Black-capped Chickadees

Black-capped chickadees are a favorite bird of Americans and readily visit feeders and suet blocks.

I have to admit that my attempts to attract birds to my backyard have met with limited success. Oh sure, we have great flocks of house finches and house sparrows, who doesn’t? And starlings, magpies and collared doves seem to increase yearly. However, the “cool” birds are rare indeed. We’ll get occasional visiting royalty but not like what so many others have.

This winter though, a pair of black-capped chickadees has graced our yard, quickly earning their reputation as one of America’s favorite backyard birds. We still don’t see them every day, partly because we are often at work when they like to breakfast at our suet feeders or race off with a few sunflower seeds.

Black-capped chickadees are  backyard champions for a number of reasons. They are easy to recognize and, with the apparent exception of my yard, are easy to attract with bird feeders. Further, they are curious and tolerant of humans, even to the point of taking food by hand after a bit of training.

Beyond that, black-capped chickadees are often described as “cute”. And indeed they are. They are sort of like human babies in the sense that they have an oversized head on a tiny body. The look continues with a black cap that extends to just below the eye, black bib and charming white cheeks. Pink-orange blush on their sides completes the look.

Chickadees may readily come to bird feeders, but their visits are short. They will peck at the suet for a few seconds and then they are off to the security of a nearby tree. Soon they are back to grab a seed from the feeder and off they go again, to enjoy the meal elsewhere or to hide it for later. Black-capped chickadees may stash seeds all around the yard and have been shown to remember up to 1000 locations.

One of the most fascinating facts about black-capped chickadees is that every autumn they essentially experience a memory wipe. Some brain neurons containing old information die, and are replaced with new ones ready to store new data. According to Cornell University, “this allows them to adapt to changes in their social flocks and environment even with their tiny brains.”

The mountain chickadee is likely the black-capped chickadee’s closest relative, but the black-capped and Carolina chickadees are near twins in looks. In my file I have photographs of what I assume to be Carolina chickadees as the images were captured in Knoxville, Tennessee, within the range of the Carolina but not the black-capped chickadee. However, I can’t consistently distinguish them from black-capped chickadees from Idaho.

There is enough individual variation that even experts, which I am certainly not, often resort to geography to determine which species they are looking at. Where the two ranges overlap though, even experts may be stymied as the two species readily hybridize.

Since black-capped chickadees are very social and prefer to fly in flocks, I am hopeful that more will join the two that have found our feeders.

Wildlife License Plates

Great news! as of 2024, there are three NEW designs for license plates. They still are bluebird, cutthroat trout and elk, but they are beautiful.

Idaho Wildlife license plates provide essential funding that benefits the great diversity of native plants and wildlife that are not hunted, fished or trapped—over 10,000 species or 98% of Idaho’s species diversity. Game species that share the same habitats (such as elk, deer, antelope, sage-grouse, salmon, trout) also benefit from these specialty plates.

No state tax dollars are provided for wildlife diversity, conservation education and recreation programs. Neither are any revenues from the sale of hunting or fishing licenses spent on nongame species. Instead, these species depend on direct donations, federal grants, fundraising initiatives—and the Idaho Wildlife license plates.

Both my vehicles have Bluebird Plates. I prefer the bluebird because the nongame program gets 70 percent of the money from bluebird plates, but only 60 percent of the money from elk and trout plates - 10 percent of the money from elk plates supports wildlife disease monitoring and testing programs (to benefit the livestock industry) and 10 percent from cutthroat plates supports non-motorized boat access.

Incidentally, in 2014, the Idaho Legislature denied the Department of Fish and Game the ability to add new plates or even to change the name of the elk and cutthroat plates (very specific) to wildlife and fish plates, a move that would have allowed for changing images occasionally and generating more revenue. It would seem that they believe that we Idahoans don't want a well funded wildlife program.

I think it is time we let the Legislature know that Idahoan support wildlife funding and that we would like to see these generic plates come to fruition.