He was very excited and to add to his excitement–I put out donuts for him. Oh! This was a happy weekend for our little chicka-dee-dee-dees!
Black Capped Chickadee Archive
Our birdy feeders have been seemingly sparse lately, or so we thought but then we realized we have attracted bully birds to our porch. The crows have always been a welcome bird. For the most part they do not harm or disturb the other little birds. We began feeding them and then branched out to other birds. Soon, we had many birds and the pigeon showed up. Again, they came but did not disturb the other birds. They ate and left. So, we did not fret about them. But now a host of House Sparrows and a chattering of European Starlings have showed up and well, these birds are menacing. They swoop in and frighten off the small birds. They even chased off our frequenter
We love our little black-capped chickadees! They are cute and energetic and fun. They have little white cheeks and black caps and black chins with a white collar patch and a light tan, orangish underbelly and grayish-black wings. It is said they eat mostly seeds but we have seen differently! =) Oh do not get me wrong…they do eat seeds…but they also eat suet, worms, nuts and the ones that visit our feeders LOVE the peanut butter suet mix we got from Wild Birds Unlimited. We see the Black-Capped Chickadees on the peanut butter log, the suet cages and the seed feeders all the time but this weekend on a walk we saw one fly to its nest… Then it turned around and we discovered
I watched for an hour and a half and this was my official count: 5 House Finches (2 males, 3 females) 3 Dark-Eyed Juncos 2 Red-Breasted Nuthatches 2 Downy Woodpeckers (One male, one female) 5 Chestnut-backed Chickadees A dozen or more Black-Capped Chickadees 1 Stellar’s Jay 5 American Robins (1 male, 4 females) 3 dozen or more Mallards 1 – 2 dozen American Crows 4 Song Sparrows 3 Spotted Towhees
OH! YAY! Since we put out the peanuts without shells and the new bird feeder, we have had so many new visitors. These wonderfully interesting feathered friends we have seen stop in… Stellar’s Jay ** Red-Breasted Nuthatch Black-Capped Chickadee Brewer’s Blackbird ** Crows (on a regular basis) American Robin House Finch Dark-eyed Junco Chestnut-Backed Chickadee Spotted Towhee Hummingbird (not certain which one — he was a passerby) The two birds with asterisks are the ones we have not yet been able to photograph. Don’t worry! We will be continue to try! =) The rest you can see in the gallery below
These little cuties come to the back porch to eat the black oil sunflower seeds in the new feeder. YAY for new birds! =) (Don’t worry, we are still feed the crows!) There are two types here: the Black-Capped Chickadees and Chestnut-Backed Chickadees. Aren’t they adorable? “Mixed flocks stay together because the chickadees call out whenever they find a good source of food. This calling out forms cohesion for the group, allowing the other birds to find food more efficiently. When flocking, Black-capped Chickadees soon establish a rigid social hierarchy.”1 They do sing but I haven’t had the pleasure of them hearing them. =( I will soon, I hope. Primarily they are insectivores but they do like seeds and berries as well. We know they