Feeding Chickadees

Almost every day I go out at the same time to feed my little chickadee friends.  I'm getting better at taking pictures of them on my hand.  They are bold and inquisitive, and today, one of them flew right at me when I was in another part of the yard, as if it was expecting me to magically produce seeds.  I just adore them!  I also had a nuthatch take a seed from my hand last week.  I haven't had it happen again, but I keep hoping.

Sometimes they take more than one seed, but I haven't managed to get a picture of that yet.

Look at those cute little birdie toes!

Some of the seeds are already out of their shells, making easier work for the birds.  This chickadee was smart and chose an unshelled seed!

I have about 5 that regularly land on my hand now.  Then I have this little one.  He is trying to be brave enough, but he's not quite there yet.  Every day, I am very patient and keep hoping that he will figure out that I'm not going to hurt him.  In the meantime, I sometimes raise my hand a bit so he hangs upside-down from the branch and grabs a seed, rather than landing on my hand.

I bought a "Pampered Chef" stoneware dish last week from a thrift store with the intent of creating a mosaic inside it to make it into a pretty birdbath.  I haven't managed to get around to that project yet, so I decided to put the birdbath dish outside for the time being until I could get to my mosaic project.  I set it into a wire chair-shaped form that Marc had in his shed and which he wasn't using.  I think the device is supposed to hold a flower basket, but I thought it would make a good birdbath holder.  It was out for several days and I wasn't getting any visitors, so I felt like my efforts were for naught.

Today, I was very pleased to see I had a bather!  Forgive the fact that these pictures aren't great - they were taken through the glass of my office window.

What a cute little bird - I'm not even sure what it is.  It might be a junco or a sparrow.  It's a bit wet and bedraggled so it's hard to ID the species.

I'm so happy to see that the birds will use the bath.  Stay tuned for my mosaic project, one of these days!  I leave you with a shot of a red-breasted nuthatch enjoying a seed from my feeder.