I noticed a Black-capped Chickadee fluttering its wings at another Black-capped Chickadee the past two mornings. While this behavior can be part of courting behavior at times, I believe in this case that the fluttering was being done by a recently fledged BCCH. When the other chickadee flew off the flutterer flew off in pursuit. Since Chickadees are cavity nesters and stay here year round, they are able to start nesting earlier than most songbirds.

I put up one of my two hummingbird feeders up on April 15. Two days later I had my first Calliope Hummingbird of the season. It was a male and returned to the feeder on a regular basis. On the evening of the 25th, I noticed a hummingbird sitting on a fence on the other side of the house looking down at where the other feeder should be. I immediately filled it up and hung it out. By mid-morning on the 26th a female Calliope was sipping at the new feeder. Since then it almost seemed as though the feeder on the east side of the house was designated for the boys and the one on the west side was for the girls. A pair of Rufous Hummingbirds showed up at dusk last night and they followed the same protocol.

Lindell Haggin