Chickadees nesting

In the pastel I posted yesterday of White Feather excavating a nest last spring, it turned out that he and his mate left that one for a new one after I did my painting. I heard from Ann Rohr (wrote book called "Mr. Picky and Me") that "T-Bird" and his mate actually used that nest for their brood. This happens alot. Birds work hard to make nests, then abandon them to go off and make another. This can happen becauseperhaps another bird chases them off, or, something abtou the nest doesn't please the birds and they go off to another excavation site. Well, thats my own feelign about the "why?" anyhow.

I was traveling at the time of the final nesting and fledging, so, sadly, I didn't get to see it this year. It may be that "T-bird" rousted "White Feather". You can see these birds depicted on some fo my past posts "White Feather" portrait is "Chickadee #6" (excavation pastel) and "T-Bird" (Ann named this little guy) is "Chickadee #5", for your reference in my past posts.

I need to mention, since I brought up the fact that I feed the wild Chickadees and in turn, get my photo refs for my art work, that there is only one place I do that. The reason being that this particular location is a "safe - zone" ( ... my term). I mean, it doesn't pose a threat to their lives to hand feed them in this location. The particular location is an education center and the birds are territorial, pretty much stickign to one location. So, you see, this place is known to eb "safe" for them.

Anywhere else around here where I spend my time, to hand feed the Chickadees, would be to endanger their lives. Why? you may ask? Because, as will ALL WILDLIFE, its not good for them to learn to trust humans. We who love them can't take that personally, though. For wildlife (like deer, too, for instance), to get them to trust humans ... signs a death warrent for them unfortunately. Why? because too many or our kind (humans) would welcome their closeness to us with a gun for an easy kill. Sad, but, fact.