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II THE CHICKADEE
THE chickadee, like many other birds, takes his name from his notes; from some of his notes, that is to say, for he has many others besides his best-known chick-a-dee-dee-dee. His most musical effort, regarded by many observers as his true song, sounds to most ears like the name Phoebe, — a clear, sweet whistle of two or three notes, with what musical people call a minor interval between them. It is so strictly a whistle that any boy can imitate it well enough to de ceive not only another boy, but the bird himself. In late winter and
early spring, especially, when the chickadee is in a peculiarly cheerful frame
of mind, it is very easy to draw him out by whistling these notes in his
hearing. Some times, however, the sound seems to fret or anger him, and instead
of answering in kind, he will fly near the intruder, scolding dee-dee-dee. He remains with us
both summer and winter, and wears the same colors at all seasons. Perhaps no wild
bird is more confiding. If a man is at work in the woods in cold weather, and
at luncheon will take a little pains to feed the chickadees that are sure to be
more or less about him, he will soon have them tame enough to pick up crumbs at
his feet, and even to take them from his hand. Better even than
crumbs is a bit of mince pie, or a piece of suet. I have myself held out a
piece of suet to a chickadee as I walked through the woods, and have had him
fly down at once, perch on my finger like a tame canary, and fall to eating.
But he was a bird that another man, a woodcutter of my acquaintance, had tamed
in the manner above described. The chickadee’s
nest is built in a hole, generally in a decayed stump or branch. It is very
pretty to watch the pair when they are digging out the hole. All the chips are
carried away and dropped at a little distance from the tree, so that the sight
of them littering the ground may not reveal the birds’ secret to an enemy. Male and female
dress alike. The top of the head is black — for which reason they are called
black-capped chickadees, or black-capped tit mice — and the chin is of the same
color, while the cheeks are clear white. If you are not sure that you know the
bird, stay near him till he pronounces his own name. He will be pretty certain
to do it, sooner or later, especially if you excite him a little by squeaking
or chirping to him. Although the
chickadee is small and delicate-looking, he seems not to mind the very coldest
of weather. Give him enough to eat, and the wind may whistle. He picks his
food, tiny in sects, insects’ eggs, and the like, out of crevices in the bark
of trees and about the ends of twigs, and so is seldom or never without
resources. The deepest snows do not cover up his dinner-table. His worst days,
no doubt, are those in which everything is covered with sleet. One of his
prettiest traits is his skill in hang ing back downward from the tip of a
swinging branch or from the under side of a leaf while in search of provender.
As a small boy, who had probably been to the circus, once said, the chickadee
is a “first-rate performer on the flying trapeze.” |
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