What to watch for in January: Cheerful Chickadees
Here’s the Central Texas bird forecast for the month, courtesy of Travis Audubon. Learn more about Central Texas birds and bird-related events for all ages at travisaudubon.org or by calling 512-300-BIRD. Follow us at www.facebook.com/travisaudubon
This New Year resolve to learn some of our common backyard birds. It’s satisfying to attach a name to a face, and might deepen your connection with individual species.
If you go for a walk in your neighborhood park, or feed the birds, chances are good that you have seen or heard a chickadee. It’s one of our most vocal year-round birds as it stays in touch with its mate or flock companions. There’s really no excuse not to recognize this ubiquitous small bundle of energy that’s a study in black, white and gray.
The Carolina Chickadee weighs a little over a third of an ounce, and is less than 5 inches in length. It has a black cap, a small bill, black throat and bright white cheek patch. Its back and wings are gray, and it has a longish tail and buff flanks. It has a short neck and very rounded head, giving it a plump appearance. Both sexes look similar. Unless you have the bird in hand to take measurements, it’s hard to discern that the male is slightly heavier, with a slightly longer tail and slightly longer wings.
While visiting South Carolina the bird artist John James Audubon named the Carolina Chickadee, to acknowledge the hospitality he received there. It is a bird of the southeastern U.S. including much of Texas. You won’t find it, though, in the western Panhandle, the western Rolling Plains, west Texas and deep South Texas. There are five other chickadee species in North America, but the Carolina Chickadee is the expected year-round resident in central Texas. It is similar to the slightly larger Black-capped Chickadee which occurs across Alaska, Canada and the northern U.S.
Look for Carolina Chickadees in various habitats such as river and creekside hardwood forests that might include live oak, elm, and cottonwood. They live in wooded parks and suburbs, even making their home in wooded urban areas. Mixed pine and hardwood forests are attractive too, like ones over in Bastrop. In parts of east Texas swampy forests fill their needs. These chickadees need dead snags or living trees with cavities and layers of trees and shrubs for nesting and foraging.
What do Carolina Chickadees eat? Their spring, summer and fall diet is made up of 80-90% animal foods such as insects and spiders. In winter about half their diet is seeds and fruits and half is animal. A study of the stomach contents of 210 Carolina Chickadees found 62% was insect matter, mainly butterfly and moth caterpillars, 10% was spiders and 28% was plant matter. They are quite fond of black oil sunflower seed, probably the single best seed to put in bird feeders.
One fun behavior to watch for is chickadees caching foods for later consumption. They do this year round. They cache a variety of foods like shelled or husked seeds, nuts, insects and other invertebrates. Where they store sunflower seeds has been studied, and they have been recorded stashing seeds on the underside of small branches, twigs, small tree trunks, and in dead leaves remaining on trees. Usually they don’t venture more than 130 feet from a feeder to do this. How long before cached food is retrieved? A controlled lab study showed that the average time before a cached seed was retrieved was one hour, and all seeds were retrieved within a few days.
Another behavior to watch is how and where chickadees forage. They very rarely forage on the ground. In deciduous forests they do forage fairly low, but in bad weather such as a combination of high winds, low temperatures and cloudy conditions, they move to stream valleys, and get out of the wind. As an arboreal gleaner the Carolina Chickadee acrobatically investigates twigs, flower clusters and dried leaf clusters for insects, often hanging from twig tips to do so. The twigs they prefer are less than one centimeter in diameter.
Fun Facts about Carolina Chickadees
Chickadees flock together in groups of two to eight chickadees in the winter. They defend a winter territory from other flocks.
The highest ranking male that survives the winter and his mate will establish a breeding territory within the wintering territory. A 25 year long-term study found that they typically only have one brood per year.
Cold winters are hard on Carolina Chickadees. Only 40-60% survive the winter.
Chickadee males have a pure whistled four to six note song. Overall 36 different songs have been identified. Males and females both make a gargle sound used in aggressive interactions. They also make a chicka-dee-dee-dee call, saying their name to alert us to their presence.
Dr. Doug Tallamy, a noted entomologist at the University of Delaware, studies what birds eat and the importance of native plants to birds’ breeding success. His research has found that chickadees need 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars to raise one brood of chickadees. The best caterpillar food plants (host plants) are native plants.
Upcoming Travis Audubon Events
Get outdoors this month, and learn more about the birds around us. Check the Travis Audubon Events calendar for upcoming field trips. Many fill early and registration is required for most. There are several classes too, including an Introduction to Birds and Birding, a Brand-new to Birding Class, an Owl Nestbox Workshop, and an Introduction to Sparrows. (Central Texas is a haven for native sparrows spending the winter here.) There’s a Wingspan Game Night, and a virtual talk about Iranian (Persian) birds.
Compiled by Jane Tillman, Travis Audubon Volunteer
Resources: All About Birds, Birds of the World, the Travis Audubon Seasonal Distribution Checklist, The Sibley Guide to Birds by David Sibley, and The TOS Handbook of Texas Birds by Brush Freeman.
