Black-Capped Chickadee

Chickadees will visit your yard if you have feeders and water.

Identification and Pictures

Black-capped Chickadees (Classification:  Parus atricapillus)

These are small fluffy round birds 4 to 5 ½ inches.  They have a black cap and bib with white cheeks. Their upper parts are gray with lighter under parts under parts, which may have a bit of yellow.  The sides are a buff color with white feathers on the wings.

Photos by Keith Lee.  The camera I use is the Canon EOS 40D and a 70 to 300 zoom lens.

Some say this bird is fun to watch because of its acrobatic nature actions as it hangs upside down or forages through branches. 

Determining male from female is hard as indicated in this poem by a Wisconsin bird bander.

Range and Habitat

There are 10 chickadee species in North America and Black- capped chickadees are the most familiar in our backyards. They can be found throughout the northern U.S., Canada, and Alaska.  They like open woods, willow thickets, groves, parks with shade trees, farmlands, and backyards with trees, and shrubs.  Chickadees may be seen in your yard all year long.  In winter they will form in foraging flocks with nuthatches, titmice, and even woodpeckers.  In late winter as the males become territorial these flocks will break up.

Breeding and Nesting

Breeding season is early April to mid May depending on the area.  During courtship chickadees do what is called mate feeding, females will solicit this behavior.  The male will fly to the female with an insect or seed.  With a high call and quivering wings she will take the offering.

They breed in forests and open areas with scattered trees. Both birds will excavate a nest cavity in a stump or tree. The cavity will be around 9 inches deep and have moss or plant down in the base.  They sometimes use an old woodpecker hole or a nest box.  If you have birdhouses in your yard there is a good chance these entertaining little birds will move it.

The female alone will incubate usually 6 to 8 eggs.  Eggs are smooth, white or creamy with fine purplish or reddish-brown speckles.  Both parents tend the young birds for around two weeks, when they can leave the nest.  The young will remain with the parents for 3 to 4 weeks.

Song and Call

When chickadees are around there is a constant chatter of clear chick-a-dee-dee-dee, this is often given during flocking.  The male's song of fee-bee-bee is a clear whistle that sounds like feed me feed me to many people.  Chickadees have two basic alarm calls.  They use a soft high-pitched seeet call to warn of something like a flying bird of prey.  For a stationary predator they use variations of chick-a dee dee dee. The number of dee dees indicate the size or type of predator. The calls are used to warn and to recruit other birds to harass, or mob, the predator and chase it away.  Recent studies  at the University of Washington by Christopher Templeton show that nuthatches understand the warning calls of chickadees. 

Chickadee sound 1
Chickadee sound 2

Food and Feeding

Natural foods are insects and seeds.  They will come to both suet, and feeders with sunflower, and other seeds.  They are a very curious and trusting little bird and will often be quite tame.  Many people get them to eat out of their hands.

Photo by Keith Lee.  The camera I use is the Canon EOS 40D.

At feeders it eats sunflower seeds by holding them with its feet while cracking them open with a few quick thrust of its bill.

Chickadees like to grab a sunflower seed from a feeder and fly to a near by tree to crack it open and eat it.  They hold the seed with their feet while cracking it open with a few quick thrusts of their bill. It can be fun to watch them flying back and forth from tree to feeder and back again.

For more on food and feeding click here.
For more on feeders click here.

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