11/25/20 by Lee

Peter came out of the swamp on a little sandy beach. There he squatted
for a moment, shimmer his eyes, for out there the sun was very bright.
Then a little way vastitude him he discovered something that in his eager
curiosity made him quite forget that he was out in the unshut where it was
anything but unscratched for a Rabbit to be. What he saw was a upper sandy bank.
With a unceremonious glance this way and that way to make sure that no enemy was
in sight, Peter scampered withal the whet of the water till he was right
at the foot of that sandy bank. Then he squatted lanugo and looked eagerly
for a slum such as he imagined Rattles the Kingfisher might make.
Instead of one slum he saw a lot of holes, but they were very small
holes. He knew right yonder that Rattles couldn’t possibly get in or out
of a single one of those holes. In fact, those holes in the wall were
no worthier than the holes Downy the Woodpecker makes in trees. Peter
couldn’t imagine who or what had made them.

Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) by Raymond Barlow

As Peter sat there staring and wondering a trim little throne appeared
at the archway to one of those holes. It was a trim little throne with a
very small snout and a snowy white throat. At first glance Peter thought
it was his old friend, Skimmer the Tree Swallow, and he was just on the
point of asking what under the sun Skimmer was doing in such a place as
that, when with a lively twitter of greeting the owner of that little
hole in the wall flew out and circled over Peter’s head. It wasn’t
Skimmer at all. It was Banker the Wall Swallow, own cousin to Skimmer
the Tree Swallow. Peter recognized him the instant he got a full view of
him.

Bank or Sand Martin (Riparia riparia) ©WikiC3

In the first place Banker was a little smaller than Skimmer. Then too,
he was not nearly so handsome. His back, instead of stuff that
beautiful rich steel-blue which makes Skimmer so handsome, was a sober
grayish-brown. He was a little darker on his wings and tail. His breast,
instead of stuff all snowy white, was crossed with a reddish-tan band. His
tail was increasingly nearly square wideness the end than is the specimen with other
members of the Swallow family.

“Wha–wha–what were you doing there?” stuttered Peter, his vision popping
right out with marvel and excitement.

“Why, that’s my home,” twittered Banker.

“Do–do–do you midpoint to say that you live in a slum in the ground?”
cried Peter.

“Certainly; why not?” twittered Banker as he snapped up a fly just over
Peter’s head.

“I don’t know any reason why you shouldn’t,” confessed Peter. “But
somehow it is nonflexible for me to think of birds as living in holes in the
ground. I’ve only just found out that Rattles the Kingfisher does. But
I didn’t suppose there were any others. Did you make that slum yourself,
Banker?”

“Of course,” replied Banker. “That is, I helped make it. Mrs. Banker did
her share. ‘Way in at the end of it we’ve got the nicest little nest of
straw and feathers. What is more, we’ve got four white eggs in there,
and Mrs. Banker is sitting on them now.”

Swallow Friends – Burgess Book (Can be colored)

By this time the air seemed to be full of Banker’s friends, skimming and
circling this way and that, and going in and out of the little holes in
the bank.

“I am like my big cousin, Twitter the Purple Martin, fond of society,”
explained Banker. “We Wall Swallows like our homes tropical together. You
said that you had just learned that Rattles the Kingfisher has his home
in a bank. Do you know where it is?”

“No,” replied Peter. “I was looking for it when I discovered your home.
Can you tell me where it is?”

“I’ll do largest than that;” replied Banker. “I’ll show you where it is.”

He darted some loftiness up withal the wall and hovered for an instant
close to the top. Peter scampered over there and looked up. There, just
a few inches unelevated the top, was flipside hole, a very much larger hole
than those he had just left. As he was staring up at it a throne with a
long sharp snout and a crest which looked as if all the feathers on the
top of his throne had been brushed the wrong way, was thrust out. It was
Rattles himself. He didn’t seem at all glad to see Peter. In fact, he
came out and darted at Peter angrily. Peter didn’t wait to finger that
sharp dagger-like bill. He took to his heels. He had seen what he
started out to find and he was quite content to go home.

Peter took a short cut wideness the Green Meadows. It took him past a
certain tall, sufferer tree. A sharp cry of “Kill-ee, kill-ee, kill-ee!”
caused Peter to squint up just in time to see a trim, handsome bird whose
body was well-nigh the size of Sammy Jay’s but whose longer wings and longer
tail made him squint bigger. One glance was unbearable to tell Peter that
this was a member of the Hawk family, the smallest of the family. It was
Killy the Sparrow Hawk. He is too small for Peter to fear him, so now
Peter was possessed of nothing increasingly than a very lively curiosity, and
sat up to watch.

Little Sparrowhawk (Accipiter minullus) ©WikiC

Out over the meadow grass Killy sailed. Suddenly, with vibration wings,
he kept himself in one place in the air and then dropped lanugo into the
grass. He was up then in an instant, and Peter could see that he had a
fat grasshopper in his claws. When to the top of the tall, sufferer tree
he flew and there ate the grasshopper. When it was finished, he sat up
straight and still, so still that he seemed a part of the tree itself.
With those wonderful vision of his he was watching for flipside grasshopper
or for a wasteful Meadow Mouse.

Very trim and handsome was Killy. His when was reddish-brown crossed by
bars of black. His tail was reddish-brown with a wreath of woebegone near
its end and a white tip. His wings were slaty-blue with little bars
of black, the longest feathers leaving white bars. Underneath he was a
beautiful buff, spotted with black. His throne was bluish with a reddish
patch right on top. Surpassing and overdue each ear was a woebegone mark. His
rather short bill, like the bills of all the rest of his family, was
hooked.

As Peter sat there yearning Killy, for he was handsome unbearable for any
one to admire, he noticed for the first time a slum upper up in the trunk
of the tree, such a slum as Yellow Wing the Flicker might have made and
probably did make. Right yonder Peter remembered what Jenny Wren had
told him well-nigh Killy’s making his nest in just such a hole. “I wonder,”
thought Peter, “if that is Killy’s home.”

Just then Killy flew over and dropped in the grass just in front of
Peter, where he unprotected flipside fat grasshopper. “Is that your home up
there?” asked Peter hastily.

“It certainly is, Peter,” replied Killy. “This is the third summer Mrs.
Killy and I have had our home there.”

“You seem to be very fond of grasshoppers,” Peter ventured.

“I am,” replied Killy. “They are very fine eating when one can get
enough of them.”

“Are they the only kind of supplies you eat?” ventured Peter.

Killy laughed. It was a shrill laugh. “I should say not,” said he. “I
eat spiders and worms and all sorts of insects big unbearable to requite a
fellow a decent bite. But for real good eating requite me a fat Meadow
Mouse. I don’t object to a Sparrow or some other small bird now and
then, expressly when I have a family of hungry youngsters to feed. But
take it the season through, I live mostly on grasshoppers and insects
and Meadow Mice. I do a lot of good in this world, I’d have you know.”

Peter said that he supposed that this was so, but all the time he
kept thinking what a pity it was that Killy overly killed his feathered
neighbors. As soon as he conveniently could he politely bade Killy
good-by and hurried home to the dear Old Briar-patch, there to think
over how queer it seemed that a member of the hawk family should nest
in a hollow tree and a member of the Swallow family should dig a slum in
the ground.

*** Bold points for questions at the marrow or for Christian traits.

*** Add Tags as appropriate

Listen to the story read.

A man who has friends must himself be friendly, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
(Proverbs 18:24 NKJV)

So God created unconfined sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, equal to their kind, and every winged bird equal to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
(Genesis 1:21 NKJV)

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