This entry was posted on Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 1:12 pm and is filed under Bird Information, Bird Sanctuary, Types of Birds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 12, 2008
The black-capped chickadees stay on after their fair-weather cousins have departed, migrating for warmer climes and a more varied menu. They will appear as little puff balls at our bird feeders even on the coldest days of winter. Chickadees aren’t really built to take winter cold, but they thrive with unique adaptations to life.
Bigger is better when it comes to surviving winter without artificial heat but the tiny chickadee overcomes its size disadvantage with physical adaptations and by using their brains for preparation. By late summer, they begin wedging seeds, insects and other food into tree bark and other crevices. Thousands of seeds are cached throughout the half-mile range in which they spend their entire life. When food runs low, they are somehow able to find the seeds they cached months earlier.
Chickadees have a fantastic memory. Studies of chickadee brains reveal that the volume of the area linked with memory varies with the season. In fall, when a chickadee is hiding food, it expands. In spring, when there is no more need to find cached food, it contracts. In addition to changes in brain activity, in fall they begin to shiver. Their chest muscles repeatedly flex to generate heat which is contained by the air trapped within a chickadee’s downy coat. Their feathers are amazingly efficient. When it’s way below zero, the feathers rise to create an inch-thick coat that provides a halo of warmth. The difference in temperature of the chickadee’s body core and the environment an inch away is over 100 degrees.
Chickadees do not have a crop so they must eat small meals, digest them, then eat again. Because they only eat in daylight, their window of opportunity is woefully small in winter. To compensate, they eat as much as they can, adding about 10 percent of their body weight and burning it at night. It is a huge physiological feat.
This is where we humans can make a contribution by having some of their favorite foods available in bird feeders. They love black oil sunflower seed, peanut kernels, peanut butter mixes and plenty of suet. Tube bird feeders are great for sunflower seed or peanut kernels.
It is a mystery where they spend the night. Experts believe they ball themselves up in a crevice or cavity by themselves. Once they settle in for the night, they turn down their internal thermostats to save energy from a normal body temperature of about 108 degrees to a cool down of about 90 degrees.
Now these are hardy, amazing little creatures!
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