Our big year!

It all started when we watched "The Big Year" last week. A movie about birders who travel across the world trying to spot the most birds in one year. Then, this morning I heard chirping outside while I was sitting on the couch. I pulled the blinds up and waited. Just a few minutes later we saw our first bird feeding off our feeder. My parents have been teasing me because we have a bird feeder on our window, and they didn't see one bird while they were here. Well, our 'big year' has finally started! We determined that it was a Black Capped Chickadee eating out of our feeder! They are normally mountain birds, but come down to lower elevations in the winter to gather food. In the summer, they mainly feed off of insects. In the winter, though, they feed off of seeds and fruits--mainly from human bird feeders. They also collect their food. We watched this chickadee (and later another one as well) take a seed from our feeder and fly to the pine tree across the complex. These two came back at least a dozen times, even when Parker and I were sitting right by the feeder on the couch! Parker LOVES birds! He just sits at the window looking out and waiting for the birds to come back. We have decided that we are going to keep track of the birds we see--hopefully getting pictures of them all. Here is the great picture that I was able to get of this one.

I was able to find information about this bird at this site:

http://www.animalspot.net/black-capped-chickadee.html