Chickadee on a branch

There are 7 species of chickadees in North America. They are the Chestnut-backed, Mountain, Black-capped, Carolina, Mexican, Boreal, and the Gray-headed Chickadee. In Yupik, the word for chickadee is Cikepiipiiq. The Chestnut-backed, Mountain, and Black-capped Chickadees are in Montana. I see the Mountain at the cabin but I almost never see Black-capped there. However, I see them at our feeder in Missoula and I have never seen the Chestnut-backed but l want to.

Chickadees have many things in common. They all belong to the tit family and have some sort of black cap on their head. Normally, Chickadees are about the size of my hand, are cavity nesters, and are a bird that will happily use your nest-box. Chickadees in the wild will eat insects and seed but will also eat your birdseed.

The Black-capped Chickadee (BCCH) is my second favorite bird.The reason I like chickadees is because they are at our feeder nearly every day and when a chickadee lands on our feeder I get so excited that I stand up on my chair! I think the whistling of a chickadee is pretty because l like to whistle too! Black-capped Chickadees are year-round in MT and they are very acrobatic, fast and l often see them upside-down on a tree. A BCCH’s alarm call is a chickadee-dee-dee. The more dangerous the predator is for the chickadee the more dees will be added to the call.

Chickadee poses

Since chickadees are my second favorite bird there’s a lot of chickadee drawing and sketches in my sketchbooks. I even have chickadee poses!


  • That a group of chickadees is called a bandit
  • That Titmice, Bushtits and Verdin are all closely related to Chickadees
  • That a chickadee used our birdhouse but it abandoned its nest and I think there was a clutch of 6-7 eggs
  • That we saw Mountain Chickadees checking out our birdhouse this weekend

9 thoughts on “Chickadees

  1. I submitted this once, but I don’t see it so I’ll try again, (it might show up twice). That was a very interesting report, I learned some things about chickadees. We found a downed cottonwood tree with a woodpecker nest hole in it and we cut off a 4 ft. section with the nest hole in it and brought it home. I mounted it on another log so the nest was about 6 ft. off the ground. The chickadees use it every year. They like a small hole and a nest that has a floor about 6 inches down from the hole. They also like some leaves or brush branches in front of the nest to hide the hole from predators. Chickadees are also very easy to train to eat out of you hand.

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  2. Dottie and Lucy thought you would enjoy these chickadee photos love Auntie Bev and Uncle John

    Uncle John with chickadee on Bev’s toe


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  3. I always thought that chickadees cuddled together at night during cold weather. Not true they are solo and burn about 1/3 their body weight…. burrrrrr

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