Chickadee 
because the bigger, louder birds have come back, 
and the big leaves have come out and hidden him. 
A little searching, and you will discover him, in one 
of your old decayed fence posts, maybe, or else deep 
in the swamp, foraging for a family so numerous 
that they spill over at the door of their home. 
Here about the farm, this is sure to be a gray 
birch home. Other trees will do—on a pinch. I 
have found chickadee nesting in live white oaks, 
maples, upturned roots, and tumbling fence posts. 
These were shifts, however, mere houses, not real 
homes. The only good homelike trees are old gray 
birches dead these many years and gone to punk, — 
mere shells of tough circular bark walls. 
Why has chickadee this very decided preference ? 
Is it a case of protective coloration, — the little gray 
and black bird choosing to nest in this little gray and 
black tree because bird and tree so exactly match each 
other in size and color? Or (and there are many 
instances in nature) is there a subtle strain of poetry 
in chickadee’s soul, something esthetic, that leads 
him into this exquisite harmony, —into this little gray 
house for his little gray self ? 
Explain it as you may, it is a fact that this little 
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