608 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



is incubating. He generally appears on the scene at the first 

 sign of trouble, uttering excited "chick-a-dee-dees" and in 

 other ways endeavors to call attention to himself. The female 

 rarely leaves the nest until the stub in which it is situated has 

 been rapped on or otherwise disturbed, so that practically the 

 only way to discover a nest is by rapping hap-hazard on every 

 stub at hand, or by watching until the male goes to feed 

 the female, or by discovering the nest at the time when the 

 birds are building. One to ten feet from the ground are 

 about the extremes of height at which nests are situated, 

 usually about six feet up. 



As soon as the young can leave the nest the whole family 

 take to roving through the woodlands, inspecting the various 

 twigs and limbs of the forest trees for insects and eggs of 

 insects. Occasionally they will descend to the ground to feed 

 or will cling to the tree trunks to eat such tempting morsels as 

 they may have spied, but the branches and twigs form their 

 chief summer hunting grounds. They sometimes feed head 

 downwards, or hang under a limb, but in an entirely different 

 manner from the Nuthatches. 



In late summer and fall they form roving bands, often 

 associated with the Kinglets, Nuthatches and allied species. 

 At such seasons I have occasionally found an impassioned 

 band of Chickadees engaged in "mobbing" a Saw-whet Owl or 

 more rarely an American Long-eared Owl, at which pastime 

 they seem to take great delight, hopping about his owlship 

 and passing excited "dee-dee's," "chick-a-dee-dee's" and other 

 comments of like nature regarding his presence. At such times 

 they have often uttered rasping excited calls which sounded 

 much to my ears like "Qu'est-ce que c'est?" answered by an- 

 other "Quelque chose." In fact some of their liquid excited 

 gabblings remind me always of a crowd of French Canucks 

 engaged in their favorite pastime of passing small gossip. 

 And so as fall passes and winter comes the Chickadees roam 

 in little bands through the snowy woodlands, their ranks now 



