A familiar bird, particularly in winter when it stays put, even through the snow and cold. It, however, greatly appreciates the feeders and entertains the humans who keep it in viewing distance from a window. There they may hang upside down and feed on sunflower seeds and suet (fat). The winter flocks break up in summer for the nesting season, and the birds become much less conspicuous. The bird almost identifies itself by its voice or call—chick-a-dee-dee-dee. Fee-bee, fee-bee describes its whistled song. It can be confused with the higher-pitched call of the slightly smaller Carolina Chickadee, but the two mostly have divided their geographic ranges. The Carolina lives south of Chesapeake Bay and the Ohio River and southwest to Oklahoma, and the Black-capped north of that ambiguous east-west line and all the way to the west coast.
The little Black-capped Chickadee is at home in the deciduous forests (and suburban yards) of the eastern states and north to the primarily coniferous forests in Canada, and ranges all the way west to Alaska. Chickadees are renowned for their ability to move on or under branches and cling upside down. Calling the chickadees perching birds hardly seems adequate, but they belong to that extremely numerous order and to a family that includes the equally diminutive and tree-loving titmouse with its gray body and gray, or even black, crest. This species may flock with chickadees in the winter, proving that more than just “birds of a feather flock together.”
The Black-capped Chickadee, of course, has a distinct black cap and also a black throat or bib, which strongly set off the white face or cheek. The scientific name is Poecile atricapillus which refers to its black crown. The rest of the feathers are gray with white trim on the wings. Unlike many species of birds, males and females look alike. Both are about five to six inches long. The two leave the winter flock in spring to make or modify a cavity in a dead tree where they incubate six to eight speckled brown eggs. The summer diet consists mostly of small insects which they find on their own, making them far less conspicuous to humans who were expecting them at feeders. In John James Audubon’s The Birds of America (with a foreword and descriptive captions by William Vogt, Macmillan Company, New York, 1942), the Black-capped Chickadee is referred to as the “Black-capped Titmouse,” and a pair of chickadees is depicted as clinging to a dogwood tree. My other references are National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, 1998) and National Audubon Society: The Sibley Guide to Birds (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, 2000).
The Black-capped Chickadee is the state bird of Maine and Massachusetts. Our Canadian neighbors are no less appreciative. New Brunswick has also claimed it as official bird. They are not restricted to the east coast by any means. Several years ago I was hiking high in the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming where I had rested at a picnic table. I saw a flash of movement, readied my camera, and snapped a photograph of a chickadee only a few feet away, clinging to a small branch of a spruce tree. Although the photograph was taken in summer, I printed it onto card stock to make a lovely Christmas card. That is my personal tribute to this fascinating bird.
