Feather, Light, and Air

Did you know there’s a whole volume of chickadee poems? I’m apparently one of many fans of this cheerful, talkative, hardy, round little acrobat. Anna Botsford Comstock points out that the winter birds have a special place in the hearts of Northeasterners, and I would agree.

Thornton Burgess relates that as a boy practicing with his first gun, he shot a chickadee. But he always regretted it. It made “Tommy Tit,” the chickadee of the Burgess Bird Book, his favorite of all the birds. It was one of the experiences that helped him to understand his chosen tool was the typewriter, not the gun, as an intermediary between himself and the natural world.

Here are a few photos of a chickadee feeding on our pine cone feeder out front. I’m impressed by the athleticism of these round little birds. Clearly it’s not only the large, soaring birds who know a thing or two about aerobatics.