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The Amazing Chickadee

Chickadee
Illustration by Adelaide Tyrol

Black-capped chickadees are one of the most frequent visitors to our bird feeders in winter, but do we really know them? This common bird exhibits some remarkable behaviors and winter survival strategies.

Undoubtedly you’ve heard the familiar “chicka-dee-dee-dee” call in the winter woods. Soon after spotting the caller, with its black cap and bib, you’ll often notice more chickadees showing up on the scene, all calling. This is known as mobbing behavior. The chickadees are investigating to see if you are a potential threat. The birds don’t usually get too worked up when they see a human. (In fact, individual chickadees can become quite tame around people that provide food.) But they do get alarmed when they spot a perched hawk or owl.

Experiments by Christopher Templeton at the University of Washington found that the intensity of chickadees’ mobbing behavior is related to the size and potential threat of a predator. Templeton presented fifteen different species of predators to chickadees in an aviary, and observed that the greatest response was to small hawks and owls perched in trees. These raptors are more of a danger to chickadees than large hawks and owls because of their ability to maneuver through the woods. The “chick-a-dee” call alerts other chickadees, recruiting them to fly to the area and join in the chorus. Information about the size and potential threat of the predator is encoded in mobbing calls. Chickadees add five, ten, or fifteen more “dee” notes to their call when the threat is greater. Mobbing harasses the predator, lets it know it has been discovered, and usually drives it from the area (the element of surprise is essential to raptor hunting success). Templeton also found that red-breasted nuthatches have learned to read the warnings in chickadee alarm calls.

In winter, chickadees roam the woods in mixed-species flocks. In Maine, author and UVM biology professor emeritus Bernd Heinrich has observed nuthatches, brown creepers, downy woodpeckers, and golden-crowned kinglets following chickadees. In his book Winter World, Heinrich notes that each species forages in different trees, on different parts of the same tree, or specializes in different prey so that they minimize competition with each other. The “many eyes” of the flock help detect danger.

Another advantage of living in a flock, according to Heinrich, is learning about food others have found. Chickadees are omnivorous, and the seeds, fruit, and insects they consume are often widely dispersed but concentrated in or on certain trees or shrubs. Many eyes make the food easier to locate.

Food-caching is another way chickadees survive the winter. The birds will store several hundred seeds or bits of fat from animal carcasses, each in a separate place. Lab experiments have shown that chickadees have an amazing memory and can accurately relocate hiding places, recall what type of food is there, and remember which sites they previously emptied. Colin Saldanha of Lehigh University discovered that in order to do this, the chickadee’s hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for spatial memory, adds new nerve cells in the fall, expanding by about 30 percent. In spring, when its memory is needed less, the hippocampus shrinks to its normal size.

Even with all these remarkable behaviors, how does the little chickadee survive cold winter nights? One adaptation is their plumage: feathers are fantastic insulation and the chickadee’s plumage is denser than that of other birds their size. The birds also fluff up their feathers, trapping air that is then warmed by their bodies. They ball up to sleep in dense conifers or tree cavities, tucking their heads under a wing to reduce heat loss. If the cavity is tight, you might see bent tail feathers in the morning.

As chickadees feed on sunflower seeds at our feeders during the day, they accumulate fat which their bodies burn at night to produce heat. The birds stretch these fat reserves by lowering their body temperatures at night; this decreased physiological activity is known as torpor. They also shiver while asleep, converting muscular energy to heat.

So the next time you look at your feeder and think, “just another chickadee,” take a few moments to watch for some of these behaviors and appreciate the impressive adaptations of this familiar bird.

Discussion *

Mar 04, 2024

I have a bird house by my front door, that chickadee always nest in. Should I remove old abandoned nests, allowing new “tenants”  to build their own, or will they reuse old nests? I want to keep them at their happiest
Thank you
Kathy B

Kathy B
Jul 18, 2021

I have Black Capped chickadees and Mountain chickadees and Nuthatches as well as quite a few others. They all definitely have me trained. The black capped chickadee parents have been taking their youngsters around showing them how to collect bugs and eat nuts from my feeder, and drink out of the hanging water dish. But if the water is low and if there are no nuts I will hear about it from them. They will chatter at my window when I’m in the kitchen very loudly until I come out and refill for them.

Chris Sedlmayr
Sep 27, 2020

I fill my feeders for the little birds in my yard. I have chickadees, cardinals, I think nuthatches & little tree crawlers ( Them I’m not sure). I notice they really like safflower sunflower & black-oil sunflower seeds. I had hummingbirds earlier (only 2) ruby-throated ; they left in early Sept. They would chase each other away from sugar-water! Hope they return next yr.  Well as ling as the birds are here I will continue feeding them! It’s so relaxing watching them & listening to their songs when they decide to sing!!

Debbie Sullivan
Jan 13, 2020

No matter how challenging the weather, chickadees are around the yard, foraging on seeds, caterpillars, and suet.  I love their bold nature, and enjoy seeing them close-up whenever I am able to feed them by hand.  Loved reading your article and learning more about this fearless little bird.  Thank you!

Deborah Lanni
Dec 17, 2019

Having lived in the same location over 20 years the chickadees in my area know me as someone who feeds them.  I don’t feed in the warmer months because of bear.  Only as it gets cooler in the fall, if I walk in the woods chickadees will start to follow me and vocalize, in a way that suggests:  “isnt’ it time to start putting out seed for us?”  And I have noticed a sentinel chickadee perched in a bush near my feeders, who will call out when I refill the feeders, which then brings in the larger community of feeder birds of several species.

Ronnie Schenkein, DVM (retired)
Dec 10, 2019

Love the article. I love chickadees. I used to feed them seeds off my bedroom deck and they got quite friendly and close to me.

They are gorgeous, clever little birds with that delightful Chick-a-dee call and I loved the “mobbing” as you call it.

Thanks again for the delightful and informative article.

Jenna
Dec 09, 2019

What a fine time for such an article!  I have just begun work on some red cedar carving blanks (chickadees of course) and expect to make a lot of good fragrant sawdust in the short days ahead.

Passed the story along to several friends.  Thank you.

John Dick

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