CHICKADEE
(Parus sp.)
Length about 5 inches. Resident in most of North America.
Because of its delightful notes, its flitting ways, and its fearlessness, the chickadee is one of our best known birds. It responds to human encouragement, and by hanging a constant supply of suet this black-capped visitor can be made a regular feeder in suburban gardens or city yards. Though small in size, these cousins of the titmice are highly useful against insects, gleaned mostly from the twigs and branches of trees. The chickadee’s food is made up of insects and seeds, largely seeds of pines, with a few of the poison ivy, some weeds, and sunflowers.
BLUEBIRD
(Sialia sp.)
About 6 inches long, bluebirds breed in the United States, southern Canada, Mexico, and Guatemala, wintering in the southern half of the Eastern United States and south to Guatemala.
The bluebird was once a familiar tenant of towns, hailed as the herald of a new vernal season, and decidedly domestic in its habits. About the time that starlings became so very numerous, it declined in numbers. No one is sure why its numbers fell but competition for nest sites by starlings and house sparrows is certainly partly responsible. Recently it has begun to reappear in many places.
Its favorite nesting sites are natural cavities in old trees, boxes made for its use or crannies in buildings. Nesting boxes may be restoring the species, whose occupants pay rent by destroying insects. The bluebird’s diet consists of 68 percent insects and 32 percent vegetable matter. The commonest items of insect food are grasshoppers first and beetles next, while caterpillars stand third. Small flocks sometime invade yards for the red fruits of flowering dogwood trees.