[birdky] Interesting bird behavior

Witnessed a most interesting posturing behavior from an chickadee this morning. 
 There was a squirrel with it's head sticking out of a dead snag.  The squirrel 
was watching me.  The chickadee was about 6 inches above the squirrel and 
hanging upside down by it's toes with its wings and tail flared out widely.  
From this position it swung slowly back and forth.  I thought it was a bat 
until I put binoculars on it.  I can only surmise that it was guarding a nest 
cavity and it was trying to look BIG in the face of danger.  Surprisingly,  it 
never made a sound and at one point was only hanging on by one foot as it let 
the slight breeze swing it's body almost like a leaf flipping back and forth.  
I've never before witnessed this behavior and wished I could have caught it on 
film.  Other interesting sighting this morning were 2 Little blue herons a 
couple of  blue-headed vireos.  This incident occurred in the Barlow bottoms in 
Ballard county.

Scott Record
Ragland KY

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