February 4

The chick-a-dees seem to be in a frenzy this afternoon at the feeder outside the sunroom. Sarah will fill the tube in the morning with black oil sunflower, and by midafternoon it is nearly ¾ empty. Spend time watching the feeder for a few minutes, and it is easy to see why the feed drops so quickly.

With four perching holes at the feeder, each has a chick-a-dee client almost continually. It is comical to watch, with chick-a-dees-in-waiting either perched on the top of the tube itself or the shepherd’s pole or fluttering nearby waiting for a space to vacate. At one time I counted 16 birds near the feeder, all in a frenzy trying to get their fill of seed.

This degree of earnest foraging may suggest the beginning stage of preparing for the summer migration. Such birds will accumulate fat reserves from which they draw upon when making their long return flights to the north.

Without the feeder here, the birds would rely on the natural seed, cast off from either tree or weed, and likely they would forage in the lower woods or the line of spruce across the road. And in those non-mast years, when the trees produce far less seed, the birds are more earnest about their pickings. This may explain why it seems particularly frenetic at our feeder, as if the available food source in the surrounding woods is thin, while our high-protein sunflower is gluttonously plenty.

We’ll enjoy them for awhile – the friendly little chick-a-dees, who seem unperturbed by our coming and goings, cocking their heads and regarding us with small beady black eyes as we pass closely by. They, the juncos and the titmice are our predominant winter small birds in the dooryard. We have our house finches, yellows, starlings and grackles, cardinals and jays. But the chick-a-dees remain our affable feeder tenants.