Chickadee dee dee

Just picture in your head a little Chickadee flitting about a garden. Cheeping at you every now and then. So lighthearted, so carefree, imagine it drinking from the bird bath. Aww, such a sweet image...

Now let me tell you about the real critters; the angry, violent, highly skilled birds of prey known as the Chickadee. These natural born assassins are an insect's worst nightmare. Black-capped Chickadees can devour up to 1,000 insects a day each, their songs contain a highly sophisticated communication system and they can be hand-tamed (if you don't mind losing a few fingers in the process... I kid).

So naturally when I saw Japanese Beetles chowing down on our sad little strawberry plant I immediately thought "If only I had some hungry little birdies around." Considering neither of us know the song for "Please come eat these evil bugs" in Chickadee, we resorted to another option.

This is where I offer many thanks to the wonderful Shaw Creek Bird Supply site. Using their brilliant plans for building a Black-capped Chickadee Nest Box, we were able to quickly assemble a home fit for royalty (of the Chickadee kind). Somehow we happened to have a 4' section of 1" x 6" laying in the garage and using our handy-dandy saw, brad nailer, drill and Rotozip we produced this:


Oddly enough later the same afternoon we had two black-capped cuties eating at our bird feeder. I don't expect they'll move in right away but a cozy home awaits them. By the way, if you would like to hear more about the cute, innocent, sheltered, narrow view of Chickadees have a listen to this ditty.