What does a brown-headed chickadee bird look like? Brown-headed chickadee: nutrition, reproduction of the chickadee, appearance of the bird

This article will talk about one of the surprisingly small inhabitants of mixed and deciduous forests. The conversation will be about birds, which bring considerable benefits to forestry.

This is a black-headed chickadee. She also has other similar relatives, which you can learn about by reading this article.

It should be noted that the characteristics of this bird are a little difficult due to its great similarity to other species of chickadees, for example, the brown-headed chickadee. But more on that below.

Black-headed (or marsh) chickadee: description

The marsh tit, or black-headed tit, is a small tit weighing about 10-11 grams. It is smaller in size than a sparrow and its plumage is not very brightly colored.

The total length with a weight of up to 15 grams is 12-14 centimeters, and the wingspan reaches 18-20 cm. The neck and head are blue-black, the throat and chin are black, and the feathers at the tips have a white border. The back is dark sandy with an olive tint, and the thighs are browner. The tail (with stripe) and wings are grayish in color. The sides are reddish and the ventral area is light brown. gray. Dirty white cheeks, black beak, dark gray paws.

The black-headed chickadee is a fairly active bird. Its flight is very fast and wave-like. These birds have no pronounced sexual dimorphism; it is difficult to distinguish a female from a male. Young birds look duller in plumage, and their caps are matte and dark brown.

External differences between species

The black-headed chickadee and the chickadee are very similar in appearance. How to distinguish them? Unlike the second, the upper and lower parts of the body of the black-headed chickadee are clearly distinguishable by color.

This bird has one more detail of black plumage - a small spot with slightly blurry edges just under the beak (does not reach the chest).

It is also practically indistinguishable in nature from another species. What is the difference between the black-headed one and the other? There are two barely visible distinctive features - a shorter cap with a bluish tint and a thicker beak on the second one.

Habitats, lifestyle

The black-headed chickadee is a bird that lives primarily in deciduous forests and riverine thickets of poplars, bird cherry and willows. It is found, in addition to swampy damp lowlands, and in dry wild thickets, gardens, groves and parks.

The habitats of this small bird vary depending on the time of year. Unlike the brown-headed chickadee, the black-headed chickadee avoids coniferous forests, may end up in them only in winter and autumn, during the period of migration.

In February, chickadees are observed in meadows, among willow thickets and alder forests. In May they can live in spruce-alder forests, alder forests, hornbeam-oak forests, and in June - also in hornbeam-oak forests and alder forests. In dense hazel thickets, in mixed spruce-deciduous forests and in young oak forests they can be found in July, and in mixed forests, among birch thickets and in young pine forests This bird lives in August-September. In October-November, birch forests become the habitat of the chickadee. mixed forests, alder and pine forests.

This bird nests in hollows of deciduous trees and in rotten stumps with rotten wood. As a rule, the hollow is located at a height of about 1-1.5 meters above the ground, sometimes higher. It is cleared by the chickadee itself. If she hollows out a hollow on her own, she carries the wood chips away from the future nest to some distance.

The hollow is usually so small that the nest litter and the bird sitting in it are often visible from the outside. In a clutch (April-May) there are 5-9 white eggs interspersed with a reddish-brown hue. Rarely, these birds sometimes make a second clutch.

The black-headed chickadee is a common (and sedentary) bird, and these species of birds, like other tits, live together in flocks and pairs. They are very dexterous and agile, they like to cling and hang on the tip of thin branches.

How is a nest built?

The outside of the nest is made of green moss mixed with wool and cobwebs. The tray itself is usually lined with wool mixed with horsehair, and sometimes with down and feathers. The average diameter of the nest is 3-6 centimeters. The height of the tray is no more than 3 cm, and its average dimensions are 1.4 cm.

The black-headed chickadee nests in solitary pairs. For the most part, unlike its related species (brown-headed tit), it uses an existing hollow, only expanding it when necessary by plucking wood from it. Nests are sometimes located at a height of about 3 meters. Typically, the diameter of a hollow's entrance is no more than 3.5 cm. This bird can also inhabit artificial hollows.

This bird has an average of 7-10 eggs in a full clutch. Their shell is milky white, shiny, covered with small rusty-reddish brown spots. The weight of the egg is 1.3 g, the diameter reaches up to 13 mm, and the length reaches 17 mm.

Nutrition

The black-headed chickadee feeds mainly on caterpillars and spiders, and in autumn and winter on seeds, including thistle seeds.

These birds also feed on insects and their larvae with chitinous hard shells, as well as flies, spiders and aphids.

In summer, adult birds feed on ants, weevils, spiders, and various small beetles. In the spring, they eat the anthers of willows and aspens, and drink the sap of maple and birch trees. In autumn and winter, most of the diet consists of seeds of spruce, pine, maple, black alder, rowan, and various herbaceous plants etc. Chickadees feed their chicks mainly on butterfly caterpillars and spiders.

Peculiarities

The voice of the black-headed chickadee is very diverse. His call is a sonorous “qi-qi-zhee-zhee” or a little sadder “pyuyu-piyuy.” Her singing is surprisingly sonorous and melodic. Also, a chickadee can utter a quick “weep, wheeze” with hoarse exclamations and metallic notes, or a drawn-out “tey-tey-tey”, meaning alarm. There is another whistling song - "sis-si-ris-si".

A characteristic feature of this bird is the manner of staying only in pairs and strong affection for each other. In winter, ordinary mixed flocks in which small wintering birds gather, as a rule, one or two marsh chickadees can be found. They rarely live alone. Partners do not separate either in winter or autumn, even when they are in a flock of their relatives or join flocks of other tits.

The chickadee's lifestyle is sedentary and in winter it always stays near the nest.

In conclusion: some interesting facts

• In spring (usually in April), pairs decide on a nesting site and females begin to choose a hollow for themselves. The eggs are incubated for 14 days. Chicks usually fly out of the nest on days 17-19, after which the male also joins in raising them.
• There have been cases where there were nests of chickadees, lined with moss mixed with hare fur and a small amount of feathers.
• Black-headed chickadees are useful birds for forestry because they feed on many insects, especially small bugs (several studies have been done on the stomachs of these birds).

Tit (previously - Tit)

syn. Poecile montanus

The entire territory of Belarus

Tit family - Paridae.

In Belarus - P. m. borealis.

Common breeding, sedentary and partially nomadic species.

Externally, both in size and color of plumage, it is extremely similar to the black-headed chickadee. It is distinguished by a brownish tint of black in the plumage of the top of the head, a slightly longer beak and the presence of noticeable light edges on the outer webs of the upper wing coverts. The beak is brown, the cheeks are white, there is a black spot on the throat, the belly is dirty, the back is gray with a brownish tint. Weight of male 10-11.5 g, female 10-12 g. Body length (both sexes) 12-14 cm, wingspan 16.5-22 cm, wing length 6-6.5 cm, tail 6 cm, tarsus 1 cm.

Inhabits mainly coniferous and mixed coniferous-deciduous forests of the taiga type. Typical habitats are pine forests, pine forests with an admixture of various deciduous species, often located near sphagnum swamps, spruce and spruce-deciduous forests with old trees and rotten stumps. In mixed forests, it selects areas with a predominance of pine or spruce trees. Found both near the edges and in the depths forest areas. Occasionally it settles in the vicinity of humans, sometimes nests in large forest parks if there are hollow trees or the opportunity to hollow out a hollow in rotten alder or birch wood.

Outside the breeding season during autumn-winter migrations, they are often found in various types forests in gardens and parks and holiday villages in flocks with other tits looking for food.

The spatial niche of this species is the crowns of trees (pine, oak, aspen, birch, alder), shrubs and grass cover.

In March - April, the formation of pairs is observed, at this time it is most often possible to hear the male singing - monotonously repeated melancholic whistles. The singing bird constantly moves in the treetops. The call is not whistling, like that of the black-headed chickadee, but sharper, conveyed by the sounds “ji-ji-jzhe...”. In May–June, the intensity of singing decreases sharply, then increases by the time the chicks fly out of the nest, while both males and females sing.

They nest in separate pairs in hollows, which they usually hollow out and pluck out themselves in rotten stumps, broken off dry or rotten tree trunks at a height of 0.5-1.5 m. Both the male and the female take part in the construction of the hollow. He uses ready-made rotted cavities less often, but always clears and deepens them. The construction of the hollow lasts 5–20 days, the nest – 4–6 days.

The diameter of the taphole does not exceed 25-35 mm. At the bottom of the hollow, a miniature nest is built from pieces of tree bast, pieces of bark and panicles of cereals. This material also distinguishes the nest of the chickadee from the nest of the black-headed chickadee, which is very similar in appearance. For lining it uses animal wool and hair, adding plant fluff and cobwebs to it. In exceptional cases, very little material is used to build a nest, or the bird does without it at all, and then there is nothing in the hollow except wood dust. The diameter of the tray is about 5 cm.

The clutch consists of 6-9 (usually 7-8), occasionally 5 or 10 eggs. The shell is shiny, milky white, covered with sparse or denser surface spots of rusty brown color, often forming a corolla at the blunt end. Deep spots have a reddish-purple hue. Egg weight 1.3 g, length 14-17 mm, diameter 11-13 mm.

Egg laying occurs in the third ten days of April - the first ten days of May. There is one brood per year, but sometimes there are two. The laying of eggs of the second cycle in the south-west of Belarus is observed until the 1st half of July.

The female incubates for 14-15 days, during which time the male regularly brings her food.

The chicks are fed by both parents. At the age of about 18 days, the chicks leave the nest. The parents feed the fledglings that fly out of the nests for 7–11 days near the hollow. About a week after hatching, the chicks try to get food on their own. For about a month after departure, the broods stay together, then they break up, and the young birds migrate, only moving to a sedentary life by mid-winter.

In southwestern Belarus, the number of chicks in a nest is 4–8, with an average of 6.2.

According to observations of two nests in which there were 6 and 7 chicks of 8–10 days of age in the Tomashovsky forestry ( Brest district), the number of food brought by parents to the nest was 220–280 times a day. Food is collected near the nest. The area of ​​the hunting area ranged from 4.5 to 11 thousand m², with an average of 8.7 thousand m².

Brown-headed chickadees' diet consists of insects and other small invertebrates, including aphids, spiders, egg-laying insects, small molluscs and worms. They also eat seeds of conifers and other plants (seeds of spruce, pine, juniper, fruits and seeds of rowan, blueberry, alder, birch) and even feed them to their chicks. In spring, birds include aspen and alder anthers in their diet and drink birch sap.

Chickadee chicks are fed with butterfly caterpillars, spiders and their cocoons, and small insect larvae. Shortly before leaving the nest, the parents begin to feed the chicks seeds.

In autumn these birds arrange a large number of small storehouses (one or several seeds in each), hiding them in crevices of the bark, under lichen and in other secluded places. Surprisingly, every bird remembers its numerous pantries, regularly checks and often hides their contents. Reserves are used mainly during periods of temporary shortage of feed, which is used by both the owners and other birds.

The number in Belarus is stable, estimated at 400–600 thousand pairs.

The maximum age recorded in Europe is 11 years 4 months.

Pairs of these tits show amazing attachment to certain areas of the forest with an area of ​​10-20 hectares. Their whole life takes place in this limited territory, which they can cross in a matter of minutes. But they remember every tree here very well, they know where to find food, a place to sleep, silt and nests. Every day, flying from tree to tree, they slowly move around their area in search of food, walking a winding path of 3-5 kilometers.

Brown-headed chickadees have two songs, completely different from each other. The so-called whistling song is a series of loud, beautiful whistles: “tiu-tiu-tiu-tiu.” Each bird uses several of its variations, differing in height and tempo of execution. This song can be heard already in the first sunny days winter, at the end of December. But most of all it attracts attention in March, when there are still few other singing birds. Together with bullfinches, pikas, kinglets and great tits, puffy birds create the sound background of a forest that has just awakened in spring.

The second chubby song - gurgling - is quite quiet and consists of alternating trills: “si-sisi-sisisi-tyur-r-lyu-lyu-lyu...” Not only male plumes sing, but also females. The whistling song is most often used to attract a female and maintain communication between partners. The gurgle serves as a sign that the individual has a territory and is going to nest here. Special quiet option Males sing a gurgling song when courting females.

When the forest is filled with the noise of spring streams, and yellow coltsfoot flowers bloom on their banks, puffballs begin to look for a place for a nest. Like all tits, they nest in hollows. However, unlike other European tits, plume tits, as well as tufted tits, prefer to hollow out the hollow themselves. Living trunks are too strong for their small beaks. Therefore, they choose stumps and dead trees with soft, rotten wood for hollows. The male and female take turns flying up to the tree and quickly nipping at the rotten wood. Having collected as many pieces as possible into its beak, one bird flies off to the side, and another bird takes its place without hesitation. When making a hollow, puffballs do not throw wood chips directly under it - after all, those chips, brightly whitening on the forest floor, can give away the location of the nest. They fly away with pieces of wood and often not just throw them away, but hide them between the needles, behind loose bark, in holes where the knots have fallen out.

The shape of the finished hollow is variable and depends on the location of the soft and hard areas of the wood. And when strong twigs force the chubby ones to make a very intricate move into the hollow. Most often, the depth of the hollow is 14-16, and the diameter of the bottom is 7-8 centimeters. The nests of brown-headed chickadees differ well from the nests of other tits - they have no moss. This is a rather careless lining of strips of juniper bast, aspen, hazel, pine bark scales, wool and feathers. Like all tits, the nest is built by the female alone, and the male accompanies her on flights to collect building material.

Along with woodpeckers, puffy woodpeckers are suppliers of cavities for other small birds- hollow nesters, since they make a new hollow every year. They are especially often occupied by pied flycatchers. Sometimes they unceremoniously expel the chicks even from new hollows, forcing them to abandon eggs or small chicks.

Chickadees begin laying eggs later than other tits, in early May. The female spends the night in the nest, where the male accompanies her every evening. In the morning he flies up to the hollow again and calls his girlfriend with a quiet song. Every morning, before leaving the nest, the female lays one white egg with brown specks. The birds spend the whole day together. The female often begs for food from the male, at this moment reminiscent of a fledgling chick asking for food. And she screams like a chick: “si-ti-zhe.” The male from time to time gives her the food he finds, which is very important for the female during the period of intensive development of her eggs, each of which weighs about 1.2 grams and is approximately a tenth of the body weight of an adult bird. In the first half of the day, the female returns to the nest several times, bringing tufts of wool and dry blades of grass to cover the unfinished clutch.

The first two days after the birth of the offspring, the female spends most of the day in the hollow, warming the almost naked babies with sparse fluff on the head, shoulders and back. There are usually seven or eight chicks. It is mainly the male who obtains food for the whole family. Then the female increasingly leaves the nest and participates in feeding the chicks along with the male.

Brown-headed chickadees feed their chicks often - 300-500 times a day. The food consists mainly of spiders, caterpillars and sawfly larvae. They bring them eggshells, lumps of earth, and shells of land mollusks. Over the entire period of nesting life (about 19 days), approximately 20-30 thousand (800 grams) of various invertebrate animals disappear in the yellow mouths of the chicks.

The chicks leave the nests already able to fly well. As a rule, this happens early in the morning. The chicks peer through the entrance hole into a new world for a long time, until the first one suddenly decides to fly. The rest fly out after him and never return to the nest. Excited parents often scream and sing a whistling song. They accompany each chick on its first flight to the place where it lands, and immediately feed it.

The brown-headed tit (Parus montanus), or otherwise known as the chickadee, is a small tit that primarily lives in the forests of Asia and Europe. This species was first described by the Swiss naturalist Thomas Kornad von Baldenstein. Previously, most authors considered chickadees as a subgenus Poecile, belonging to the larger genus of tits (Parus). Latin name Parus montanus is widely used throughout the world. However, more recently, scientists, based on genetic analyses, have found that the bird only has distant relationship with the rest of the tits. Therefore, American ornithologists demand the return of the previous name of the bird, which is Latin sounds like Poecile montanus.

Features

Distinctive feature from the black-headed chickadee is preference this type of bird lives in coniferous forests. In this regard, chickadees are most often found in northern latitudes. For their habitat, brown-headed chickadees choose dense forests, overgrown river banks and other places remote from people. Despite this, puffballs have a great interest in humans and prefer to feast on the remains of human food. This species of tit leads a sedentary lifestyle.

The brown-headed tit's diet includes: plant food in the form of plant seeds, and animals in the form of larvae and invertebrate insects. This bird nests low above the ground. It prefers trunks of lifeless trees as nesting sites. The time of year for incubating eggs of this species is April-May. The chickadee plucks out the hollow itself using its beak, but it is also not averse to using ready-made housing for other birds. In the nest of this bird you can find from 5 to 9 eggs white with a red speck.

This species is one of the most widespread among the entire genus, slightly inferior to the great tit. The bird got its name due to the fact that in the cold season it fluffs up and becomes more voluminous in size.

What does a brown-headed chickadee look like?

This species of bird has a nondescript grayish-brown plumage. The large head is located on a short neck. The bird has small size, but a dense build. The upper part of the head, as well as the back of the head, has black plumage. This color extends from the back of the head far to the front of the back. The rest of the back, wings, as well as the shoulders, lumbar region and rump are colored brownish-gray. Cheeks are whitish.

The sides in the neck area are also light, but with a tint of ocher. On the front of the throat there is a mark in the form of a large black spot. The underparts of the bird have a white-gray plumage, with a touch of ocher on the sides and in the undertail area. The beak characteristic of these birds is brown. The legs of this bird are dark gray.

The brown-headed chickadee can often be confused with the black-headed chickadee. A distinctive feature of the brown-headed tit is the black cap that extends onto the back, matte rather than shiny. Thanks to the large black spot and a gray stripe in the area of ​​the flight feathers, it can also be distinguished from the black-headed chickadee.

Singing Brown-headed Chickadee

An important distinguishing feature is also the vocalization of the bird. Unlike the black-headed chickadee, the brown-headed chickadee has a more meager repertoire. In reserve the bird has only 3 types of songs:

Reproduction

The breeding season for brown-headed chickadees is considered to be from April to May. In July, birds appear, ready to fly. These birds find their mate already in the first year of life, mainly in winter period, and live in this composition until one of the partners dies.

During the courtship period, you can see how the male runs after the female, while both sexes make shaking movements with their wings and also arch their bodies. Before mating, the male presents the female with food and at this time sings his murmuring song.

Nest equipment

These birds nest mainly in one area, which is protected throughout the year. The nest, as already described above, is created at a low height of up to 3 meters and is equipped in the trunks of a dead tree or stump of trees such as birch, aspen or larch. The puffy bird plucks out the hole for the hollow itself or uses one that has been prepared after other birds. Sometimes brown-headed chickadees use squirrel nests as hollows.

Equips and arranges the nest of the female chickadee. This the process is long and takes from 4 days to 2 weeks. If this is preceded unfavourable conditions, the process of building a nest lasts up to 24-25 days. The size of the nest in depth in these birds is 10-20 cm, and the diameter reaches 2.5-3.5 cm. Other tits most often line inner part using moss. For these purposes, brown-headed chickadees usually use birch bark, small pieces of bark, bast in the form of strips, as well as small wool and feathers, and only sometimes use moss in construction.

Eggs and chicks

After construction has been completed, the chickadees rest for up to 5 days, and then, from the moment the first egg is laid, they continue to line the nest with soft materials. As a result, when the female begins to incubate the eggs, the nest is completely lined with litter. Brown-headed Chickadee lays white eggs in quantities from 5 to 9 pieces. Distinctive feature eggs are red specks and dots, intensifying closer to the blunt end. The process of hatching eggs lasts about 2 weeks. While the female prepares the eggs for hatching, the male guards her and the territory adjacent to the nest, and also takes care of food. IN in rare cases the female, without waiting for the male, goes in search of food herself.

The chicks do not appear all at the same time, but separately. This process may take 2-3 days. Newborn chicks are characterized by sparse brownish-gray down that covers small areas head and back. The chicks also differ in the yellow or yellow-brown tint of the beak cavity.

Feeding of the chicks is carried out by both partners and bring food up to 300 times a day. At night, as well as in cold weather, the female warms the chicks with her body and does not leave for a minute. Already 17-20 days after hatching, the chicks are able to fly, but do not yet know how to get food for themselves, so their life is still completely dependent on their parents.

From mid-July, stronger chicks join their parents and other birds, forming flocks. Sometimes other bird species are present in the flocks, such as yellow-crested kinglets and nuthatches. In this formation they roam from place to place until deep winter.

IN winter time of the year there is hierarchical power in packs, in which males place themselves above females, and old pairs of birds dominate young chickadees. This species of bird most often lives in the same territory, in rare cases changing location within a radius of no more than 5 km.

Bird food

• In the winter season, the bird's diet consists of plant foods in the form of juniper, pine, and spruce seeds. One-fourth of the total diet consists of food of animal origin in the form of sleeping insects, which the chickadee actively obtains from secluded places in trees and pine needles.
• IN summer time year, the diet consists of half plant food in the form of fruits and berries and animal origin in the form of larvae and insects.

Young birds mainly feed on spiders, sawfly larvae, and small caterpillars of future butterflies. Then young chickadees add food of plant origin to their diet.

Adults have a more varied diet, and food of animal origin includes:

• butterflies at all stages of development;
• small spiders;
• small beetles, mainly weevils;
• Hymenoptera insects such as wasps and bees;
• dipterous insects: flies, midges, and mosquitoes;
• lacewing insects;
• grasshoppers;
• earthworms;
• snail;
• ticks.

Plant foods include:

• cereals such as oats, corn and others;
• seeds, as well as fruits of plants such as burdock, horse sorrel, cornflower and others;
• seeds and fruits of trees such as birch and alder;
• berries of bushes and trees such as blueberries, rowan, cranberries, lingonberries.

Powderfish feed in the middle and lower tier of the forest, and rarely descend to the ground. These birds love to hang upside down on thin twigs, in this state they can often be found in the forest or other habitat.

Brown-headed Chickadee Stocks

Puffy birds are very thrifty birds. Birds begin storing food for the winter in summer and autumn. Sometimes brown-headed chickadees hide the food they find in winter. Young individuals begin collecting reserves as early as July.

The places where stocks of chickadees are stored can be very diverse. Most often, birds hide food in tree trunks, as well as on bushes and stumps. To prevent anyone from discovering their reserves, puffys cover them with pieces of bark. In just one day, this small bird can build up to 2 thousand such caches of food.

These birds often forget the places where food was hidden and find some food completely by accident. Some stocks are sold immediately after their construction, and some are hidden again. Thanks to these actions, food is distributed evenly throughout the territory. In addition to brown-headed chickadees, other birds also use these reserves.

Lifespan

IN wildlife such a bird lives from 2 to 3 years. According to ornithologists, in rare cases, this bird species can live up to 9 years.

For a long time, these birds belonged to the genus of tits, but recently they were separated into a separate genus - chickadees. There are several representatives of this genus, but the two most commonly encountered are the brown-headed chickadee and the black-headed chickadee.

Both species have striking features and signs that make them easy to recognize, but at first glance it will be difficult for an uninitiated person to distinguish them.

Description of species: black-headed and brown-headed tit

Brown-headed and black-headed chickadees are very similar: they have fluffy gray-brown plumage, reach 14 centimeters in length, the maximum wingspan reaches 22 centimeters, weight does not exceed 14 grams, a very short neck and a large head, the cheeks and neck on the sides are light, almost white. The underparts are off-white, the beak is brown-black, and the legs are gray.

The black-headed chickadee was first described in 1758, the brown-headed chickadee in 1827, and it was from this year that their full study began, as well as the search for the main differences and features characteristic of each species.

Brown-headed chickadees are one of the most common species; they received their second name, puffy chickadee, because they bad weather feathers fluff up a lot. They have a matte black cap on the head and back of the head, and there is a spot of the same color on the front of the throat. Brown-headed chickadees are more curious than other representatives of this species.

In black-headed chickadees, the cap is not matte, but shiny, and the spot on the neck is much smaller in size. Notable features of black-headed chickadees include more a long tail and a smaller head, as well as greater mobility, they even fly and sing faster.

Vocal abilities of chickadees

At a distance, these two species of birds can be distinguished by their vocalizations; brown-headed chickadees have only three types of songs in their repertoire: territorial, demonstrative and for courting a female. The first and last ones are most often used by the male, and the demonstrative one can be heard from both the male and the female during the period of searching for a partner.

The vocal repertoire of black-headed chickadees is very diverse. They make both regular screaming sounds and those intended for specific purposes: courtship, protecting the nest by the female, defending the territory by the male, flirting, and so on. Each type of song usually has about 20 variations.

Bird's habitat

These birds live in northern regions North America, Europe and Asia and lead a sedentary life - these are one of the few representatives of birds that store food for the winter and wander only as a last resort - to search for food in early spring or cold winter.

Throughout their lives, chickadees live in a territory of about 5 kilometers - this small territory is chosen during the bird’s first nesting and is fixed in its memory for the rest of its life. This small area is ideally explored for building nests, searching for food and shelters.

The habitats of brown-headed and black-headed chickadees are somewhat different. The brown-headed one loves coniferous, dense forests; it can easily be found in the taiga or on the banks of rivers overgrown with bushes, where it is almost impossible to meet a person.

Blackheads are often found near villages, cities, towns, but the most suitable for them are deciduous forests or, in extreme cases, mixed forests. Preference is given to low-lying and flat areas with swampy stands where there are many dead trees.

In their range common habitat Black-headed chickadees always dominate over brown-headed chickadees and do not tolerate brown-headed fellows on their territory, although sometimes they make exceptions for their lone representatives in winter.

What do these bird species eat?

All types of chickadees feed approximately the same: the main food includes seeds of various plants (for example, juniper and sunflower), tree fruits, small nuts, insects (beetles, larvae, etc.). Due to the fact that their diet includes harmful bugs, chickadees are considered natural healers who help forestry.

In summer they eat plant and animal food, and in winter and spring they eat mainly plant food. In early spring black-headed chickadees drink the sap of birch, aspen and maple, and in winter they visit feeders located near farmland (although they visit them quite rarely) and, most interestingly, hide the grains found in the feeders in the forest.

Chicks of both species in the first days of life eat exclusively animal food and only over time plant food begins to be included in the diet. The tendency to be thrifty in chickadees appears very early - already at the age of one month. Throughout spring, summer and autumn, birds make continuous reserves for the winter.

In the spring, they store pine and spruce seeds; in the fall, chickadees hide various insects and plant seeds. During the period from spring to winter, one bird makes up to 5 kg of reserves in its habitat (in the bark of trees, cones and other secluded places), although only a third of it is eaten in one winter (quite a lot of reserves are simply lost).

Socket device

The brown-headed chickadee nests from April to May, and the black-headed chickadee from the end of March. During these periods, the chickadees are very excited, sing a lot, fly, fight for females, and look for a place to nest. Couples last until one of the partners dies.

During the first year of life, young birds look for a mate in the area nearby their home. If a partner has not been found, they leave these places and seek luck in distant areas of the forest.

In the first year of life, out of 1000 individuals, only 300 survive; about 50 birds survive to 5 years, and 3 to 6-7 years, although at home these birds often live up to 9 years.

Nesting of adult birds occurs in approximately one place, in a certain territory, which the male guards throughout the year. New nests are often made by brown-headed chickadees, while black-headed chickadees prefer to use old or other people's hollows.

To make a new hollow, the birds pinch off wood and take it away so as not to give away the location of the nest. Hollows are made in dead or uprooted trees, since living wood is too hard for the fragile and small beak of a chickadee.

Before populating the hollow, it is cleaned and deepened to update it and make it more suitable for the nest. Usually selected certain types trees, these include alder, larch, birch, and aspen. It takes up to 12 days to make a new hollow or update an old one. The depth should be about 20 cm.

To build a nest different types chickadees use certain materials. Thus, blackheads use moss, wool, cobwebs, feathers, and brownheads use twigs, bark, feathers, wool, and birch bark.

Caring for chicks

Brown-headed chickadees begin laying eggs from the end of May, and black-headed chickadees from the end of March; in one clutch there are up to 9 white eggs with red-brown specks. The size of one egg is approximately 15x12 mm.

For the first 15 days, the female incubates the eggs without leaving the nest, and the male feeds and protects her. The female can leave the nest only in rare cases, if there is no male for a long time to find food for herself. Already in April - May, chicks of black-headed chickadees appear, and in July - brown-headed chickades.

The female and male feed them together, constantly bringing them food. In cold weather, the female stays in the nest with the chicks, warming them, and in warm weather she can leave to get food.

After 18 days, the chicks are able to fly, but still do not know how to get their own food. Over the next 12 days, the male and female teach them how to get food, navigate the terrain, and find a nest.

Throughout their lives, they breed and nurse more than one offspring, carefully caring for them until the chicks are able to survive independently in the wild forest. The life of chickadees is complex and unpredictable; from a large seasonal brood of chicks, only the strongest, those best adapted to the wild survive, and, alas, they are few in number.