1030 Rural Sch(X)l Leaflet. 



THE CHICKADEE 



Anna Botsford Comstock 



F all the birds that stay with us, to make 

 cheerful our Northern winter, the chickadee 

 is easily the favorite. No matter how 

 cold or gloomy the day, its cheerful song 

 and delightful personality charm us. The 

 chickadee in winter seems friendly, and it is 

 friendly; for it devotes its entire energies all 

 winter to hunting and eating insect eggs , or the 

 insects tucked away in their winter quarters 

 ready to attack the leaves as soon as they shall push out from their 

 buds in the spring. It is particularly fond of the canker-worm eggs; 

 and an experiment made by the Massachusetts State Board of Agricul- 

 ture demonstrated that orchards to which chickadees were enticed 

 during the winter were almost entirely free from this insect pest, while 

 neighboring orchards were destroyed by it. 



As a winter visitant, the chickadee usually appears in company with 

 the nuthatch; and the downy woodpecker is frequently a follower of 

 this cheerful band. The nuthatches work upon the trunks and larger 

 limbs of the trees, while the chickadees work industriously upon the 

 twigs and buds. It is interesting to see a chickadee carefully examine 

 a twig for insect eggs. He looks it over carefully from above, and then, 

 swinging over, head downward, inspects it from below. 



The chickadee is blue-gray above, with the top of the head, the 

 nape, and the throat black; the rest of the underparts and sides of the 

 head are grayish white. The chickadee can be easily distinguished 

 from the nuthatch by its black bib; the nuthatch has a black cap but 

 it is white at the throat. The chickadee's beak is short and pointed, 

 making a sharp little pick exactly fitted for getting the insect eggs and 

 cocoons hidden away among the leaf buds. The woodpecker's beak 

 is a long, strong chisel fitted for cutting a passage to the burrow of the 

 borer in the tree or to the beetle under the bark. 



One of the most charming things about the chickadee is its song. 

 Its cheerful chick-a-dee-dee has an inspiring quality which brings 

 courage and cheer to the heart of the listener. In February, and as the 

 spring advances, the chickadee sings "phoebe" more distinctly than 

 does the phoebe bird and far :nore musically. The songs of the two 

 birds may be distinguished readily. In the phoebe note of the chick- 



