Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1947-12-15
This and That
By Charles E. Trdce1uell
INT. PLEASANT

MI. PLEASANT.
Dear Sir:
Il would like to have you write piece about
the chickadee. I know you haVe touched upon
his good qualities many times, but I want to
read a glowing tribute to him.
we have great many birds here, but the
chickadee is by all odds my favorite.
Such brave little mite, in such cold and
bitter world!
Cant he help us humans to become better?
Sincerely, E. S. O."
The chlckadee Is his own best tribute
Whether he CLOVIS or not, is matter of per-
sonal opinion.
To many watchers he is cheerful. The song
proclalmS him so, and his tidy, busy way of
flying in and out of feeding station fully sup
ports the verdict
He is almost the smallest of all the 10 and
more Wintering birds
His weight is about half an ounce
Not much stuff to face the cold with, but
evidently enough for all practical and esthetic
purposes. for this small bird not only braves
the weather successfully, but he somehow man.
ages to make thousands of humans his hackers
1t is not his smallness alone; there is some
thing in the way he manages himself, minute
after minute, and day after day, that wins the
heart of all.
The cheerful chickadee with his neat black
A field description shows him as a gray bird
with black cap and small black bib beneath
his chin; the back, wings and tail, gray, the
feathers OF the wings and tail with white edges;
the cap and bib very black.
The sides of the head and the neck are whit
ish, with the abdomen and sides Of body slight
ly brownish.
Sunfiower seeds are sure to attract him. while
now and then he likes beef suet.
He flies in, maybe standing head down, or
sideways, or upright.
Then he darts away, stopping at shrub 10
or Is feet to one side, where he eats the seed.
His darting way of flying gives him the ap-
fast as any songbird.
Usually he travels with few comrades, but
sometimes these may be titmice, which belong
to the same bird group.
The titmouse has clean little call, from
which he gets his name, chick-a- dee-dee dee
OF just plain dee-dee-dee
He also makes three-part utterance a bit
on the husky side, but this is not heard as
much as the other
He is almost five and one-half inches long,
but gives the impression of being much smaller
He is widely known as the black-capped
chlckadee, to distinguish him from his relative
the titmouse, which has crest. and streak of
orange along the sides of his body
The chickadee Is, on the whole, an almost
unbelievable bird. And the more you look at
him. the more. so he becomes. At last one would
be willing to believe him wholly unreal, ques-
ton of the imagination if it were not for the
very real way in which he disposes of sunf1ower
seed.
Angel birds, one realizes, would not eat sun
flower seed
AS for the possibilities of this friend Of man
helping us in our present world crisis, what can
he do that the children of all living things have
mt tried RI n vain ,oII
things have smiled and wept trying to keep
their elders from the fray. The fray, alas, Is
in our blood 1t is our share Of what the wild
tiger knows, when he leaps upon the back of a
smaller living thing. The call of the wild is the
call of battle, and unless we come to our senses
soon the battle will do us all in at last We
stand at the portals of common sense. Are we
to hear only the old call to war, after all these
centuries? Is the sullen face Of the mob all
we are to ever know