birdsoup

 Chickadees are one of my favorite birds.  They are curious birds, one of the first to try out a new bird feeder.  And once they find it, they are daily visitors.  Although they are small in size, they are very bold and will learn to eat from your hand.

Sunflower seeds are their favorite food.  At a feeder, you can watch them pick up one sunflower seed, then drop it and pick up a different one.  Once decide on the best seed, they fly to a nearby branch and, holding the seed firmly against the branch with their feet, crack open the shell with their beak to get to the seed inside.

Studies show that they select sunflower seeds by heft choosing the heaviest seed much like shoppers picking melons in the grocery store.  Scientists filled a feeder with a variety of sunflower seeds, some were empty shells, some were normal seed of various sizes, and others were filled with plaster to make them heavier than normal.   Chickadees consistently chose the heaviest seeds which promised the greatest nutrition for the amount of energy they would expend in cracking it open.