Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus)
Description: This small sized bird is identified by its small neck with a large head and spherical body. The tail that is contains is short and it has a short slightly thick bill. In sync with its name, the Black- capped chickadee has a black capped head and bib. Its body is mainly grey with white endges on the wings and white cheeks.
Habitat: The Black-capped Chickadee is mainly found in forests. Other places that they may be seen are cottonwood groves, open woods, and parks.
Diet: Their main diet consists of insects and seeds. In the winter these birds will mostly eat seeds, plants, and berries half the time while consuming insects the other half. The insects that may be consumed consist of spiders but this bird may also even consume bits of frozen carcass. In the summer and spring 90 percent of thier diet si made up of insecrs and spiders. They may eat peanut butter, sunflower seeds and meal worms that they will find on birdfeeders. To eat seeds they will peck a hole into the seen and then eat tiny bits of the seed through this hole.
Behaviors:
Miscellaneous:
Habitat: The Black-capped Chickadee is mainly found in forests. Other places that they may be seen are cottonwood groves, open woods, and parks.
Diet: Their main diet consists of insects and seeds. In the winter these birds will mostly eat seeds, plants, and berries half the time while consuming insects the other half. The insects that may be consumed consist of spiders but this bird may also even consume bits of frozen carcass. In the summer and spring 90 percent of thier diet si made up of insecrs and spiders. They may eat peanut butter, sunflower seeds and meal worms that they will find on birdfeeders. To eat seeds they will peck a hole into the seen and then eat tiny bits of the seed through this hole.
Behaviors:
- This bird tends to hide its food so that it can have some later. They have thousands of hiding spots and are still able to remember where they put each of these items.
- Chickadees are "social", meaning that they will associate with may idfferent kinds of birds like warblers, woodpeckers, and small woodland species
- They travel in flocks of birds and it has been discovered that they contain specific calls that are characteristic of the human language
- When the nest is hollowed out, the female will then build a nest hidden inside the cavity wil moss and rabbit fur as a lining.
Miscellaneous:
- Every autumn Black-capped Chickadees allow brain neurons containing old information to die, replacing them with new neurons so they can adapt to changes in their social flocks and environment even with their tiny brains.