Hello Friends,
My boys have been photographing chickadees feeding young. I would like to
caption them as either Carolina or black-capped, but I'm not certain which
they are. I'll appreciate opinions from anyone willing to pass them along.
The photos can be seen at this link:
http://www.naturefriendmagazine.com/photos/ in the "Chickadee, Carolina";
folder.
For background, we live at the Union Springs Dam, so this nest is located in
the foothills of the Shenandoah Mountain range. When we first began
photographing them, I was thinking the birds were Carolina chickadees due to
what I thought was a paler, gray-white hockey stick on wings. I noticed the
one bird to be larger than the other, and assumed that is because one is
male and the other female.
The next time I went to the nest, I realized that one bird had a hockey
stick of white on the wing that I would have considered to be a black-capped
if the only bird I saw. Was it different lighting conditions, or is one a
BC and the other a Carolina? The call they make when coming with food is a
2-note call.
This afternoon the boys were again photographing the birds and heard a
chickadee say chick-a-dee-dee-dee in rapid succession. I put three dee's
here and I don't know how many reality was, but to the boys, the call was
much faster than the BC call. They are quite certain it was one of the
parent birds associated with this nest.
Saturday we heard a slow call. I've already been told they may be hybrids
and not purely either one. Any other thoughts by anyone will be
appreciated.
Kevin Shank
Union Springs
Rockingham County
P. S. I should mention that the last four photos at this link are birds not
related to this nest.
