Black-capped Chickadee (Mésange à tête noire)

The fields are bleak, and they are, as it were vacated. the very earth is like a house shut up for the winter, and I go knocking about in it in vain. But just then I heard a chickadee on a hemlock, and was inexpressably cheered to find that an old acquaintance was yet stirring about the premises. All that is evergreen in me revived at once. 

Henry David Thoreau

7 November, 1858

     Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) is one of our most familiar birds and surely one of the best loved. 

     It is hard to imagine anyone indifferent to its charm, especially upon hearing its excited chickadee-dee-dee chatter or its plaintive, wistful fee bee song. It is very confiding around humans and is easily attracted to a backyard, especially if shelter, water and food are made available. One might be forgiven for thinking that one had been subjected to a conjuration when confronted with a chickadee.

     This is going to be a picture-heavy post (I should warn you now)! We have hundreds of images of this little gem and it was difficult to resist selecting "just one more." I will try to give you a sense of the bird and its lifestyle, without getting in too deep. This is after all a recreational blog and not a biology textbook!

     It is a tiny bird, weighing a mere 14 grams or so, but 14 grams of toughness, strength, fortitude, determination and resilience.

     It is very confiding around humans and may be easily coaxed into feeding from your hand.

     I am quite confident that for many people their only contact with a wild creature (other than the family drunk) is to have a chickadee alight on their hand.

     For a child the magic is very special, and the wide eyes and contented expression of a youngster feeling the scratch of a chickadee's feet on the hand, is to warm the heart of even the gruffest of humans.

     So much of the interaction between humankind and our companions on this Earth has been destructive, always to the detriment of the "other"; this one small gesture being thereby rendered even more heartwarming.

      If Bob Cratchit had taken Ebenezer Scrooge to see Tiny Tim feed a chickadee, the plot of A Christmas Carol would have been a whole lot different.

      At our latitude, breeding takes place mid to end May. Chickadees prefer to excavate their own cavity in rotting trunks or branches but they will use nest boxes if natural cavity opportunities are in short supply. It is a good strategy to load wood shavings or even sawdust into the nest box, so that birds can perform the kind of maintenance they would do to get a hole in a tree ready for nest building.

     A typical clutch in southern Ontario, based on personal observation, is five or six eggs, but up to eight are sometimes laid when conditions for breeding are optimal.

     A pair of chickadees will sometimes use a surprising type of artificial nest site. We had been gifted a nest box in the form of a blue teakettle, expecting House Wrens (Troglodytes aedon) to use it, but a pair of chickadees quickly claimed it as their own.

     The nest was constructed exclusively by the female over a period of four days. The male, stalwart fellow that he is, stayed close by and rendered great vocal encouragement, but maintained a beak-off approach, so to speak, as is the custom for this species. The female generally rests for a day when nest construction is complete, following which she lays her eggs at one-day intervals. Incubation begins after the last egg is laid and lasts for 12-13 days.

     The following image is the first picture we took of the nestlings, probably about three days old at the time, on 26 June.

     Three days later, on 29 June, considerable development has occurred, as you may see, with feather tracts clearly visible.

     By 3 July the young are about ready to fledge.

     The female stays in the nest to keep the nestlings warm until about twelve days old when they are able to thermoregulate and no longer need the warmth of her brood patch. The male is responsible for bringing food for his mate and the developing young.

     In addition to providing food, nest sanitation is important and foecal sacs are removed so that the nest does not become soiled.

     It sounds somewhat gross to humans, but in the early days when nestling digestion is not fully functional, much nutrition remains in the "output" and the foecal sac is sometimes eaten by the parents.

     

     When not consumed it is taken some distance from the nest before being discarded to avoid leaving clues for predators as to the location of the nest.

     When the nestlings become fledglings they are clumsy flyers and spent much time perched. They have a comical appearance as natal down sticks out from their feather tracts.

     Time spent on the ground where they are exposed to a range of predators is exceptionally hazardous.

     Domestic cats left to roam by irresponsible owners are broadly implicated in fledgling chickadee mortality.

     This brood fledged in our own backyard and we did everything possible to protect them and to the best of our knowledge they all survived.

     Dutiful, hard-working parents continue to feed their young for a couple of weeks after they leave the nest. 

     During the first several days young birds display little to no efficiency in capturing prey or picking up seeds, and when they do they seem to have scant idea what to do with it.

     They do, however, excel at begging from mom and dad - does this recall teenagers in your life?

     Eventually, however, they get the hang of it and emulate their parents' skill.

     First of all find the seed.

     

     Then hold it securely under your feet and hammer it open to get to the nutritious "meat" inside.

     Once the juveniles have discovered that bird feeders are an easy and predictable source of food they do not hesitate to use them.

     There is not a shred of doubt in my mind that chickadees very quickly connect the individual who fills the feeders with the food that will magically appear. When I topped up my feeders this morning three individuals quickly appeared and one perched on the feeder to snatch a sunflower heart before I had placed in back on its hook.

     These tiny birds are not migratory and spend the winter as far north as Alaska, where at the winter solstice less than four hours of daylight is available for foraging, and the temperature at times dips to minus 50. Even here in Waterloo minus 20 is not uncommon, and even minus 30 is not unheard of.

     Just look how the bird above is fluffed to trap the warmth from its body.

     There is much to be said about strategies and adaptations for winter survival, but let me just highlight the three main adjustments.

Physical Adjustments

     Briefly the main features are subcutaneous fat and incredibly efficient insulating plumage. Birds will sometimes roost in cavities with congeners to huddle together for warmth. If you see a bird with a bent tail it is probably the result of being compressed into a hole overnight.

Physiological Adjustments

     Amazingly Black-capped Chickadees can enter regulated hypothermia thereby reducing demands on their metabolic system.

Behavioural Adjustments

     The selection of winter roost sites is critical. Roosting in holes eliminates heat lost through radiation, as does the leeward side of dense conifers, or vines and other dense shrubs. 

     In terms of winter survival I have barely scratched the surface, but I think it gives you an idea of what is needed to survive - in fact not only survive but do well - in a harsh winter.

     This has been a fairly long post and thanks if you stuck with it until the end. I am enchanted, captivated, made joyful and overwhelmed with the presence of these marvelous little birds. My life would be impoverished without them

     I hope you too share my enthusiasm and will give a thought to them on a cold winter's night. When you are sitting by your fireplace, glass of wine in hand, nibbling on cheese perhaps, warm and cozy, they are out there at thirty degrees below zero making it through the night.

     Amazing!