Size & Shape
This tiny bird has a short neck and large head, giving it a distinctive, rather spherical body shape. It also has a long, narrow tail and a short bill a bit thicker than a warbler’s but thinner than a finch’s.
Color Pattern
The cap and bib are black, the cheeks white, the back soft gray, the wing feathers gray edged with white, and the underparts soft buffy on the sides grading to white beneath. The cap extends down just beyond the black eyes, making the small eyes tricky to see.
Behavior
Black-capped Chickadees seldom remain at feeders except to grab a seed to eat elsewhere. They are acrobatic and associate in flocks-the sudden activity when a flock arrives is distinctive. They often fly across roads and open areas one at a time with a bouncy flight.
Habitat
Chickadees may be found in any habitat that has trees or woody shrubs, from forests and woodlots to residential neighborhoods and parks, and sometimes weedy fields and cattail marshes. They frequently nest in birch or alder trees.
The Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) and the Carolina Chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) can be confusing species for eastern bird watchers to identify. The ranges of these species do not overlap much, and birds are quite rare any distance outside of their mapped range. For many people, a quick look at a range map will show which species are most likely to occur at their feeders. But for those who live in the zone of overlap, a fairly stable and narrow band that runs along the east-central United States, the chickadees pose a serious identification challenge. To complicate matters, the species have been known to hybridize in the overlap zone. When identifying these two chickadees, concentrate equally on the differences in plumage and the differences in vocalizations. However, near the zone of overlap, birds have been known to learn each other’s vocalizations, and hybrids tend to deliver odd-sounding variations. A bird located near the zone of overlap that sings both songs, or sings “odd-sounding” songs, cannot be positively identified in the field.