Bird Notes, Part 5, v662
Page 251
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Transcription
1210 Brock says one boy says that he sees two in the neighborhood and that one "has red on it and the other has not". (Archie's red was much more conspicuous and deeper in hue than T's. 5:30 P.M. I have just returned from there. Shortly after arrival, about 2:45, a roadrunner was seen in the lot west of the house mentioned.* While Brock waited and watched, I approached it slowly. It did not retreat. When I was about 30 feet from it I tossed a worm part way to it. It came at once and got it. I knelt on one knee and showed the worm box, suggesting that it come and get more worms. It came at once and took worms from hand freely. I suggested that it come up on to my knee, which it did. Next I produced some hamburger steak which it ate hungrily. When it lost interest and showed a tendency to wander off I produced a very small mouse. This, as with all other offerings, it took from hand tamely. From the first sight of it, even before I had tossed the first worm, I was certain that it was Archie and had been calling him by that name. Archie it was because of known scars on beak and back of head. But an Archie that has encountered trouble since, with fresh scars added to the old. His eyes have lost the gentle, soft appearance of earlier days and look wild, though he is tame. He is still smaller than Rhody, I judge. He went up into a low pepper tree and I called Brock--who had watched all that went before--to join me. Archie, though nervous, did not retreat. As a test to give an indication of whether Archie would distinguish between Brock and me, i.e. remember me in a special sense, I asked Brock to offer him the remaining mouse. (He is more accustomed to wild birds than I am). Archie edged away on his limb. I then took the mouse and offered it to him, and he accepted it at once, even advancing for it. Just before this, it should have been noted, I had made a test to see if Archie would follow me when I retreated and called, finding that he would. He next went up into the garden of one of the houses and was relocated above a rock-garden on a sloping bank. A test was made to determine if he would come down to me across the garden, on solicitation. He did, and I secured a movie of him as a record. He finally went up about 8 feet into a eucalyptus tree and disposed himself in road-runner fashion, with tail flattened against the trunk, as if for the night, where we left him about 4:30. If not his night roost, it at least meets the road-runner specification of a wide outlook to the west, good landing field and protection from the rear. He had eaten 4 good sized pieces of hamburger, two small mice and a dozen or so meal worms. He should have had enough for the rest of the day, and although rather early, it seems probable that he had called it a day. 10:15 P.M. Well it was Archie's roost for this night at any rate, for I went over to see him about 8:30 and he had not moved a fraction of an inch, as far as I could see. I introduced myself at the house in the garden of which he was and was most courteously received by Miss Georgiana Melvin, a teacher at Mills. I took her out and showed Archie to her, much to her delight. Miss Melvin introduced me to her neighbor on the south: Dean H.B. Ege (6015 Majestic Ave.) formerly of Mills, and her neighbor to the north, Mrs. Wild (H.G.), whose husband is or was also of the Mills faculty. All are pleased to have Archie as a neighbor and will try to protect him, but there are boys in the neighborhood that have tried to shoot him. I was given some of the names and will look them up and try to enlist them on A's side. * I called: "Archie"! It stopped at once and looked about.