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

A couple of cool items about the Black Capped Chickadee * They are adapted to the cold. To conserve energy, they can lower their body temperature by 10 degrees when resting. There's even a species of Chickadee call Boreal Chickadee that live even further North. * They cache food in several places and have good memory of where and when they cached it. This is so they can eat the food before it goes bad. * Chickadee often arrive in small flocks which has a hierarchy. * Studies have shown that they only eat about 20% of their food from the feeder. Taking away a feeder won't aversely affect them. In really cold climate, it will increase their survival rate. * They are often harbinger of other birds to the bird feeder. They are good at finding food and other birds watch them. * Their beaks are too small to crack a seed, they carry it to a branch and break it open by pecking on it. * They are fairly bold and can be trained to eat out of your hand.

I really feel for you, house wrens (as I've written here earlier this month) killed our baby chickadees, threw them out of the nestbox and built their own nest on top of the chickadees' nest. So I have no love for them either. I have had to accept their presence here, but I think maybe there is something I could have done - I read here on this forum earlier this spring that if you are very vigilant you can remove any nests when the wrens build them - as long as there are no eggs laid yet (at least this is the strict interpretation.) I did remove a wren nest once this spring but could have paid closer attention to that (whereas I paid most attention to the chickadees). I guess the idea is that if you keep discouraging any building they do, the wrens will eventually give up. I did not keep that up, and maybe if I had the wrens would not have bothered the chickadees. In the end the wrens raised a brood right in my yard. I know there are folks far more seasoned than I in dealing with this and hopefully they will put their two cents in. Good luck, Donna

I didn't realise how far south these guys are until I saw this post and checked a range map. They are neat little birds, one of my 18 life birds from an Alaska trip years ago. Thanks for the memories! -O-