Chickadee mama

We’ve been scrupulously avoiding the chickadee nest to not put her off, but we haven’t seen chickadees in the area for ages.  So when H.W. asked “can we go look in the nest yet?” I agreed because I was dying to know too.  It’s been about three weeks so I was assuming they had abandoned it because of us.  We tiptoed over and peeked in.  She’s in there!  At least eight inches down in a cylindrical hole smaller than a pop can, I saw the top of her little black cap and her beak, looking around.  Yay!  We didn’t put her off; she’s busy making some more tiny chickadees.  What a super-secure little silo of a nest.  No wonder chickadees seem pretty reproductively successful.