By Alice Martin

Friends of a Feather

You see them year around. Their oversized round head and tiny body, not to mention their curiosity about everything, have made them almost universally considered “cute.” Their black cap and bib and white cheeks are distinctive, and thus, the Black-capped Chickadee is one of the easiest birds to identify, even for little kids.  Interestingly, a flock of Black-capped Chickadees is called a “banditry” because those markings on their face and neck make them look like they’re wearing a bandit’s mask. 

Their songs are distinctive and complex, a dazzling array of calls.  Adults can make as many as 16 different calls, all with different meanings to communicate on the identity of each other and the recognition of other flocks as well as warning about predators.  The “chick-a-dee-dee-dee” call is far more complex than it sounds, with information encoded in each note. Generally, the more “dees” that ring out, the greater the threat a predator poses. In the spring, when they sing the most, their song is the highly recognizable “fee-bee” song, with the second syllable lower than the first.  

Once you learn their songs, you are more likely to hear them before you see them.  When you do see a flock of Black-capped Chickadees, look closely.  You may make sightings of other song birds because migrating birds, when in an unfamiliar area, will attach themselves to a flock of chickadees.  Perhaps part of the reason for this attraction is that the migrants can recognize the chickadees alarm call when they have no alarm call themselves. 

The chickadees form pairs in the fall and remain together as part of the winter flock.  Once winter is over, the pairs begin to defend their nesting territory.  Their nest site is a nesting box, if available, but typically they enlarge an existing small cavity in rotten wood or use a woodpecker’s old hole.  The female lays 5 to 8 eggs which she incubates for 12 to 13 days while the male feeds her.  

Like many birds, Black-capped Chickadees are omnivorous. They eat a diet of seeds, berries, insects, invertebrates, and occasionally small portions of carrion. Chickadees also love to eat suet and peanut butter offered at bird feeders.  They don’t stick around the feeder very long at a time.  They fly in, grab a piece or two and fly away to store the food and eat it later.  They are the ultimate “preppers” for the long, cold winter hiding up to 80,000 (unbelievable, I know) seeds and insect parts in the fall.  

The miraculous thing is that they remember the hiding places so they can retrieve their food during the winter.  Their brain weighs about as much as a raisin, but like the human brain, contains hippocampal structures that are used for spatial memory.  Amazingly, during the fall, the volume of the chickadee’s hippocampus expands by about 30 percent and retains that volume during the winter.  In the spring, the size of the brain returns to its pre-caching volume and the memory of where all those seeds were hidden disappears.  The brain is basically rewired ready for the next round of hiding food.

During this cold season, we find shelter in our warm houses and tuck in under blankets and quilts. Somehow those tiny birds survive, even on the coldest nights.  Of course, they have that “blanket” of feathers that they can puff up to create air spaces warmed by their own bodies. They shelter in nesting holes and, on the coldest nights, they can decrease their body temperature from 107.6 degrees Fahrenheit to around 82 degrees Fahrenheit to conserve energy. Very few other birds can replicate this feat.  

Black-capped Chickadees, in addition to being curious, are also very friendly and can become quite accustomated to your presence and your generosity with the food they like.  In fact, when I fill a feeder, they are frequently back to dining before I get back into the house.  I’ve seen videos of chickadees eating out of a human hand…could happen to you if you have a lot of patience.  My father was a tree farmer and when he’d head into woods for the afternoon, he’d bring along a lunch box with a thermos of coffee and a sandwich and a couple of cookies.  He told me about the Black-capped Chickadees gathering in the trees and some of them flying down and landing on him.  No doubt that was because they learned that he shared his lunch.  I wish I had seen that. 

‘Til next time, happy birding!