May, 1906 | 
THE CHICKADEE AT HOME 
65 
doorway, and a moment later she popped into the hole and continued her brooding. 
I watched the chickadees for a few days after the eggs were hatched. Both 
birds fed in turn, and the turns were anywhere from three to ten minutes apart. 
From the time the callow chicks were hatched, 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 thoroly. Such numbers of spiders they ate, and green caterpillars and 
brown worms, grasshoppers, daddy-long-legs, moths, millers and flies, besides 
untold numbers of eggs and larvae. Everything was grist that went to the chick- 
adee mill. The way they could turn insects into feathers, distributing black and 
white pigments just where 
they belonged, was simply 
marvelous. A baby chickadee 
changes about as much in a 
day as a human baby does in 
a year. 
One can readily estimate 
the amount of insect life that 
is destroyed in a day, when 
the parents return every few 
minutes with food. Think of 
how closely every bush and 
tree is gone over everywhere 
about the nest. One chicka- 
dee nest in an orchard means 
the destruction of hundreds 
and maybe thousands of harm- 
ful insects and worms every 
day. It more than pays for 
all the fruit the birds can de- 
stroy in a dozen seasons. 
I spent two whole days at 
the nest before the young 
chicks were ready to leave 
home. The owners of the 
stump seemed to think we had 
placed the camera there for 
their convenience, for they 
generally used the tripod for 
a perch. Then they always 
r J CHICKADEE AT NEST HOLE 
paused a second at the thres- 
hold before entering. The seven eggs had pretty well filled the nest. Now it 
looked like an overflow. It seemed to me that if the little chicks continued to 
grow they would either have to be stacked up in tiers or lodged in an upper story. 
Once the mother came with a white miller. She had pulled the wings off, but 
even then it looked entirely too big for a baby’s mouth. Not a single nestling but 
wanted to try it. When the mother left, I looked in and one little fellow sat with 
the miller bulging out of his mouth. It wouldn’t go down any further, but he 
lay back in apparent satisfaction; digestion was working at a high speed below. 
I saw the miller gradually slipping down, until finally the last leg disappeared as 
he gave a strenuous gulp. 
