Carolina Chickadee

These photos were taken in early February 2020 at the Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve. The chickadee’s call is as distinct as its black cap: chicka dee dee dee. The number of dees at the end of its call reflects a predator’s size and level of danger; the more the dees, the smaller the predator and higher the threat. Smaller predators are more agile and maneuverable, which are of a greater threat to the nimble and diminutive chickadee. Larger predators don’t warrant such a warning, since the chickadee knows they are too lumbering and slow to catch them as they flash from branch to branch. I wonder what this chickadee thought of me as I tramped along the trail, trying to be quiet so that I could sneak closer to him. The dees seemed to be few and far between, and as you can see in the pictures, this little guy had no problem with me walking up to his tree while he snacked on his stash.

Chickadees also have an incredible memory for their size. They are able to stash food in the warm months in a thousand places and remember their locations in the bare winter months. As Jennifer Ackerman notes in her book, The Genius of Birds, “All of this with a brain roughly twice the size of a garden pea.”