Thistles and Chickadees

Today, my grandmother, sister, and me went up the mountain with plastic bags and clippers. We were going to get rid of some of the prolific nonnative thistles, a tall, green plant with sharp spikes and purple flowers. We clipped the flowers off of the plants, and then clipped the entire plant down. The thistles here are choking out the native plants and making the local deer who eat the purple flowers sick. They only have two benefits: they provide food for the Pine Siskings and Broad-tailed and Black-chinned Hummingbirds; and two, They smell good ;). After clipping the flowers for about an hour, we went inside. I stayed on the front porch for awhile. All of a sudden a fairly large Mountain Chickadee landed on the deserted bird feeder on the porch. I watched it for awhile squeak and eat, and then it flew into a young pine. Pretty soon a second one came. No birds came back after that though. A pretty uneventful day, except for the encounter with the chickadees and doing my part to help the environment!