Cambridge, Mass.
1911.
Feb. 13
[February 13, 1911]

Chickadee indulging in curiously erratic flight

  Looking out one of the windows at the
rear of our house about eight o'clock this morning
I saw three Chickadees in the lilacs. A moment later
one of them began flying in a most erratic manner
back and forth through the thicket, pursuing corners
quite as devious and making turns almost as abrupt
as any [male] Gypsy Moth engaged in a search for a mate,
winding, now high, now low, through the densest
possible maze of interlacing branches and moving very
swiftly, yet not once hitting the smallest twig.
This was repeated several times by the same bird
at intervals of a minute or less each flight lasting
perhaps half a minute and extending the whole length
of the thicket which was travelled, however, in mazy
lines. I have seen Chickadees do the same thing
before (but not often) and about the same time of
year, if I remember rightly. What can it mean.