THE 



NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



Vol. 13 December, 1917 Xo. 9 



Three Chickadee Friends 



Annie Linn 



Detroit, Michigan 



They came to us late in November, when no Hving thing was 

 left in the wind-swept garden, save glistening green honeysuckle 

 leaves, and a few chilled, chrysanthemum buds, struggling valiantly 

 to open their frost-nipped petals. There were three of them; 

 three gray-clad sprites with glossy black caps on their sleek little 

 heads. Their coloring was as somber as the November twihght, 

 but they seemed to fill the sleeping garden with their exuberant 

 life. They flitted through leafless shrubs, and hung head down- 

 ward from the grape-vine on the fence; they swung from honey- 

 suckle sprays and played amid the smoky gray mist of the winged 

 clematis seeds ready for flight, making sweet, low sounds as they 

 talked to one another. They feasted on sun-flower seeds and 

 cracked nuts, perched high on our improvised feeding table. 



The table was a crude affair, made of rough pine boards placed 

 across the top of a garden hammock-frame; but it was safely 

 out of reach of alley cats, and large enough to give ample space 

 for a shallow drinking pan, and for several lumps of suet tied 

 securely to small branches of apple wood; and bird-guests are 

 not critical. 



The Chickadees shared their table with a few White-breasted 

 Nuthatches and downy Woodpeckers. Our English Sparrow 

 friends, being conservative by nature, viewed with distrust 

 an unfamiliar object in a garden which they regarded as their 

 own, and refused to come to the new feeding table. We promptly 

 took advantage of their prejudice, and gave them their oats in a 

 place of our own choosing; an arrangement to the ad^^antage of 

 all. 



We soon learned Chickadees' preferences in food and their 

 regular meal hours. They breakfasted early in the cold gray 



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