The chickadee flies in with food and flies out with a fecal sac. In the meadow, yellow iris like a tour group in a crowd of dame’s-rocket.
chickadee
May 30, 2013
The female chickadee perches motionless in the mouth of the den. The male gives her an inchworm and she sits holding it for half a minute.
May 28, 2013
The hollow tock of a chipmunk calling from within the rock wall. A chickadee perched atop the stump opens his wings wide to shake off rain.
May 21, 2013
The chickadees take turns carrying insects into their hole, bold, ignoring my presence a few feet away. From the hidden chicks, nary a peep.
May 19, 2013
Each bird I see has something in its beak: wren—a streamer of dried grass, chickadee—a seed, towhee—a bundle of stalks, grackle—a millipede.
May 13, 2013
A chickadee lands on the cherry snag and chitters till his mate emerges from the hole. He gives her a bit of food and they fly off together.
May 8, 2013
A catbird mews from within the crabapple’s scandalous maroon. It starts to rain. A chickadee carries a worm into its hole in the stump.
April 24, 2013
A chickadee carries a piece of gray down into their hole in the tree; its mate follows it in. A minute later it carries the down back out.
April 15, 2013
The chickadee hears squirrels chattering alarm at a hawk and freezes in the mouth of her half-finished hole, dark eyes darting all about.
April 13, 2013
Only the tail-tip of the chickadee now protrudes from the dead cherry tree, and I can barely hear it hammering at the rotten heartwood.
April 10, 2013
While one chickadee digs out their den, pecking at the rotten cherry wood, its mate waits atop the stump, grooming its pale breast feathers.
April 8, 2013
Back from migration, a Louisiana waterthrush sings above the trickle of a stream. Chickadees excavate a den hole in the dead cherry stump.
February 26, 2013
Chickadees are geniuses at staying busy. I watch the usual flock of five investigate the lilac as if they’d never seen it in their lives.
February 17, 2013
Sun shining through a flurry. Two chickadees weave madly through a barberry bush, the pursued bird trying to enlist the thorns on its side.