Chickadees

Awaiting the arrival of winter

When it comes to surviving winter without artificial heat, bigger tends to be better. Weighing as much as a handful of delicate petals, chickadees have overcome their size disadvantage with physical adaptations and their preparation skills.

Black-capped chickadees can be found as far north as Newfoundland, Canada, and as far west as British Columbia. Ordinarily year-round residents, chickadees sometimes migrate south.

In the fall, chickadees physically adjust to the cold climate by shivering. Although it's not visible at the bird feeder, chickadees' chest muscles, called the pectoralis, repeatedly flex to generate heat. The air trapped within their downy coat, while their feathers rise to create an inch-thick coat that provides a feeling of warmth when it's way below zero outside, contains heat. Heat is contained by the air trapped within their downy coat while their feathers rise to create an inch-thick coat that provides a feeling of warmth when it's way below zero outside.

According to Janet Mihuc, assistant professor in the Division of Natural Resources, Sciences and Liberal Arts (NRSLA) at Paul Smith’s College, chickadee's migrate when there is a food shortage.

Unlike other species of birds living in arctic climates, chickadees don't have an internal bag for storing food. Instead, chickadees must eat small meals, digest them, and then eat again. They only feed in daylight, and sadly in winter their opportunity to eat is small. Therefore they eat as much as they can. The amount of fat they add everyday represents approximately 10 percent of their body weight, which is then burnt off during the night.

Also the Canadian Wildlife Service reports that chickadees feed in such large quantities that they are easily one of the most important pest exterminators of the forest or orchard. They eat insect eggs, larvae and pupae (insects in the hibernation stage), weevils, lice, sawflies, and spiders.

“They are fairly inquisitive and have a broader diet that includes different kinds of food from feeders,” Mihuc explained. Their needle-like bill helps them subdue insects and allows them to switch food sources such as seed/fruit based diets.”

They live in tree-covered areas woodlots and orchards where they dig nest-holes in the soft or rotting wood of trees and find the food they prefer. During the summertime, chickadees wedge seeds, insects, and other food into tree bark and other crevices within a half-mile range of where they live. Later in the winter when a bird feeder runs out of sunflower seeds, chickadees are able to find the seeds they caught months earlier.

In fall and winter, the chickadee lives in loose flocks of eight or twelve birds. The birds keep in touch with each other by means of soft notes, "sit-sit," uttered at intervals. In the north, the chickadees usually roost in dense evergreen groves sheltered from the wind and snow. At bed time, each bird finds individual available holes to rest for the night while some roost in the top branches of evergreens or low down in bushy young spruces.

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