(online photo)
Did you know -
- they are members of flocks that are led by a dominant breeding pair?
- the flock will have three to five favourite foraging sites among which it circulates during the day?
- they have different calls for different functions? Keeping the flock together is a different call than displacing another bird from a feeding perch.
- they are as comfortable hanging below the branch as perching on top? So when snow covers the tops of branches, they hang upside down to find food.
- in winter, half its diet is small eggs or larvae of insects and spiders which are nestled in bark crevices? The rest is seeds, especially from pine trees, and grains.
(from A Guide to Nature in Winter by Donald W. Stokes and Deborah Prince)
It always makes me smile to see them flitting here and there! And I really need to try to photograph some too.
We love chickadees in this house, too. Samuel's even starting to say the word when he sees those little grey and black and white birds flittering around. We enjoyed watching them eat at Edward and Linda's feeders this morning. They really are one more whisper of beauty in God's creation.
ReplyDeletethis makes me wish we had enough life growing around here to have birds. hopefully it won't be too many years before the trees are growing and we have birds.
ReplyDeletei never knew they could hang upside down just as easily to eat.