Hi Charlie, I just read your e-mail and noticed the part about the hissing
chickadee. I've heard the exact same thing.
Last spring there was a Black-capped Chickadee nest at my school. It was
inside a teatherball pole. I noticed them flying about with big pieces
of fluff in their beaks.They were trying to get into the pole but whenever
they tryed to someone would run past the pole not knowing anything about the
nest and scaring them. After they got in they didn't come out very much
after that. So I checked on them two weeks later and there were six
eggs.They were quite protective of them.When people came around they would
start hissing. Chickadees are quite entertaining.Well let's hope this
years batch of baby chickadees will survive.
See ya
Jess Findlay, Burnaby.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Charlie Wright" <charlie at birdwright.com>
To: "Tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2003 11:59 PM
Subject: Spring day in the yard


> Hello Tweeters,
>
> Today there were a few interesting birds around - I saw the first
three
> Vaux's Swifts of the year this morning, right on schedule. Later in the
day
> I had a yard bird, a Savannah Sparrow was in one of the brush piles. They
> breed nearby, but my yard itself is not their type of habitat. This one
was
> associating with a Gambell's White-crowned Sparrow, also unusual in my
yard,
> and both of them were trying to stay out of view from the breeding pair of
> pugetensis White-crowns. On April 9th, four singing Fox Sparrows showed
up
> here. Two of them stayed until the next day, and one stayed and sung
> constantly (chasing around the nesting juncos and acting very territorial)
> until yesterday, when it finally decided to head north. This morning
> Yellow-rumped Warblers were flying overhead at a great height in flocks of
> 5-10, up until about 9:00a.m. Two Varied Thrushes are still here, one a
> typical female and one which has no trace of any breast band at all. I'd
> never seen one like that before. Interestingly, both birds were singing
> short, burry whistles.
>
> A pair of Chestnut-backed Chickadees is building a nest; for the first
6
> days they used exclusively green moss from the lawn, and since then have
> been finding bits of dry grass and especially animal fur around the yard.
> Today I saw one of them (I believe the female, the male was "singing" a
> short ways off) defending the nest from the White-crowned Sparrow pair.
It
> would fly at them, and make a surprisingly loud hissing noise very much
like
> a large snake. After the chickadee did this about 5 times, the sparrows
got
> the message and flew to another area of the yard. This hiss is the same
> noise I've heard females make on the nest while incubating, when
disturbed.
> But I'd never heard the noise outside of a cavity. That's all for now.
>
> Cheers and good birding,
> --
> Charlie Wright
> Sumner, WA
> charlie at birdwright.com
>