One late May morning, as I stood in the shadow of a tree by the beaver pond, watching the droll and serious antics of some young beaver, two neatly dressed little birds alighted near and began to eat dandelion seed. They were my first goldfinches.  Her call of “Sweet” was the most bewitching I had ever heard.  I lay for a long time among the daisies and watched them.  For the first and only time in my life I lost all interest in beaver.
 Chattering away merrily like little children, this pair moved quietly about.  I followed.  Evidently they were young mates.  He was handsome with his black cap, olive-green coat, and gold vest almost the color of the dandelion bloom against which he stood.  She wore a gray-green gown, with a wash of gold upon her breast.
 They seemed so trustful of this good old world, so merry, and so glad to be alive, as they flitted happily among the yellow flowers, I wished that every one might know them.  “Hear me, hear me, dearie,” they called as they fed among the weeds or on the birch buds.
 The meal finished, they launched into the air, and to the tune of a cheery “Per-chic-o-ree, per-chic-o-ree” went singing through space in long, bounding undulations.  They flew in a spirited gallop, as if coasting at high speed over a series of invisible little hills and hollows.  I watch-ed them until they flew into the grove.  As Mr. Goldfinch alighted, I noted that he was marked by a broken feather.
 Two weeks later I saw the pair again, as merry as ever.  But why was this young couple not busy nest-building? They probably had been courting for at least six weeks when I first saw them, and they were still at it.  I wished that I might have seen the beginning of this long courtship.
 It was mid-June, and the robins and the bluebirds by my cabin were working about sixteen hours a day trying to deliver food to nests of youngsters ever shouting for more and more.  The chickadees were the only other birds that had not as yet commenced nest-building; usually they selected hollow trees, often abandoned woodpecker or flicker nests of the year before.  If they have good reasons for late nesting, I have not discovered them.  It is possible that the chickadees that lived around my cabin in winter went farther north, or farther up the mountain to nest; but at any rate there were chickadees in the region practically the year round.
 On the Fourth of July I saw the goldfinches again—still courting.  He was parading proudly before her, and she proudly watching him.  His manner was most win-some. As they galloped away through the air I heard them calling, “Sweet-eet, sweet-eet,” to each other.  These slender little yellow-breasted birds were graceful and charming.  Everything they did was appealing.
 Never have I seen any bird or being more bewitch-ingly or inspiringly happy.  Often I heard his love song.  He sang with ecstacy and in such plaintive, winsome tones as to be intensely thrilling.  It was enchanting, enticing, and rapturous.  Low and sweetly he talked, long and lovingly he chatted with his mate.  Every day, rain or shine, these loving mates went flying about, constantly calling “Sweet-eet” in their bounding flight through the air.  And thus in rapture their courtship went on.
 On the 15th of July this vivacious young couple commenced house-hunting.  The following day they were building in an alder near the beaver pond.  A number of birds and their young children were already starting on the southward migratory journey.  Others were bringing their second broods off the nest.
 Four days later, when I went back to the alder, I found that the nest was wrecked and abandoned without having been completed.  I could find no clue, no one to blame for the damage.  But birds have many enemies; often they suffer ill-deserved misfortune.
 But it did not end the goldfinch romance. In an alder about fifty feet away I found little Mrs. Goldfinch busy— oh, ever so busy—with another nest.  It was about six feet above the ground.  Evidently she was of a trusting nature.  Shreds of hemplike bark from last year’s fallen weeds were being used.  She insisted on doing all the work.
 While I watched he brought good nesting-material.  It must have been good, for she had used it in the first nest.  He wanted to weave this into the new nest, but she would not let him.  More strangely, she refused, when he gave it to her, to weave it in herself.  But, though she refused his material and his assistance again and again, she did it oh so sweetly; there was no scolding.
 Another day the little goldfinch home-maker carried off mart of the material from the wrecked nest and used it in the new one.  Busily the little lady worked.  Occasionally she paused to call sweetly to her young and handsome husband, while he, always responsive, was the most gentle and devoted creature that I have seen.  Most of the time he sat on a tree-top near by and observed every detail, now and then giving a low call.  She as sweetly answered, but without looking up from her nest-building.
 If he could not help in the nest-building, at least he was ever on guard for enemies.  If very many minutes elapsed after she disappeared for more material, he ceased his song and peered down to catch a glimpse of her.  If still she did not return, he gave up doing anything, restlessly looking this way and that, as though thinking, “I wonder if anything has happened!”  With what eager-ness and excitement he rushed out to meet her when she came in sight!
 Once when I stood close, watching her work, she had been too busy to call or look up for some time.  He, with his eye on something in the distance, had neither spoken nor dropped down to see her.  Questioningly she called.  He was at her side in an instant.  “Sweet,” she answered in all confidence and went on with her work.  She did not want a thing, but had to assure herself that her sweet-voiced husband was still around.
 I do not know if he extended the luncheon invitation or if she did.  But she would suddenly break away from her nest-building, in which she had appeared all concen-tration, and alight within a few inches of him.  After chattering deliciously for a moment, they would go romping off together.
 Lovingly the nest was prepared.  Built of stringy bark, of fallen plants and grass, it was luxuriously, thickly lined with thistle-down.  Quantities of thistle-down were used during the last two days.  The little nest-builder had hardly looked up.  She was felting and quilting it after her own individual pattern.
 The nest completed, Mrs. Goldfinch started to fly off, but turned back and smoothed the lining again.  Seating herself in it, she tried the nest, turning first one way and then the other.  I doubt it the eggs of any bird in the world rest upon softer or more luxurious beds than those of the goldfinches.  Later there were five pale bluish-white eggs.
 The Arkansas goldfinch, with yellow dress and heart of gold is one of the treasures of the earth.  Wild canary, thistlebird, yellowbird, and dandelion bird, are some of the names applied to him.  His relatives are scattered over the United States and in some localities there is a numerous population.  The bird was named from its first discovery on the Arkansas River in Colorado.  Like the bluebirds, robins, red-winged blackbirds, Audubon and Townsend warblers, flickers, Audubon hermit thrushes, wrens, and northern violet-green swallows, the Arkansas goldfinches come to the mountain zone to nest and spend the summer.  They are always a rare delight.  Their gentle ways and sweet disposition would be never-failing antidotes for discontent.
 None of the goldfinch family nest early; in fact, they often are the last nest-builders of the season.  The males regain their bright color in April, but they are evidently believers in prolonged courtships, and although the nuptial dress is acquired so early, housekeeping is apparently not thought of until July.  During three years that I watched them around me, I found that they built between July first and twenty-first.
 Most birds time the hatching of their young so that there is an abundant close-to-home food-supply for the youngsters, many of whom daily eat their weight of food.  There may be other factors in determining the nesting-time.
 Goldfinches eat the seeds of the dandelion, thistle, and sunflower chiefly, where these are obtainable.  If you would attract goldfinches (and you would be well repaid for doing so) devote a corner of your garden to sunflowers.  Goldfinches perhaps nest late to have a supply of new soft thistle and milkweed down for thickly and softly lining the nest.  Or, it may simply be one of their many interesting characteristics.
 Mrs. Goldfinch completed the nest on the tenth day; this was quick work, but the material from the wrecked nest may have helped speed up its completion.  But even though she speeded up, there was certainly no slighting the job.
 I spent much time near the goldfinch nest and discovered other nesting birds.  While they had been building, a pair of white-crowned sparrows had brought off a second brood from the willow-clump.  Usually for the second nest they go two thousand feet up the mountain-side, where summer has just arrived and where food is as abundant as down the mountain a month earlier.  I had watched a pair of noisy magpies train their awkward children in the ways considered good in magpie world.  Their nest had been a big brush-heap up near the top of an old pine.
 The goldfinch alder was one of a clump that stood in an aspen wild-flower garden.  Among the aspen were orchids, the silver and blue columbine, tiger lilies with “heart of fire,” and in late summer the blue fringed gentians.  There was always something of interest.  I often wished for two or three pairs of eyes.  I could have used them.
 After my second close approach the goldfinches paid little attention to me, even when I stood near their tree.  Nor did they seem to mind other birds alighting near by.  They were too absorbed with their own affairs, and with each other.  Often the long-crested jays simply shouted from the near-by tree-tops, but this made no difference to the goldfinches.
 She sat on the nest nearly all the time; often he brought her something to eat.  Sometimes she gave a strangely appealing call.  With haste her husband came singing to her side or talked to her in tender, solicitous tone from a near-by limb.
 One day, when I appeared from an unusual direc-tion, she gave a startled note of alarm.  He darted over to me and then to her.  Evidently, judging from his tones, he assured her that I was not in the least dangerous.  Having satisfied her, he flew away.  But he was constantly near, ever lived for her.  And sometimes, without her calling, he went to her—simply, I suppose, because he could not stay away longer.
 While Mrs. Goldfinch was off the nest one day, I went up close for a look at the eggs.  She returned sooner than expected and alighted on a limb so near that I could have touched her.  Looking at me intently, she said, “Sweet-eet,” as though to ask, “Aren’t they the dearest things in all the world?”  Afterwards, she caught me handling the eggs, but did not in any way object and apparently was pleased.
 Before the nest was completed the birds often went bathing together in a shallow, sandy little bay of the brook within an easy stone's throw of the nest.  Daintily they waded about, occasionally flapping their wings and fluttering in the water.  One day a pair of water-ouzels, whose nest was by the brook quite near, stood solemnly, interestedly watching the bathers, who may have appeared to the swimming, diving ouzels as if afraid of the water.
 The goldfinch eggs hatched out in fourteen days.  Just as I arrived at the nest one day, Mr. Goldfinch came swinging and singing through the air with his bill full of insects for his mate on the nest.  He was so happy that he must sing even with his mouth full. One tiny young bird came through the shell that afternoon; I could not tell whether he broke out or whether it was his mother who broke in.  She kept leaning over and billing around the nest, but, fearing to disturb her, I kept back.  Two days later, when I returned to the nest, there were five babies, none of them larger than a bumblebee.
 The nest time I called both old birds were feeding the hungry babies.  During the one hundred and twenty-six minutes that I watched, the parents arrived with forty-two loads of supplies.  The baby food consisted mostly of plant-lice off near-by grass and leaves, together with a few grubs and beetles.
 The five little bits off animated life were interested only in eating, and their parent’s only concern was in keeping them fed up.  The father seemed much excited over the process.  After dropping his holding into a large mouth, he paused to watch the babies, following their every movement eagerly, and looking into each large mouth that continually kept opening.  The tiny gaping youngsters were his treasures, and he was in raptures when he left the nest.  As he flew away he chirped and warbled, “Ba-bee, ba-bee,” with utmost love and tenderness.
 Seldom did anything come near that might have disturbed the goldfinches. In common with numerous other species of birds, however, they were ready to defend themselves and their young against any odds if necessary.  But unlike the robin and some others, they did not worry.
 One day, when on a hill-slope east of them, I watched a coyote pass the nesting-tree. Mr. Goldfinch was on top of his favorite dead tree, a fire-killed pine about sixty feet form the nest. Focusing my glasses on him, I wondered what he would do in case the coyote approached too close.  He leaned forward and peered down at the coyote, who walked past the nest without a stop.  But had he stopped, I believe the little yellow-breasted fellow was ready to hurl himself down at this formidable enemy.
 A few days later a wildcat came out of the grove behind the nest.  An upstanding limb on a fallen log would enable the cat readily to reach the nest if he tried.  Out along this log he watched, when suddenly, “Spit-t-t-!”  He struck right and left at Mr. Goldfinch, then at Mrs. Goldfinch, who came in haste to help her husband.
 Of course a robin spread the alarm with wild shouts and rushed to assail the cat.  The cries of the robin brought other robins and various birds besides, rushing to the scene to fight off a common invading enemy.  The cat backed up against the base of a pine and fought off the birds for some minutes; occasionally he leaped up and forward, striking right and left with fore paws.  Twice a robin struck him dangerously near an eye, and he suddenly broke away and ran back into the grove.
 These goldfinches raised only one brood of young-sters during the summer.  Most other birds around my homestead raised two nestfuls.  The English sparrow and a few other species raise three families each summer.
 The youngsters left the nest one afternoon when I could not be there to see this always interesting start in the world.  All remained near the nesting-place for a month.  I tried to watch for any unusual actions which would indicate that they were leaving for the winter.  Most goldfinches of this locality probably winter in Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico.
 During much of the year goldfinches go about in small flocks, calling sweetly, chattering pleasantly, and enjoying one anther's company.  To see a flock of goldfinches feeding on a cold, snowy day is enough to warm any one's heart.  No matter how scanty the fare, they eat as leisurely and as goodnaturedly as though amid June’s feasts and flowers.  They never struggle or con-tend, but converse in tones sweet and low, often saying, “Hear me, hear me, dearie.”  They are ever so gentle and refined that to be even the uninvited and unnoticed at this dinner is a blessing.
 You may have been the guest of honor at a grand banquet, where the horn of plenty overflowed, where there was a feast of reason and flow of soul; but if you want to have a divine touch of Nature, go as an uninvited guest to a goldfinch banquet on some winter day, where all is gentle and genuine, all artistic and inspiring.  As you see the dear little birds so happy, you will feel kinder than ever before, and you will live more peacefully and nobly through all life’s changing years.
 In my observation of birds that commonly live in flocks, they are only equaled in refined and gentle manners by the waxwings.  I have never seen them quarreling, but have more than once been fascinated by their cheerfulness, their devotion, and their dainty ways.  When feeding they are ever watchful against possible dangers, to which their bright coloring perhaps subjects them to a greater degree than some other birds.  But they usually seem successful in fleeing from sneaking cats and swooping hawks.
 I was watching by a beaver pond one day, when the goldfinch family, seven strong, alighted near by.  The father appeared to have shed some of his gold and black, so that now the dress of all the family was much the same color.  The little mother sat for a time on top off a willow watching her family; the children were following the little father about, teasing him to feed them.
 As I left the pond (and it was the last time I saw the family) the little father was hanging to a thistle, almost upside down, tearing the seeds apart and scattering them to the children.  The mother sat, like a little statue, on top of a low bush, looking happily on.
 Other southbound goldfinches from father north had been going by for several days.  I think my family left early in October, for I did not see them or any other goldfinches after this time.  Evidently, unlike most mig-rants, they travel in the daytime, food-hunting as they go.  Although filled with dangers and uncertainties, this migration between summer nesting-home and winter pleasure-resort, is a journey which must be filled with joyous adventures.
 During autumn and winter rambles I often peeped into supposedly deserted nests.  But usually a big mouse or something else was in possession.  It was different with woodpecker holes; I could be sure of finding these in use, especially at night.  They are the favorite winter homes of chickadees; and the little “busy” chipmunk not infrequently hibernates in them.  A kingfisher’s tunnel nest up the brook from the goldfinch alder was occasionally used by mice and rabbits.
 After an autumn shower I passed the goldfinch nest and looked into a little drinking-cup, closely woven like an Indian basket, level full of water.  A few days later, as I passed, a little mouse with both fore feet on the rim of the nest was looking down at me.  On an October day there were five yellow leaves that recalled to me the Indian legend I had heard regarding the autumn leaves and birds.  My winter rambles often took me past the nest, and so I had occasion repeatedly to recall my sweet-voiced goldfinch neighbors.  One mildwinter day, just after a snowstorm, I glanced to see if the nest still kept its place.  It was a brown-frosted little basket heaped with fluffy snow-flakes.

Directory of Stories by Enos A. Mills

Copyright 2000 by Enos Mills Cabin, Temporal Mechanical Press
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