Today was a day for cleaning out the bird boxes at the Fletcher Wildlife Garden. There were 34 to be looked at, and three had chickadee nests in them. This one, the last box looked at, had one perfect, unhatched egg in it. Black-capped chickadee eggs are quite pale, with a few brown splotches at the larger end. This one was darker than normal, but may be because of age. It has probably been in there since June. The nest itself is typical of chickadees, being a thick mat of moss, lined with bits of hair or fur (often they use rabbit fur and it certainly looks like that is what used here). They will also use insect cocoons too, and one nest I looked at today even had a few strips of green covering from a tennis ball, and a small strip of fibre. Some of the nests had recently been taken over by mice who had burrowed down into the moss and filled the space with seed fluff. The chickadees have long since finished nesting, so one creature departs, and another comes along.