Pg29

Look at this face . . . you just can’t help loving a bird as cute as this! It’s the

Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) and another of the birds that I see all year.

One Autumn, when all the birds come to the feeders to get seeds, which they then proceed to fly off with

and cache away in the surrounding trees for the winter, a particular Titmouse was getting his seeds, then

simply hopping over to my wooden porch, just two flaps away, and hiding seeds in a crack between the boards.

This, you understand, was within sight of every other bird in the yard. So, as he jumped back the few feet

to the feeder to get another seed, some other bird would fly in and get the seed that he had a moment

before deposited in the porch. This was like a Three Stooges sketch, and went on for several minutes while I

watched and chuckled. Finally, Mr. Titmouse, upon bringing yet another seed to hide in the porch, took a look

at his stash and you could see the light bulb going on above his head, “Hey, wait a minute, where are all the

other seeds that I stuck in here??!”

The shot below is one of my favorite “feeder meeting” photos. The Titmouse and the

Pine Warbler look like a traffic sign: “Titmice to the right – Warblers to the left.”

2 Feb 08

This one, of December 22, 2009, looks like it

just stepped out of the shower and got dressed

up for a date!

As you can tell from

the number of shots

included on this page,

the Titmouse is one

of my favorites.

28 Dec 2011

30 Dec 2011