Backyard Birder

Chickadee II

I fried the computer which held the database for this blog. All my bird pics were on that computer, as well. I did have a backup of the blog, so I was able to do a restore. I am still hoping to gain access to the bird pics, but it'll be a couple of weeks more, at least. The Downy cam went down with this, as well. That was no big loss, I have not seen any activity lately. The cam is back online, and hopefully there will soon be something to watch. (It would have been nice to turn it into a hummingbird cam!)

On my way to clean the birdbath the other day, I noticed a chickadee sitting on the ant trap, on top of the hummingbird feeder. I like chickadees, so I didn't want to scare it away. I stood there and watched it as it ducked it's head down in the ant trap to get a drink. I thought, that figures! I clean the birdbath and fill it with fresh water everyday. I add water to the ant trap when I notice it is empty, but I sure don't clean it! Anyway, after getting a drink, it flew to the box feeder. It landed on the side away from the Wingscapes camera. There are a couple of small holes on the side of the feeder, and it was using one to get something to feed on. Then it flew to the feeder hanger and started to sing. Being a chickadee, it didn't stay there very long. It flew down to the top of the feeder and sang some more. It continued to fly to various spots on the feeder and sing. Meanwhile, a dove landed on the ground under the feeder and was pecking away at the ground. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a squirrel off to my right. It wasn't any farther away then what the birds were, which wasn't very far at all! But then the birds flew off, and I continued on to the birdbath.

For the first time, I noticed a sign of activity at the hummingbird feeder. Namely, the water got cloudy. But I did not notice the water level dropping any faster than usual. The Wingscapes camera caught a possible culprit! I believe that this is my friend, the chickadee. I might re point the camera to better view the hummingbird feeder. I sure would like to see one.

A couple more chickadee shots, here and here. I changed these links to open in a new window. Is that better, or would you rather hit the 'back' button on the browser? I guess it is six of one, and half a dozen of the other. :) edit: I changed it to open in the same window.