Chickadee

“ Chickadee wears well. He is not in the least a creature of moods. You step out of your door some bright morning, and there he is among the shrubs, flitting from twig to twig; now hanging head down from the very tip to look into a terminal bud; now winding upward about a branch, looking industriously into every bud and crevice. An insect must hide well to escape those bright eyes. He is helping you raise your plants. He looks up brightly as you approach, hops fearlessly down and looks at you with frank, innocent eyes. ”

“ Where there is one chickadee there are apt to be more in the neighbourhood; for these sociable, active, cheerful little black-capped fellows in gray like to hunt for their living in loose scattered flocks throughout the fall and winter. When they come near enough, notice the pale rusty wash on the sides of their under parts which are more truly dirty white than gray. Chickadees are wonderfully tame: except the chipping sparrow, perhaps the tamest birds that we have. ”

“ Ever in motion, flitting, hopping, swinging to and fro, they investigate every nook and cranny and draw numberless injurious insects, their eggs and larvae from their lurking places. The chickadee’s tongue, a fork-shaped instrument, is admirably adapted to prying its prey out of crevices of bark. ”

“ Perching in the mouth of the cavity the chickadee’s body would almost disappear within and then he would withdraw himself and fly away with a tiny chip of rotten wood in his beak. After the cavity was satisfactorily completed they began lining the interior, which formed the nest proper. These fastidious little feathered architects consider nothing less than soft clean fur suitable material for a bed for their delicate speckled eggs. ”

“ And Chickadee, picking up his cracker crumbs, did not act at all as if he had done most to make camp comfortable.
There is another way in which he helps, a more material way. Millions of destructive insects live and multiply in the buds and tender bark of trees. Other birds never see them, but Chickadee and his relations leave never a twig unexplored. His bright eyes find the tiny eggs hidden under the buds; his keen ears hear the larvæ feeding under the bark, and a blow of his little bill uncovers them in their mischief-making. ”

“ How dearly have I learned to love this little fellow, perhaps my special favorite among the birds; for while the others one by one desert us with the dying year for scenes more bright and sunny, the chickadee is content to share our lot; he is constant, always with us, ever full of sprightliness and cheer. ”

“ This hardy little fellow, always cheery and lovable, is a familiar figure in our light woods and garden trees in autumn and winter, seeming, by his good-nature and energy, to be trying to console us, in a measure, for the loss of the tree-haunting summer Warblers.
The Chickadee adapts himself to all surroundings and to all circumstances, suiting his appetite to what he can find, when insects fail, taking kindly to seeds, berries, cone-kernels, and crumbs. ”

“ The sprouts which had shot up so vigorously to repair the damage which the choppers had done, have stopped short for the winter. Everything stands silent and expectant. If I listen, I hear only the note of a chickadee, our most common bird at present, most identified with our forests, or perchance the scream of a jay, or from the solemn depths of the woods I hear tolling far away the knell of one departed. Thought rushes in to fill the vacuum. As you walk, however, the partridge bursts away from the foot of a shrub oak, like its own dry fruit; immortal bird! This sound still startles us. ”

“ Like the chickadee, he delights in scrambling about the trees in the most reckless fashion, hanging head down as handily as a nuthatch. His crest gives him a more stately air than any of his cousins, but his inquisitiveness is equal to all combined. One cannot enter the woods but he will be sought out by this active denizen and accompanied hither and thither with not so much as a "by your leave." ”

“ In summer he withdraws to the thickets, and becomes less noisy and active. His plumage becomes dull, and his brisk note changes to a fine, delicate pee-peh-wy, or oftenest a mere whisper. They are so much less noticeable at this season that one might suppose they had followed their gold-crest companions to the North, as some of them doubtless do, but their nests are not uncommon with us. Fearless as the chickadee is in winter,—so fearless, that, if you stand still, he will alight upon your head or shoulder,—in summer he becomes cautious about his nest, and will desert it, if much watched. ”

“ In California, the mountain chickadee has habits about the same, and the Southern States have the tufted titmouse.
All these little fellows are pretty birds in gray, set off with black and white, with lovely soft and fluffy plumage.
The common Chickadee and his brother of the West have black on top of the head and on the throat, and white at the side of the head. They nest in holes in a tree or stump. If they can find the old home of a woodpecker, they are glad to get it, but if they cannot find one, they are able to cut one out for themselves, though it is a hard, long job for them. ”

“ A chickadee is a friendly little fellow. Many times one has come down on to a man's hand or knee. Mr. Torrey once found a pair making their nest, and he climbed up on to a branch of the tree, close by where they were working, so as to watch them. Many birds would have been frightened to have a man so near, but not the brave little chickadees. They stared at him a little, but went right on with their building.
These birds, though so tiny, are among the most useful to us, because they spy out and destroy the insect eggs hidden in crevices of bark, or under leaves. ”

“ When you see a chickadee scrambling over a tree, hanging head down with all sorts of antics, he is no doubt hunting out the eggs. These eggs, if left, would hatch out into hungry insects, to eat the leaves or fruit, or to injure and perhaps kill the tree. The nuthatch clears up the trunk and large limbs, and the chickadee does the same for the small branches and around the leaves.
It has been found out that one pair of chickadees with their young will destroy five hundred pests, such as caterpillars, flies, and grubs, every day. No man could do so much, if he gave his whole time to it. ”

“ The guided flock of easy-going warblers and vireos, nuthatches and kinglets, drift on, feeding and frolicking, heedless of what it passes.
If the observer “squeaks,” or if an owl draws the attention of the passing birds, the chickadee comes to the front at once, with his sharp reproving iterations, and his beady eyes snapping indignantly. Along with him come red-eyed and solitary vireos, nuthatches, golden-crested kinglets, black-throated blue warblers, Wilson’s blackcaps, young chestnut-sided warblers, looking puzzlingly unlike their parents. ”

“ The chickadee is indeed a truly Emersonian bird, and the poet shows him to be both a hero and a philosopher. Hardy, active, social, a winter bird no less than a summer, a defier of both frost and heat, lover of the pine-tree, and diligent searcher after truth in the shape of eggs and larvae of insects, preëminently a New England bird, clad in black and ashen gray, with a note the most cheering and reassuring to be heard in our January woods,—I know of none other of our birds so well calculated to captivate the Emersonian muse. ”

“ When a thrasher had the impertinence to alight in her oak she ordered him off in high dudgeon, dashing back and forth above him, and snapping spitefully as she passed. She knew her rights, and, knowing, dared maintain. When a bird builds her nest in any part of a tree she claims every twig of it as her own. I have even seen the gentle-hearted chickadee resent the intrusion of a chipping sparrow, though it appeared impossible that the latter could be suspected of any predatory or sinister design. ”

“ Habitat: The Carolina chickadee, which inhabits the southeastern forests, is a slightly smaller version of the black-capped chickadee. In Missouri, the Carolina chickadee nests south of the Missouri River throughout the Ozarks.
Nest: The nesting habits of the black-capped and Carolina chickadees are quite similar. They occasionally nest in natural cavities or deserted holes of woodpeckers, but commonly excavate their own nest cavity in decaying wood of dead trunks or limbs of deciduous trees (Bent 1946) . ”

“ At the approach of warm weather, chickadees retreat from public gaze to become temporary recluses in damp, deep woods or woodland swamps where insects are most plentiful. For a few months they give up their friendly flocking ways and live in pairs. Long journeys they do not undertake from the North when it is time to nest; but Southern birds move northward in the spring. Happily the chickadee may find a woodpecker's vacant hole in some hollow tree; worse luck if a new excavation must be made in a decayed birch—the favourite nursery. ”

“ For those of us who have kept a feeding station for birds in the winter so as to have the pleasure of association with the chickadee, nuthatches, woodpeckers, and other visitors, one of the most attractive things is that the wild birds become tame. Through association with persons they gradually learn that human beings are not to be feared. The high point of many a bird lover's experience is when a chickadee becomes so tame that it will perch on his body and without fear will feed from his hand. ”

“ He runs along the under side of a limb with his back to the ground as easily as he would run along the upper side. He comes down the smooth trunk of a pine head down, just as a squirrel does, his feet seeming to be reversible and to stick like clamps wherever he cares to put them. All the time his busy little head is poking here and there with sinuous agility and his slim, pointed bill is gathering in the same invisible food, no doubt, that the chickadee is after. ”

“ Prominent among the latter are the eggs of the tent-caterpillar moths, both the orchard and forest species. As these are two of our most destructive insects, the good done by the chickadee in devouring their eggs needs no comment. During the winter the chickadee’s food is made up of larvæ, chrysalids, and eggs of moths, varied by a few seeds, but as spring brings out hordes of flying, crawling, and jumping insects, the bird varies its diet by taking also some of these. Flies and bugs are the favorites until the weather becomes quite warm, when beetles and small wasps also are enjoyed. ”

“ The chickadees are great bird-wags. In various ways they play tricks on other birds. When there is hemp-seed in the box, the chickadees are like a lot of children turned out of school. If a tree-sparrow happens along, he takes possession by driving the other birds away. A saucy chickadee will give the danger-call, which sounds to me like "butcher bird, butcher bird." The tree-sparrow darts into the bushes and the chickadees pile onto the seed-box. The sparrow finding that there is no enemy about soon returns to the seed-box. ”

“ If you are not sure that you know the bird, stay near him till he [9] pronounces his own name. He will be pretty certain to do it, sooner or later, especially if you excite him a little by squeaking or chirping to him.
Although the chickadee is small and delicate-looking, he seems not to mind the very coldest of weather. Give him enough to eat, and the wind may whistle. He picks his food, tiny insects, insects’ eggs, and the like, out of crevices in the bark of trees and about the ends of twigs, and so is seldom or never without resources. The deepest snows do not cover up his dinner-table. ”

“ The truth is, that birds are remarkably well guarded against cold by their quick circulation, their dense covering of down and feathers, and the ease with which they can protect their extremities. The chickadee is never so lively as in clear, cold weather;—not that he is absolutely insensible to cold; for on those days, rare in this neighborhood, when the mercury falls to fifteen degrees or more below zero, the chickadee shows by his behavior that he, too, feels it to be an exceptional state of things. ”

“ The nest of the Chickadee is usually a warm and soft felted mass of the hair and fur of the smaller quadrupeds, downy feathers, fine dry grasses and mosses, lining the cavity in which it is placed and contracting it into a deep and purse-like opening if the cavity be larger than is necessary. Usually the site selected is already in existence, and only enlarged or altered to suit the wishes of the pair. But not unfrequently, at some pains, they will excavate an opening for themselves, not only in decaying wood, but even into limbs or trunks that are entirely sound. ”

“ However careless we may be of our friends when we are in the midst of the luxurious life of summer, even the most careless among us give pleased attention to the birds that bravely endure with us the rigors of winter. And when this winged companion of winter proves to be the most fascinating little ball of feathers ever created, constantly overflowing with cheerful song, our pleased attention changes to active delight. Thus it is that in all the lands of snowy winters the chickadee is a loved comrade of the country wayfarer ”

“ He is found in the southern half of the eastern United States, north to or beyond forty degrees, west to eastern Texas and Indian Territory.
The favorite resorts of the Chickadee are timbered districts, especially in the bottom lands, and where there are red bud trees, in the soft wood of which it excavates with ease a hollow for its nest. It is often wise enough, however, to select a cavity already made, as the deserted hole of the Downy Woodpecker, a knot hole, or a hollow fence rail. ”