Hand Feeding Chickadees!

Gena and I decided to walk a few laps around our marsh yesterday afternoon but we didn't get very far before we were waylaid by several chickadees looking for a hand-out. It was a cold day with a bitter northeast wind but it was well worth the frozen and numb fingers to bond with these adorable little birds.

The chickadees will eat of Gena's or my hand but in this video Gena is feeding them while I documented it with my new point and shoot camera. This is a great little camera to take on walks because it's nice and light...a lot easier than carrying heavy DSLR equipment. Not long ago it was a big deal to have 1-2 chickadees feed from our hand but the population is slowly growing and yesterday there must have been 3-5 birds flying in for a treat.

When we first started feeding them a year ago they would fly in close to investigate but they wouldn't perch on our hand. We solved that problem by placing our hand under a small branch where the chickadees could safely perch, grab a seed and fly away. As you can see by the above photo a few of the birds now feel confident enough to perch on our hand and let me tell you, words can't describe the feeling of a chickadee wrapping it's little toes around your finger!

This chickadee even took the time to pause and check out the human!

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