This Carolina Chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) was busily extracting seeds from the spiky sweetgum seed balls when I spotted it high in a tree on Wednesday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. The chickadee would dangle upside down from the branch to snag a seed with its bill and bring the seed back onto the branch to eat it.
In this image, the chickadee appeared to be eying its next target—the seed ball in the lower left of the shot.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
It’s amazing to me that the birds can work around all that prickliness to retrieve those seeds.
Fortunately the spikes are not as sharp as thorns, though I suspect they would hurt if I walked on them with bare feet. I think the seeds must be fairly close to the surface, because it looked like the chickadee did not have to dig deeply to extract them from the pod. Sometimes the chickadee even hung from the seed pod while working on it–chickadees must be really light in weight.
Happiest little bird around!
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Great winter scene, Mike.
Thanks, Dan.
Great shot of a flitty, acrobatic little bird. They’re just darling and such fun to watch!
Thanks, Tina. They are definitely acrobatic and energetic, fun to watch but a challenge to photograph.
Such a little beauty, Mike. And a stunning photo of this little chickadee, too!
Thanks. 🙂
Nice closeup image Mike!
“Gumballs” from a Sweetgum tree takes me back to my childhood in northern New Jersey. There was a sweetgum tree on our property (my mother hated it because the gumballs were so difficult to manage). There aren’t many around here, but whenever I see one, I remember. Love the chickadee image. They are so cute!
I really like the spiky look of those “gumballs,” though I can imagine they would be more of a pain if they were in my yard. All I get in my yard are pinecones, which are a bit more managaable. 🙂
Gorgeous I also love my little blackcaps.