Chickadee All the Year Round 



6i 



leaning grav birches, Robins and Flickers are making a great outcry. And no 

 wonder! An enormous black snake is under the birches and now departs in 

 haste, the Robins and Flickers following. 



" Chick-a-dee-dee-dee ! " Only three feet away on the branch of the birch 

 is an agitated Chickadee with a caterpillar dangling in his bill. It seems he had 

 a special reason to be an.xious for his nest is in a cavity of one of the decayed 

 birch trunks, the doorwa}- only a foot and a half from the ground. 



However, it would be difficult to find the cavity in the birch, for the space 

 is filled up to the door with birds and bedding; si.x young Chickadees— all well 



COXDITIOX OF FE.\THERS OX A WARM DAY 



and verv sleepv — on what seems an unnecessarily warm bed for June. The thick 

 gray felt that lines the nest is made up of fur from the coats of cotton-tailed rabbit 

 and varying hare, and has some moss mixed with it. It is hard to see how all 

 six of the birds can get their heads uppermost. Besides, it is impossible to under- 

 stand how they endure the heat from the crowding of their bodies, from their 

 feathers and their fur blankets. But they seem contented and show eager eyes 

 between-times, as well as when the old birds come to feed them. They have 

 only one strong interest in life. They may put in much time preening their feath- 

 ers; they may climb over their brothers while stretching out one foot and one 

 wing. But they are all of the time merely waiting, listening for a familiar flutter 

 of wings or for a tender "tsip, tsip;" and they respond when they hear it with an 

 amusing chorus of throaty " chick-a-dee-dees. " 



July passes and August comes. Blackberries are ripe, and winds from the 

 fields bring odors of cut grass and ferns. It is now that families of Chickadees 

 leave the woods to travel along the roadways. They follow one another in undu- 



