Little snookers

The Winter Bird’s Paradise at Pleasant View. By R. A. Marrison. 1919. P. 8

To return to my story. The grannies, or nuthatches, are also very great pets. Until recently I had supposed they were life-long friends of the chickadees, but now, from close observation, I have learned that they are neither kind friends nor very bitter enemies. Certainly they are greedy, selfish little mortals, who are constantly eating or hiding the chicks’ surplus store of food. They are such sharpeyed little snookers that they almost alwavs find the meats of sunflower seeds, or anything else the chicks hide, whether they see the food hidden or rot. On the other hand, when “grannie” hides anything in a nick in the coarse bark of a tree, or in any other hole, she always covers it with small pieces of bark or lichen.