Black Capped Chickadee Cute Cheerful Songbird Postcard

Here's a little black-capped chickadee with green and yellow foliage background, one of two pairs who visited the feeder last year. This little bird puts in an early appearance. It's about the end of September and snow won't fly for a few weeks yet. Chickadees don't migrate so they're checking out the availability of food before it gets too cold and snowy. These friendly, intelligent songbirds have a wide range of chirps, trills, whistles and melodies. The black-capped chickadee is best known for its danger call "chick-a-dee-dee-dee". The number of "dee's" corresponds to bird's perception of the threat. We people get four to six; the pygmy owl, a predator of chickadees, can get over twenty "dee's". Once this smart little bird knows you, usually after a couple of visits to your feeder, it will stop dee-ing and greet you with a friendly chirp. Chickadees will eat sunflower seeds from your hand if you are patient. Male and female chickadees are very difficult to tell apart, although the male has some calls particular to him such as a long whistled "fee-bee". Chickadees build their nests in hollow trees and don't like to live in bird houses. However, if you put sawdust in the bird house (esp if you have one shaped like a log!) these little avians will empty out the sawdust and replace it with nesting materials. The female has sole responsibility for gathering nest materials. This is one of the few ways to tell if it's a boy or girl - if she's got fluff in her mouth, it's a girl! She also incubates the eggs by herself, and tiny though she is, she can lay up to thirteen eggs. The male feeds her and defends the nest. If a predator approaches the nest, the female can make a hissing noise like that of a snake to scare the intruder away from her eggs or chicks. When the kids are hatched, the male and female both feed and care for them. Chickadees are gregarious and often found in the company of other birds such as blue jays, nuthatches and woodpeckers. In native lore, the chickadee is known as the truth teller or the bird of truth, based on a legend of a traveler who was warned of an ambush by a chickadee's call. Also the bird's distinctive danger alarm lets others in the area know there's someone on the hunt; and, the chickadee will tell other birds if it has found food. Chickadees survive cold Canadian winter nights by lowering their body temperature several degrees. This state of torpor is rare in birds. It's known only in whip-poor-wills and some hummingbirds. The chickadee is the state bird of Massachusetts in the United States, and the provincial bird of New Brunswick in Canada. Original nature wildlife photo M Sylvia Chaume, Canada. Happy blessings!