Winter storms like the one that’s beset Nova Scotia the past couple of days provide the ultimate test for chickadee memories. When food supplies become scarce due to snow cover, they must rely on their memories to retrieve food that they hid when supplies were more plentiful.
A chickadee may have up to a hundred bits of food (seed, insect or berry) hidden in nooks and crannies in the forest. Each piece is stashed in a different place. Just before the storm peaked yesterday afternoon I noticed a small flock of chickadees coming and going non-stop from a pile of sunflower seeds I had set out for them. They weren’t eating the seeds but hiding them in the bark of trees and coming back for more. They had good reason to be working so quickly. In about 15 minutes, the pile of seeds I had put out was buried under snow.
During winter nights, the body temperature of chickadees drops about ten degrees as they enter a state of torpor, enabling them to survive the cold. Still, they need to eat during the day. If a chickadee couldn’t remember the location of its stashes, its chances of survival would be slim. I wonder if older chickadees are subject to memory loss like humans as they age.
This morning I shoveled the driveway while listening to a flock of chickadees cheerfully calling out to one another in song. The little chickadee in the photo below appears to be doing a dance of joy. Happy as a bird, it’s probably celebrating making it through yet another winter storm. Perhaps we should do the same 🙂
For more information about chickadees, see my previous post about The Private Lives of Chickadees.
If you’d like to learn how to feed chickadees by hand, see my previous post about How to Handfeed Wild Birds.
Flandrum Hill 
Thank you! I was just wondering–again–this morning about where chickadees slept at night. The link that you provided finally gave the answer. I also didn’t know that they took the seeds and stored them for a snowy day. Smart little birds! (And the photo of the wings open is amazing.)
Kathy, they are indeed clever little birds for such tiny things. I was especially surprised to learn about their hierarchies and the social climbing behaviour of some of the females.
A Chika-dance! What a lovely post. The sun’s shining again–maybe I’ll go out and dance a little bit. The dogs would love it.
Gerry, hope you had fun dancing in the sun 🙂
Love that photo of the little bird with wings outspread! A friend who feeds birds in his yard in southern Michigan said he found out recently (from some official source) that wild birds at his feeder are probably finding 95% of their food from other sources.
Yes, I too wondered how birds make it through the winter nights.
Pamela, they do eat a lot of insects that are found in the bark of trees. If we provide seed for wild birds we’re supposed to also provide water to aid in digestion.
As for winter night shelter, old forests would provide numerous holes in old trees for them to snuggle in. Snow is also a great insulator.
Great photos. Chickadees are my favorite bird, so I’m happy to hear that your local ones made it through another storm:)
Grace, they are just the sweetest little creatures. You should try to tame some to feed out of your hand if you haven’t already. A link on how to do this is provided at the bottom of my post. This is an ideal time of year to give it a try.
I don’t have chickadees in my yard since a cat adopted us a few years ago and I decided it was better not to attract birds…but they are one of my most favourite if fickle companions on my forest walks. I take pictures of them all them time, but they are just a dot in the centre of the frame since even when they come close (yesterday 10 feet or less) by the time I can tear my eyes away from them long enough to get my camera ready, they have always hopped off, calling sweetly as if inviting me to join them. Someday I’ll have a zoom lens… 🙂
I have visited both of your previous posts and very much enjoyed them. It’s the first time I’ve seen your drawings. I hope you will post more as you’re very, very good at it! All the posts have taught me something and for that as well, I thank you.
Cindy, chickadees seem to move so fast. I took so many photos of them that showed no bird in the frame.
I’m glad you got something out of the previous posts. There is a lot more to chickadees than their cuteness. When I started this blog, I used a lot more drawings as I wasn’t comfortable taking photos. Much has changed since then. Hopefully I’ll get back to adding more drawings in the future. They just take so much more time to create.
Great photos. I’m going to watch more closely to see if I can see ’em stashing their seeds. That’s really interesting about how their temperatures drop at night …
Sybil, I don’t know where they would stash seeds in a residential area that does not have many trees. Perhaps if you took some seeds with you when you go in the woods, you might have a chance to see them stashing them.
I think our temperatures drop a bit at night too, just not so much.
Thanks for this post, I love that lower photo – a chickadee dancing, what fun!
🙂
I’ve a post in my blog that’s a bit old, but you would probably enjoy it, about a nearly tame european robin called Hasslebob:
http://absurdoldbird.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/hasslebob/
Val, glad you liked the chickadee dancing. (Actually, I think I caught it as it was just landing on a branch). Will check out your post.
Another HA HA to all the folks who claim birds and other creatures non-human don’t ‘think’. LOL. Thank you.
47whitebuffalo, they certainly do have a lot more going on in their lives than we could possibly imagine.
lovely post! I adore chickadees – they’re so cheery and fun to watch – even when they’re cussing you out for something. 🙂
Thanks ebbtide. They certainly are cheerful creatures. Now why would they have reason to cuss you out? 🙂
Love the dancing, celebrating chickadee!!!