The Chickadee 19 



I have often watched old birds feeding young, but I 

 never had a good idea of just the amount of insect food 

 they did consume till I watched the chickadees for a few 

 days after the eggs hatched. Both birds fed in turn, and 

 the turns were anywhere from three to ten minutes apart. 

 From the time the chicks were born, the parents were busy 

 from daylight to dark. They searched every leaf and twig 

 along the limbs and trunk to the roots of every tree, under 

 bark and moss, in ferns, bushes, and vines, and they hunted 

 thoroughly. Such numbers of spiders they ate, and green 

 caterpillars, brown worms, grasshoppers, daddy-long-legs, 

 moths, millers, and flies, besides untold numbers of eggs 

 and larvae. Everything was grist that went to the chicka- 

 dee mill. The way they could turn insects into feathers, 

 placing the black and white pigment just where it be- 

 longed, was simply marvelous. A baby chickadee changes 

 about as much in a day as a human baby does in a year. 



One can readily count up how much insect life is de- 

 stroyed each day, when the parents return every few min- 

 utes with food. Think how closely each bush and tree is 

 gone over everywhere about the nest. One chickadee nest 

 in an orchard means the death of hundreds and maybe 

 thousands of harmful insects and worms every day. It 

 more than pays for all the fruit the birds can eat in half 

 a dozen seasons. But there are generally other birds nest- 

 ing about. Think of the time when seven young chicka- 

 dees are turned loose to search among the trees day after 

 day during the entire year. 



I spent two whole days at the nest before the chicks 

 were ready to leave home. The owners of the stump 

 seemed to think we had placed the camera there for their 



