. A - birding on a bronco . flowers and orange poj^pies : and overthem every spring, day after day, processionsof migrating butterflies drifted slowly up thecanyon. At the entrance of the garden was asentinel oak whose dark green foliage contrastedwell with the yellow flowers in the grass was the chosen hunting-ground of many dead upper branches offered the bee-birdsand woodpeckers an unobstructed view of pass-ing insects, and gave the jays and flickers achance to overlook the brush and take theirbearings. The lower limbs offered percheswhere doves might come to rest, finc
. A - birding on a bronco . flowers and orange poj^pies : and overthem every spring, day after day, processionsof migrating butterflies drifted slowly up thecanyon. At the entrance of the garden was asentinel oak whose dark green foliage contrastedwell with the yellow flowers in the grass was the chosen hunting-ground of many dead upper branches offered the bee-birdsand woodpeckers an unobstructed view of pass-ing insects, and gave the jays and flickers achance to overlook the brush and take theirbearings. The lower limbs offered percheswhere doves might come to rest, finches to chat-ter, and chewinks to sing; while its hanging-boughs and elm-like feathered sides attractedwandering warblers and songful wrens. The happy days spent among these beautiful. /.V -////; SHADE OF THE OAKS. IHl California oaks are now far in the past, but asI sit in my study in tlie East and dream backover tlidsi hours my mind is filled with memoryl)ietures. Sauntering-through this oaken gallery,each tree recalls some pleasant hour — the sightof a new bird, the sound of a new song, the pro-longed delight of some cozy home that I watchedtill accepted as a friend, wdien the little familysfears and joys w^ere my own. That big double oak, sj^reading across themiddle of the garden, was the haunted treewhose blue ghost drove away the pewees andgnatcatchers after they had begun to build ;though the vireos and bush-tits braved it out,and the tiny hummer and gentle dove were notafraid to perch there. This was hunnningbirdlane — that small oak held the nest in whichthe two wee nestlings sat up like Jacks-in-the-box ; these blue sage bushes growing in the sandwere the ones the honey bees and hummers usedto haunt, the hummers probing each lavenderlip as they circled
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Keywords: ., bookauthorbaileyfl, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookyear1896
