Everybody loves the chickadee: Nature's Dynamo is tough

Who doesn't love a chickadee? From bird watcher to sculptor to bird saver, these little tough guys steal hearts and intrigues research minds.

"Chickadees are tough survivors that live close to the edge of life," reports Margaret Clark Brittingham, wildlife ecologist, who studied some 576 black-capped chickadees as they struggled against starvation and stinging Wisconsin cold.

While other birds head south as autumn days grow shorter and temperatures begin dropping, chickadees remain year around within an initial 20 acres in which they were hatched.

No more than little balls of grey and black fluff, these unique avian mites are teaching humans how to brave winter's most severe temper tantrums bare footed.

Breeding does not begin until April and may extend through July. The female is capable of laying up to three clutches of eggs each mating season.

Eggs per clutch may range from four to 12. It is hard to imagine a female as small as a chickadee covering and incubating 12 eggs, much less feeding 12 always hungry hatchlings every 10 to 15 minutes from sunup to sundown.

Both the male and female chickadee take an active role during the mating season.

The male vigorously defends the nesting territory as the female constructs the nest. Incubation of eggs extends only some 12 days.

Also, the male carries food to the female and takes his turn sitting on the nest. Both the female and male feed the young and protect the nesting territory.

The babies are replicas of their parents wearing the black cap stretched from ear to ear and pulled snugly over the head.

Fledgling chickadees are no bigger than a slender female human thumb from the first joint to the tip. Tiny, but resilient and full of life's energy.

Year around the chickadee feeds primarily on insects and insect eggs. Insects are literally pecked from crevices and pulled from beneath the bark of trees. Wild plant and weed seeds are also enjoyed.

At backyard feeders, chickadees enjoy black oiled sunflower seeds and cracked corn. Peanuts are a favorite treat.

If you crack or chop the peanuts, the chickadee have to work less. If whole peanuts in the shell are available, the industrious bird will take a whole peanut, fly to a limb, hold the nut in one foot and literally pound it apart with its sharp beak.

To cope with extreme cold, a chickadee must eat at least 20 times more food than it does in warm weather.

Researcher Brittingham calculated that in mild winter weather, one chickadee must eat the equivalent of 150 sunflower seeds every day to just stay alive.

When temperatures drop to zero Fahrenheit and below, the chickadee must consume at least 250 sunflower seeds each day to just stay alive. This equates to some 60 percent of the bird's body weight. Backyard feeders make a big difference in this bird's survival in the winter.

Chickadees are terrific foragers. They roam looking for food in groups--better known as tribes--made up of five to nine members.

The lead bird is always a dominant male, backed by a dominant female. These birds investigate every nook looking for insects, their eggs, and seeds.

They also enjoy small invertebrates, spiders, and are agile enough to open bagworm tents and feed on the hidden larvae.

Chickadees supplement their diets with pulpy fruits, berries, and suet from backyard offerings. They are so acrobatic that they seemingly hang up-side down as much as they perch.

Researchers Dr. Thomas Grubb, Jr. and David Cimprich from Ohio State University confirmed that backyard feeders made a difference in supplementing the natural foods of Carolina Chickadees and other bark-foraging species.

Feeders significantly improved the nutritional condition and health of the wintering chickadees and
reduced mortalities.

Dr. James Curry studied Carolina Chickadees in Oklahoma in a natural wooded area without winter feeders and found that the flock sizes were significantly reduced due to cold weather and lack of natural foods.

Human offered nest boxes also made a big difference in flock sizes because chickadees compete with house sparrows, European Starlings, Eastern Bluebirds, wasps and each other for available cavities in which to raise their young.

Also, during cold winter nights, chickadees roost in cavities to survive the cold.

Ornithologists suspect that chickadees conserve life sustaining fat at night by dropping their body temperatures to nearly 20 degrees below their daytime temperature which is around 108 degrees F.

This is called hypothermia. The resting chickadee may wake the next morning with a small amount of surplus fat to get the day started.

Cornell graduate student Susan Chaplin discovered this amazing Chickadee fact first. Brittingham confirmed it in her research.

Also, they trap heat next to their bodies by tensing muscles and fluffing feathers during extreme cold. This acts like a downy quilt next to their small bodies.

The winter chickadee plumage has about 25 to 30 percent more feathers than does the summer one. Also to overcome life threatening winter temperatures, chickadees shiver. The motion turns energy into heat.

The only disadvantage to shivering is that the energy used must be quickly replaced by refueling--or eating.

Exposed areas such as the feet are vulnerable to cold. One at a time feet are pulled up beneath feathers to warm, and the entire bird's body keeps the feet warm when it sits on them.

Bills do not suffer cold temperatures nearly as easily as do feet. A bird's bill is not made up of flesh and blood like feet, but of a substance resembling horn. It does not freeze easily.

"When the temperature dropped below minus 20 degrees F," Brittingham says, "we noticed that chickadees stopped searching for food because the energy expended to find food at that temperature is greater than the energy they obtain from the food they find. When that happened, they simply slowed down, fluffed up, and waited for warmer weather."

"The thing that really impresses me about chickadees," Brittingham notes, "is their metabolism. We weighed birds early in the morning and found that they had virtually no body fat. Yet, the same birds examined in the afternoon of the same day were bulging with fat."

Although chickadees are versatile and adaptable many do not survive their first winter.

Researchers estimate that as high as 70 percent of all first year chickadees do not survive their first winter. Most die during the first month of life. Others die due to predators, starvation and intense cold before they are a year old.

Chickadees are such delightfully energetic, playful little birds that they brighten even the darkest winter day.

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Black Mountain, North Carolina, USA 28711
A non-profit 501-3-C organization dedicated to wildlife research and education