I was going to clean out this next box when I found a live Black-capped Chickadee nestling. Photographed on September 3, 2023. All photographs by the author.

I was in my yard watering some plants on Sunday, September 3, 2023, when I noticed a Black-capped Chickadee in flight near one of my nest boxes. I could not tell if it had flown out of the box or if it was just flying past it. I usually have a pair of chickadees nesting in this box most years early in the nesting season in either April or May. After the first nesting I clean out the box and occasionally they will have a second brood in June. This year, there had been two active nests in the box. Maybe this chickadee was a young bird that fledged earlier in the season coming back to investigate the box it had fledged from, with typical chickadee curiosity.