Bird Profile

Black-capped Chickadee

Chickadees are usually the first birds to find a new feeder and the ones that recruit everything else. They also take one seed at a time and leave, which confuses people expecting a bird to sit and eat.

The Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) is a 5 inch (13 cm), one third of an ounce (11 g) resident songbird of Alaska, Canada and the northern half of the United States, and it is usually the first bird to investigate anything new in a yard. Black cap, black bib, white cheeks, soft gray back, buff-washed sides.

If your feeder has been up for three days and one bird has found it, that bird is probably a chickadee. Other species watch chickadees and follow them in, which is why a chickadee is worth more to a new feeding station than any amount of seed.

This profile covers separating them from Carolina Chickadees, the one-seed-at-a-time feeding style that puzzles new feeder owners, food caching and the memory it requires, how they survive January nights at a third of an ounce, nesting in excavated cavities and boxes, and their conservation status.

How to identify a Black-capped Chickadee#

A neat black cap coming down to the eye, crisp white cheeks, a black throat patch, plain gray back and wings, whitish underparts and warm buff along the flanks. Sexes look identical. The bill is tiny and the body is round, and the flight is a fluttery, slightly erratic bounce between perches.

The voice does more work than the plumage. Two calls matter:

• The chick-a-dee-dee-dee call, which is a genuine alarm system. More dee notes at the end means a more threatening predator, which is one of the better-documented pieces of songbird communication research.
• The whistled fee-bee song, two clear notes with the second lower, given most often from late winter into spring.

Chickadee vs chickadee#

Black-capped and Carolina Chickadees meet along a narrow contact zone running roughly from New Jersey and Pennsylvania west through Ohio, Indiana and Missouri into Kansas. Within that band the two hybridize, birds sing each other's songs, and honest observers leave some individuals unidentified. Outside it, your latitude answers the question.

Where and when you will see them#

Black-capped Chickadees hold territory year-round from Alaska across Canada and south to roughly the latitude of northern New Jersey, Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, northern New Mexico and northern California. They do not migrate in any regular sense.

They live in deciduous and mixed woods, willow thickets, streamside groves, parks and any suburb with mature trees. In winter they form small flocks of about 3 to 12 birds that hold a defined winter range, and those flocks act as the nucleus for mixed feeding groups: nuthatches, titmice, kinglets, downy woodpeckers and warblers all tag along.

Feeder activity is highest in cold weather and continues all day, unlike the dawn and dusk pattern of cardinals.

What chickadees eat#

The diet splits roughly by season. In summer, insects and spiders account for around half or more of what they eat, dominated by caterpillars, and nestlings are fed almost entirely on caterpillars. In winter the balance shifts toward seeds, berries and any fat they can find, including suet and carrion.

Because caterpillars matter so much to nestlings, a yard with native trees and shrubs supports far more chickadee young than a yard of lawn and ornamentals, however good the feeder is. Insecticide use has the opposite effect: see pesticides, lawns and birds.

The feeder setup that works#

Chickadees are light, agile and completely undeterred by narrow perches, so almost anything works.

• A tube feeder with black oil sunflower is the standard, and short perches are an advantage since they keep larger birds off.
• A suet feeder is the winter upgrade. A cage or upside-down cage suits them and keeps starlings out.
• A peanut feeder with chopped nuts pulls in chickadees, titmice and nuthatches together.
• Cover within 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 m) matters more for chickadees than for most birds, because they carry every seed away to eat it. A feeder in the middle of a lawn makes each trip long and risky.

Chickadees are also the species most likely to feed from a window feeder and the most likely to eventually take seed from a steady hand, given patience measured in weeks. The full approach is in how to attract chickadees.

Behavior worth knowing#

Caching. A chickadee hides individual food items in bark crevices, curled leaves, knotholes and lichen, in thousands of separate spots through fall. It remembers those locations for weeks. The hippocampus, the brain region handling spatial memory, enlarges seasonally as caching intensifies and new neurons are added, one of the better known examples of adult neurogenesis in a wild animal.

Nightly hypothermia. On cold nights a chickadee lets its body temperature fall by roughly 18 to 22°F (10 to 12°C), spending the night in a controlled torpor in a cavity or dense conifer. This cuts overnight energy use substantially, and it is the reason a bird weighing a third of an ounce can survive a night at -20°F (-29°C).

Flock rank. Winter flocks have a stable dominance order, and the same pairs tend to stay together across years. Dominant birds get the safest feeding positions, which is why some individuals visit the feeder more boldly than others.

Fearlessness. Chickadees investigate people, tools and new objects at close range. This curiosity is why they find feeders first.

Nesting#

Chickadees are cavity nesters that excavate their own holes. A pair works in soft, rotten wood, most often a dead birch, willow or aspen stub, carrying the chips away from the site so the excavation is not obvious. This is the reason a yard with a standing dead limb is worth more to chickadees than a yard with a new box, a point made in snags, dead wood and leaf litter.

They will use nest boxes with a 1 1/8 inch (29 mm) hole, particularly if you pack the box with wood shavings so they can excavate it themselves. Mount it 5 to 15 feet (1.5 to 4.5 m) up, in or at the edge of cover, and see nest boxes: sizing and siting for the specifics.

The nest is a moss foundation lined with plant down, hair and fur. Clutches are usually 6 to 8 tiny white eggs with fine reddish speckles. The female incubates about 12 to 13 days, both parents feed the young, and the chicks fledge at roughly 16 days. Normally one brood a year.

Population and conservation#

Black-capped Chickadees are abundant, widespread and stable, with populations holding steady or increasing across most of their range. They are not of conservation concern.

Two long-term pressures are worth noting. Their contact zone with Carolina Chickadees has been shifting north over recent decades, which is consistent with warming winters. And chickadees have been affected in some areas by West Nile virus and by bill deformities documented in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, a syndrome called avian keratin disorder whose cause is still under investigation.

At feeders, the ordinary risks apply. Chickadees are frequent visitors to suet and seed feeders that many birds share, so clean them on the schedule in how often to clean bird feeders.

A chickadee setup that works#

• A sunflower tube and a suet cage, hung 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 m) from shrubs or trees.
• A nest box with a 1 1/8 inch (29 mm) hole, packed with wood shavings, up by early March.
• A dead limb or snag left standing, if it is safe to do so.
• Native trees and no insecticide, because nestlings eat caterpillars, not seed.
• Patience with the one-seed shuttle. A dozen visits an hour by the same four birds is exactly what a healthy chickadee flock looks like.