For the Birds: Chestnut-backed Chickadee

Chestnut-backed chickadee
Photo by Christine Southwick

By Christine Southwick

Do you have chickadees that have brown on their backs instead of black, and their “dee-dee-dees” sound like they have a high Scottish burr?

That’s a chickadee only found on the West Coast, the Chestnut-backed Chickadee.  Their warm chestnut brown backs, dark brown caps coupled with their white cheeks makes these active bug-gleaning little birds welcome additions to your yard and feeders.

Chestnut-backed Chickadees prefer dark, damp, closed-canopy coniferous forests, for living and breeding.   Sixty-five per cent of their food is composed of spiders, caterpillars, scale insects, aphids, and wasp larvae and other insects.  In the fall, they often store food for eating later.

Chestnut-backed Chickadees build their nests in old woodpecker holes; in snags in which they excavate their own cavity; or in nest boxes.  The female makes a foundation using moss and strips of bark. The rest of the nest is made mostly out of animal fur woven with bark, grass, and feathers. Rabbit, deer, coyote, skunk, horses, cattle, and cat fur are candidates for inclusion in the one-to-six inch deep nest. The female often uses a flap of fur to cover the one to eleven eggs when she leaves the nest.

Black-capped on left, Chestnut-backed Chickadee on right
Photo by Christine Southwick

The smallest chickadees in North America, Chestnut-backed Chickadees glean insects from twigs and limbs high up in the canopy.  These chickadees often hang up-side-down on cones like Black-capped Chickadee do. These two species can co-exist because each species has found their own feeding niche. Chestnut-backed Chickadees feed high, often 45-50 feet above ground, whereas Black-capped Chickadees feed much lower, and forage mostly on thicker branches and trunks.

Chestnut-backed Chickadees are territorial only during breeding time.  Other times they co-mingle with other small birds. During the winter Chestnut-backed Chickadees travel with Black-capped Chickadees, Red-breasted Nuthatches, Golden-crowned Kinglets, and maybe a Downy Woodpecker or two.

Because Chestnut-backed Chickadees depend on evergreen canopies, clearcuts and urban development destroy the habitat they need by cutting down the large tall trees they use. The Chestnut-backed Chickadee population has declined dramatically in Seattle and in other local city areas.  Audubon-Washington has added this chickadee to its “Species-at-Risk” list. 

Keep local evergreens, especially tall ones, offer black-oil sunflower, suet, and water, put up a nest box, and with enough evergreen trees and shrubs, these chickadees can be persuaded into your yard to eat your bugs and make you smile.