I'm sure many of you provide a variety of nesting material this time of
year. We've stumbled upon what must be the ultimate: bison hair(fur)! My
wife visited the nearby bison ranch with a preschool class and came away
with handfuls of the shed stuff. It's incredibly soft and the chickadees
(Chestnut-backed) can't get enough of it.
The original ranges of the 2 species may have intersected in NW Montana.
I'd like to think we're reintroducing them through the nesting process. And
while bison are open country animals it's not unusual to see 1 hunkered down
under a lone tree not far from a woodlot (we saw this very thing in Theodore
Roosevelt National Park) used by Chestnut-backed Chickadees. Otherwise, the
twain should never have met.
Steve Ellis
Coupeville,Wa
sellis at coup.wednet.edu