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Today on Animal Fact Files we’re discussing chickadees. These birds are included in the tit family. There are seven species most commonly referred to as a “chickadee”: the black capped chickadee, the boreal chickadee, the Carolina chickadee, the chestnut-backed chickadee, the grey-headed chickadee, the Mexican chickadee, and the mountain chickadee. The grey headed chickadee is also known as the Siberian tit. Chickadees are native to the northern hemisphere and most species are found only in North America, though the aforementioned grey-headed chickadee also lives throughout the northern reaches of Europe and Asia. This is the deciding factor on whether birds in this genus are commonly called a “chickadee” or a “tit”; those that range in Europe and Asia are called “tits” while those that range in North America are called “chickadees”.

Chickadees get this common name based on their call. When alarmed, they let out a call that sounds like their name: [audio]. Can you hear the chicka-dee-dee-dee? The amount of “dee’s” in the call denotes the kind of danger they’re alerting. When they aren’t alerting, they sound more like this: [audio]. They can also be identified by their dark heads and chins separated by a solid white stripe.

Chickadees live in coniferous and deciduous forests. They prefer forest edges and open areas such as those near water. They also need soft, decaying wood in their habitat in which to excavate their nests. Chickadees form mating pairs towards the end of the year and produce a brood in spring. They either use the holes produced by other animals, like woodpeckers, or dig out their own nests from rotting wood. The nest is lined with fur, moss, and other material and the female lays anywhere from three to twelve eggs. She does all the incubating, but the male stays by her side to feed her during the two to three week process. Once the babies hatch, they'll remain in the nest another two to three weeks before leaving, though they'll stick around another month or two before they're fully independent. It takes a year for chickadees to reach reproductive maturity and they can live to be more than a decade old, though on average they only live two to three years.

Outside of the breeding season, chickadees travel in small flocks which can include other tits, woodpeckers, and nuthatches. Nuthatches may be confused with chickadees, however, nuthatches don’t have that dark bib seen in chickadees. Predators to chickadees include owls, hawks, woodpeckers, squirrels, snakes, raccoons, weasels, and more, but chickadees use their warning calls to alert members of their flock that danger is near. These warning calls are even headed by other bird species!

During the spring and summer, chickadees mostly consume insects and arachnids, but they’ll also eat seeds, nuts, fruits, and even carrion especially during the winter when insects are less abundant. Something amazing about chickadees is that they are seed hoarders and they can remember the locations of thousands of seeds hidden throughout their home. They’re small birds, reaching approximately five inches (12.7cm) in length with eight inch (20cm) wingspans.

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