I never thought I had a photo suitable for your Photos of Readers feature, until I remembered this one from my camera roll from 2017. Here’s the story behind it.
I’m a computer engineer by trade, but my love of nature and wildlife has taught me to take notice of anything that happens outside of human activity, and gardening has been an excellent way to observe plant and animal diversity and behavior.
The Chestnut-backed Chickadee (Poecile rufescens) is common here in the suburban areas of the SF Bay Area. They stay around all year, visit bird feeders regularly, and have always entertained this human observer. I had never observed their flocking behavior before this day, so it isn’t clear to me if this was a random foraging flock or a recently fledged nest of youngsters. (This happened on May 7.) They immediately caught my attention due to their “Chickadee chatter” and their flying extremely close to me while I tended to my garden.
This one alighted on my shoulder as the rest of the flock flew off. I looked at her, she looked back at me with no concern, and allowed me to fetch my smartphone out of my pocket and fumble with it while I launched the photo app in selfie mode. She obliged this one photo before she flew off to rejoin her flock. I’d like to think she was thanking me for keeping the bird feeder full of sunflower and peanut chips over the winter, but I’m sure she was just taking a short rest. I’m grateful she stayed around long enough for me to snap a photo so I could re-live the moment and ultimately share it with you and your readers.
Nice
Nice shot! Those little guys are very friendly around here, west of Toronto. Especially in parks they hit you up for snacks. Where do you live in the Bay Area (former Palo Alto, SF, and Berkeley resident)?
I’ve been in Sunnyvale for the last 30 years, with previous stays in Mountain View, Menlo Park, and East Palo Alto.
The Chickadee visitors to the bird feeder are never shy, and give a little angry chatter if I’m too close or if the feeder is empty. They have lots of trees nearby to forage and nest, but one will come every few minutes to the feeder and sort through a number of chips before finding a satisfactory one. We like to respond with our own “Bee-bee-beep” when we hear one.
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I used to see the black-capped chickadee in New York before moving west. They were pretty friendly too, but they never landed on me. I think it must be a good omen.
Very cool. Every year we have a couple families of barn swallows that nest in the eaves. Their chicks are always tame and curious, but they’ve never landed on me. I’m jealous!
I’ve had several events with hummingbirds using my red hat. Michigan ruby throats.
You’re one lucky guy, Gary! Never had a chickadee perch on me – just butterflies (at a butterfly sanctuary), moths and squirrels.