United States or South Sudan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Indeed, there are few better places to study ornithology than in the orchard. Besides its regular occupants, many of the birds of the deeper forest find occasion to visit it during the season. The cuckoo comes for the tent-caterpillar, the jay for frozen apples, the ruffed grouse for buds, the crow foraging for birds' eggs, the woodpecker and chickadees for their food, and the high-hole for ants.
I have several friends who regularly feed Chickadees in winter, perched on their outstretched hands. It is astonishing how quickly wild creatures respond to a reasonable treatment. This may readily be learned by any householder who will try the experiment.
He is prowling about for chickadees, no doubt, a troop of which I saw coming through the wood. When pursued by the shrike, the chickadee has been seen to take refuge in a squirrel-hole in a tree. Hark! Is that the hound, or doth expectation mock the eager ear? With open mouths and bated breaths we listen.
But the Nuthatches and Kinglets were in such a state of bustle that at length the Chickadees did catch a little of the excitement, and left off play for a while to question their friends; and they were not pleased with what they learned, for it seemed that all of them were to make a journey that would last many days, and the little Kinglets were actually going as far as the Gulf of Mexico.
Then she went on: "I comforted the poor little fellow as best I could, and showed him where to find a few seeds: then I flew home, for it was bedtime. I tucked my head under my wing to keep it warm, and thought, and thought, and thought; and here's my plan: "We Chickadees have a nice warm home here in the spruce trees, with their thick, heavy boughs to shut out the snow and cold.
The noisy, rollicking Chickadees were noisier than ever as the preparations went on, and made sport of their relatives, who were now gathered in great numbers, in the woods along the river; and at length, when the proper time of the moon came, the cousins arose in a body and flew away in the gloom.
No other birds interested me now till the chickadees came back. They were soon there, hopping about on the rail as before, with just a wee note of surprise in their soft twitter that I had changed my position. This time I was not to be deceived by a gymnastic performance, however interesting. I kept my eyes fastened on the nest.
Bradford Torrey succeeded, after a few experiments, in so dispelling the fears of an incubating red-eyed vireo that she would take insect food from his hand, and I have known several persons to become so familiar with the chickadees that they would feed from the hand, and in some instances even take food from between the lips.
In migrating northward, the males have abandoned their nests, or rather chambers, which they do after the first season, their cousins, the nuthatches, chickadees, and brown creepers, fall heir to them. These birds, especially the creepers and nuthatches, have many of the habits of the Picidae, but lack their powers of bill, and so are unable to excavate a nest for themselves.
The same investigator also thinks that it would be wise for farmers and fruit-growers to encourage the chickadees to make their homes in orchards, and this could be done, he says, "by placing food for them till they feel at home, by erecting suitable nesting sites, and by careful protection"; to which I would add, by leaving a few old snags in the trees where the birds can find natural nesting places.
Word Of The Day