Length: About 5¼ inches.

General Appearance: A very active little gray and white bird, with a black cap and throat and dull yellowish sides.

Male and Female: Head and throat a glistening black; sides of head white; bill small, black, sharp-pointed; back a soft brownish-gray; wings and tail gray, edged with white; breast white, becoming yellowish at the sides below the wings.

Song: Chick-a-dee-dee-dee, uttered with gurgles and chuckles, and with variations.

Call-notes: Day’-day, and a whistle that resembles the word PÉ-whee. The latter note is often called the “Phoebe note,” and sometimes the “Pewee note.” To me it resembles neither; it is not hoarse and wheezing like the phoebe’s, nor plaintive like the pewee’s. The last syllable has a descending inflection.

Flight: Very swift and jerky.

Habitat: Woodlands, orchards, and groves.

Range: Eastern North America, from the Hudson Bay region and N. F., south to central Missouri, Illinois, northern Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey, and in the Alleghany Mts. to North Carolina; somewhat farther south in winter.

The CAROLINA CHICKADEE, a smaller species, breeds from central Missouri, Indiana, central Ohio, Pennsylvania (infrequently), and central New Jersey, south to southeastern Louisiana, the Gulf Coast and northern Florida. In southern Florida, are found the FLORIDA CHICKADEES, that are still smaller and browner.

In the White Mts., the Green Mts., the Adirondacks, and southeastern Canada live ACADIAN CHICKADEES, that differ from the preceding species in having brownish-gray crowns, and reddish-brown sides. A similarly marked species, slightly larger, is found from Ontario to Alaska.

During tiresome days of a winter convalescence, spent largely on a sleeping-porch that overlooked a beautiful hillside, my most constant and cheering companions were lively little chickadees. Their blending with the winter landscape was perfect. Whether they were seen against the black snow-laden trunks or smooth gray boles of beeches, or among yellowish willow-withes, they were bits of color harmony.

These active little gymnasts, performing unexpected feats in their swinging from horizontal bars, furnished pleasant diversion, while their friendly, confiding ways, their undaunted fearlessness, and their optimism cheered lonely hours.

An ice-storm necessitated the spreading of a table for our brave little all-kinds-of-weather friends. They came in pairs, grew very tame, and drew near to us like confiding children who knew that no harm would befall them. They acted as though our care of them was the most natural thing in the world. Chickadees have never seemed to me to “grow up,” but always to remain the trusting little ones of the bird-world, too small to be out alone, and yet, like children, to fare forth with confidence that their needs would be supplied.

They repay a thousand-fold any care bestowed upon them. Dr. Judd reported finding in the stomach of one black-capped chickadee between 200 and 300 eggs of the fall cankerworm moth, and 450 eggs of a plant louse in another. Mr. C. E. Bailey computed that one chickadee alone would destroy 138,750 eggs of the cankerworm moth in 25 days, while Prof. Sanderson estimated that 8,000,000,000 insects are destroyed yearly in Michigan by these invaluable little birds.[29]

“Much of the daylight life of the chickadee is spent in a busy, active pursuit of, or search for, insects and their eggs. This is particularly the case in winter, when hibernating insects or their eggs must be most diligently sought, for then starvation always threatens. But the chickadee is one of the few insectivorous birds that is keen-witted enough to find abundant food and safe shelter during the inclement northern winter. Nevertheless, its busy search for food is sometimes interrupted for so long a time during severe storms, when the trees are encased in ice, that it dies from cold and hunger. During a sleet storm Mr. C. E. Bailey saw two chickadees creep under the loose clapboards of an old building for shelter. Their tails were so weighted down with ice that they could hardly fly, and had he not cared for them they might have perished.

“The chickadee, notwithstanding its hardiness, requires protection from cold winds and storms at night. It finds such shelter either in some hollow tree or in some deserted bird nest. Late one cold and snowy afternoon Mr. Bailey detected a movement in a cavity under an old crow’s nest, and on climbing the tree he found two chickadees nestling there. They remained there until he had climbed to the nest and put his hand on one, when they flew out, only to return before he reached the ground. Minot speaks of a chickadee that slept alone in winter in a phoebe’s nest under his veranda. It retires to its refuge rather early at night, and does not come out until the Tree Sparrow, Song Sparrow, and Junco are abroad.”[30]