About the chicadee

Migration season is here in some parts of the country and an array of unique birds and warblers will be flying into your area. But that doesn’t mean you should forget about those birds that have been around all year. Yes, I’m taking about chickadees.

Chickadees are surprisingly interesting birds that many people take for granted. Here are 10 reasons why you shouldn’t.

1. There are seven chickadee species that breed in North America, all of which have the distinctive dark cap and bin with white cheeks. However, Black-capped Chickadees, Carolina Chickadees and Mountain Chickadees are the most common.

2. These small birds can live a relatively long life. The oldest banded Black-capped Chickadee in the wild lived 12 years and 5 month while the oldest banded Carolina Chickadee in the wild lived 10 years and 11 months.


3. The Black-capped Chickadee is the state bird of Maine and Massachusetts.

5. If you’ve ever listened to a chickadee’s call very closely, you’ll notice that sometimes there is only one dee at the end of the chick-a-dee and other times there are multiple ones at the end. there is actually a code to the number of dees. One dee indicates that there is no threat, but five dees at the end of the call could indicate that there’s a Northern Pygmy Owl in the vicinity.

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