[EBB Sightings] Nesting Chickadees

Last fall my wife, Rosita, put a small bird box in our patio.  Our house is 
just north of Heather Farm Park in Walnut Creek and the patio is not much 
bigger than the standard one car garage.  She never really expected anything 
to come of the bird house, it just looked kind of cute in a little Japanese 
maple tree.

Yesterday morning she was commenting on how no birds would ever use the bird 
house.  About 5 minutes later she screamed that one of the pair of visiting 
chickadees had gone inside.  They both checked it out, making sure that the 
walls would support the wide screen tv.  Later in the afternoon, they 
started bring the first pieces of nesting material.  Actually, only one of 
them brings material, the other flies alongside and lends moral support.  It 
also stands guard outside the box.

The chickadees are very defensive.  We have hummingbird feeders in the same 
tree.  The Lesser Goldfinches like to drink water from the ant traps over 
the feeders.  Every time the goldfinches land there, one of the chickadees 
will chase it away.  Rosita had to move the feeders away from the tree.  She 
worries that we have created a monster.

A year ago they nested in a split in an olive tree next to our mailbox by 
the street.  They came and went from our patio with mealworms and seed. 
That they decided to move into the patio is exciting for us.

Hugh B. Harvey