Some Common Birds Useful to the Farmer (1926 edition)Beal, F. E. L. (Foster Ellenborough Lascelles)
Science
Some Common Birds Useful to the Farmer (1926 edition)
Beal, F. E. L. (Foster Ellenborough Lascelles)
Birds -- United States
Examination of 289 stomachs of this chickadee shows that its food
consists of 68 per cent animal matter (insects) and 32 per cent vegetable
matter. The former is made up of small caterpillars and moths and their
eggs. Prominent among the latter are the eggs of the tent caterpillar
moths, both the orchard and forest species. As these are two of our most
destructive insects, the good done by the chickadee in devouring their
eggs needs no comment. During the winter the chickadee's food is made
up of larvæ, chrysalids, and eggs of moths, varied by a few seeds, but
as spring brings out hordes of flying, crawling, and jumping insects,
the bird varies its diet by taking also some of these. Flies and bugs
are the favorites until the weather becomes quite warm, when beetles and
small wasps also are enjoyed. Among the bugs may be mentioned the plant
lice and their eggs which are eaten in winter. The beetles nearly all
belong to the group of snout beetles, more commonly known as weevils.
These insects are mostly of small size, and nearly all are known to the
farmer or fruit raiser as pests. Seventeen of them were found in one
stomach. Grasshoppers do not at any time constitute an important element
of the food of the chickadee, as they are too large for so small a bird;
moreover, they are for the most part terrestrial Insects, while the bird
is essentially arboreal. Small wasps and ants are eaten to some extent
Spiders constitute an Important element of the food and are eaten at all
times of the year, the birds locating them when they are hibernating in
winter, as well as when they are active in summer. The vegetable food of
the chickadee consists largely of small seeds, except in summer, when
they are replaced by pulp of wild fruit. The wax from the seeds of poison
ivy Is eaten during the winter months, but the seeds themselves are not
taken. In this respect the chickadee differs from most other birds, which
swallow the seeds whole; these, after digesting the wax, pass the seeds
through the alimentary canal, or regurgitate them, and so scatter them
broadcast to reproduce the noxious plants.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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