Anne, congratulations on the chickadees, the cutest (and friendliest) of the cute. Pruning dead wood now makes more sense than trying to prune it out when even the live canes look dead, I think. No harm in pruning if there's no activity around the nests, which there would be right now if they were being used. Many bird species don't use the same nesting places from one year to the next, or even salvage the materials. Other species build decoy or preliminary nests that never get used (bush-tits do this). In addition to watching the behavior of the birds, if there is a question, biologists use a mirror attached to an extension pole to check nests for eggs when the birds are away to see if they are seriously using a nest or just "hanging around". Guidelines for creating habitat for birds frequently mention including thorny and/or dense shrubs to provide refuges from predators. Plus, from a "natural selection" point of view, it seems intuitive that birds nesting in thorny shrubs would be more likely to fledge offspring. On the Las Pilitas Nursery website, in the entry for Ribes speciosum (fuchsia-flowered gooseberry, as thorny as 'Mermaid', worse than barbwire, but I love it), the author talks about how the hummingbird lives in his for two months of the year, and can use the tufts of cat hair stuck on the spines to build a nest. Alister Stella Grey is dense and armed and no cat (or Cooper's hawk) goes there, for sure. Debbie

I just caught a cheeky chestnut backed chickadee eating my lobelia flower buds. And when I went outside to chase him away, he just kept going to town, having himself a hey-day! Cute, but really? I wonder how long this has been going on, as it's the first time I've witnessed it. I put some seeds and peanuts in a dish for him to keep him happy and away from the new little buds. I hope this helps.

I've been enjoying the birds eating from my hand and off my hat as I walk around the yard for years. Chickadees are the easiest, but if I lean on a tree, the nuthatches will come hop-hop-hopping down the tree to my hat, or run down my arm, or go looking in my pocket for the cache of sunflower seeds they know are there, but they'll never fly directly to you and land ON you, like the chickadees - always above on a tree & then they hop down onto me. The chickadees are so bold they land on me in droves, but are actually usually quite polite. They'll perch on shoulders & arms, waiting to grab a seed, each in their turn, from my hand or hat. If I put my hand flat against my chin with knuckles up, like a landing pad, and put a single sunflower seed between my lips, the chickadees will land & take the seed from between my lips, like they're giving me a kiss. I had an idea that I'll work on. I'll fill a beer can with seed and tip it so the chickadees will reach in to grab a seed. It'll look like they're having a beer with their buddy in the back yard, and I'm sure I can come up with a caption when I get around to working on the shot. Al

If you locate the point on the map where Interstate 80 crosses the Ohio/Pa line I am exactly 3.5 miles S.W. of that point and we are having just the opposite here. I have at least 15 Cardinals here daily, and on one occasion i counted 25 as well as 15 to 20 Bluejays and a flock of about 40 Morning doves that come both morning and evening. I have seen as many as 6 Nuthatches on the hopper feeder at one time. To date I have photo documented 7 species of sparrows and the Tufted Titmice, Juncos and Chickadees are too numerous to count. the hopper feeder holds about 5lb of seed and I have to fill it at least twice a day, sometimes three times. About 6 feet from the hopper I have a suet feeder on the tree trunk and I have seen as many as three Downy Woodpeckers on it at one time, plus I have confirmed at least 4 Red bellied Woodpeckers, a couple Hairy Woodpeckers and on one occasion I saw a Pileated Woodpecker, although he was here and gone too fast to get a picture. I have two tube type Nyger feeders for Finches, which are attracting House Finches and Gold Finches, although we are not seeing as many Finches as usual. The last 50lb bag of bulk birdseed I bought seemed to have about 20% cracked corn in it. Most of the smaller birds are tossing the corn on the ground, but in the last two weeks I have noticed about 10 to 15 Wild Turkeys feeding on the corn in the dim light just before sunup and the Sparrows and Juncos seem to ground feed on it throughout the day, not to mention that we have had a few crows drop in. Yesterday I saw a flock of crows fly over and I couldn't believe it. It took almost 15 minutes for the full flock to pass. All in all, I would say we are seeing far more birds than usual this year. Fortunately we have an ideal environment for birds here. Our house is on a 5 acre lot which is surrounded with 60ft high pine trees on the perimeter, a small 3 acre cattail swamp on one side and a 25 acre open field on the other. One the opposite side of the cattail swamp there is a 35 acres open horse pasteur and all of that is surrounded by about 400 acres of old growth hardwoods. The houses on our road are about 1/4 mile apart, and I spend a lot of time hiking the area with my camera. In talking to the neighbors I have discovered that I am the only one within a mile either way that has bird feeders. As a winter project 5 guys at the Senior center have spent the winter building over 100 nesting boxes which we intend to hang throughout the woods area in the next two to three weeks.