The reunited, happy couple go about the garden and outbuildings like
domesticated wrens, investigating the crannies on piazzas, where people may be
coming and going, and boldly entering barn-lofts to find a suitable site for
the nest that it must take much of both time and skill to build.
Pewit, phoebe, phoebe; pewit, phoebe, they contentedly but rather monotonously
sing as they investigate all the sites in the neighborhood. Presently a
location is chosen under a beam or rafter, and the work of collecting moss and
mud for the foundation and hair and feathers or wool to line the exquisite
little home begins. But the labor is done cheerfully, with many a sally in
midair either to let off superfluous high spirits or to catch a morsel on the
wing, and with many a vivacious outburst of what by courtesy only we may name
a song.
When not domesticated, as these birds are rapidly becoming, the phoebes dearly
love a cool, wet woodland retreat. Here they hunt and bathe; here they also
build in a rocky bank or ledge of rocks or underneath a bridge, but always
with clever adaptation of their nest to its surroundings, out of which it
seems a natural growth. It is one of the most finished, beautiful nests ever
found.
A pair of phoebes become attached to a spot where they have once nested; they
never stray far from it, and return to it regularly, though they may not again
occupy the old nest.
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