Christmas Stories - A Christmas Tree for the Birds

A CHRISTMAS TREE FOR THE BIRDS

Christmas would not be Christmas without a Christmas tree. But have you ever thought, when you have been enjoying yourself, that the winter, which brings lots of fun for all of us, is a very uncomfortable time for the poor things who have not any warm homes?

Perhaps, on some cold morning, you have looked out of your window and have watched the birds flying about among the bare branches of the trees in the garden, searching the ground in the hope that some kind person has thrown out a few crumbs for them?

Have you not sometimes wished there was a Santa Claus to bring a tree fulL of good things for the birds? Perhaps it never occurred to you that you might be the birds' Santa Claus? Well, we are going to see how to make a Christmas tree for those poor little mites.

First, we must get a small fir tree that can be put into a pot. Probably we shall find one in the garden and will be allowed to dig it up. If not, we can buy one about Christmas time for a quarter.

When we have got our tree planted in a large flower pot, we must get some small baskets -- the tiny ones that candy is sold in will do splendidly -- and tie these baskets to the branches of the tree. We can put all sorts of things into these baskets -- bread, nuts, seeds.

Then we must hang up tiny pieces of coconut. These are for the tomtits, and there is nothing that they like so well. Other birds are very fond of little pieces of suet.

We can make our Christmas tree look very pretty with some bright pieces of cloth and ribbon or colored paper. When it is quite finished, we must put it out in the garden or on the windowledge of our own room. At first the birds will not understand, because nobody has ever taken the trouble to make a Christmas tree for them before and perhaps they will think it is some sort of trap. But presently some of the bravest ones will come. Then we shall see them perch on the branches, and look round in every direction to see if there is any danger. Birds

We can watch them through the window and they will not be frightened if we do not move. As long as we keep quite still, they will not think we are going to hurt them.

In a little time, the birds will put their little heads in the baskets and give a little twitter of delight when they find the good things there. Other birds will be watching them from the trees and, when these see that the braver ones have not been hurt, they will come too. When the tree has been out a little while, we shall see perhaps forty or fifty birds of all sorts fluttering round it.

If you watch them carefully, you will find that you can recognize many of them, because there is just as much difference between birds as there is between people, if only you look at them closely. And they have all sorts of different characters too. Some are quarrelsome and some are timid. Some try to push the other birds away when they have found a little basket full of good things, and others are generous little fellows who call the others to help them enjoy anything very good.

If we put our Christmas tree out every day for a week, we shall find that by degrees, the birds grow more and more tam, til we can stand quite close to the tree and watch them. If we are careful (the great secret is never to move quickly) some may learn, in time, to take crumbs from our hand, but we must not be surprised if they will not do this at first, because we must remember that we seem great giants to them.

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