Black-capped chickadee
This ubiquitous back garden and park inhabitant may be common but its cheery song and graceful flight pattern have endeared it to all. The diminutive singer measures nearly 6 inches in height with a 7.5 - 8.5 inch wingspan.
We hear its familiar chick-a-dee-dee-dee call all year, and especially in the winter. Experts think this call means the bird has found a food source and its sharing the information with others birds. The chickadee is probably the first bird in Vancouver to wake residents up to spring with its two tone mating call fee-beeyee.
These harbingers of spring can be seen throughout Pacific Spirit Park and probably in your own back yard. For years the same chickadee couple has made a nest in a hollowed-out post just under our kitchen window. Watching them eat their weight in insects, hanging perilously upside down from apple and pear trees, has given this onlooker much pleasure- almost as much delight as observing the parents giving “flight training” to the newly fledged chicks!
photo June Ryder
photo Mark Habdas
photo June Ryder
Eyes
Head
Cheeks
Bibb & Throat
Tail
Colour
Black
Black Cap
White
Black
Long
Light-gray upperparts;
white underparts with
olive-buff wash on sides
Nesting:
Monogamous, 5-10 white eggs laid with fine reddish-brown marks. Incubated by both sexes up to 13 days but brooded by the female for up to a further 18 days while being fed by both parents.
photo June Ryder
contributed by Terri Clark