A Black-capped Chickadee? Are we sure???
Our good friends, Jim and Judy Oettel, live about 30 miles north of us. Both are very good birders, and it is always a joy to either go with them, or to hear about what they have seen and heard. They live in an older, well established, tree-filled neighborhood. The back of their house looks out and down a steep hill filled with mature oak and hickory trees – a small woodland. Jim and Judy have feeders on the deck that runs the full length of the back of their house and Jim has been able to take wonderful pictures of all the birds who visit them.
Jim and Judy sent these photos to all of us who are their birding friends and we all agreed with their identification. This is a leucistic* Black-capped Chickadee. How did I come to this conclusion?
First, I looked at this bird’s physical traits. Looking at the size of this bird compared to Jim and Judy’s tube feeder, this is obviously a smaller bird – probably 4-5 inches long. This is the size of a chickadee. I then looked at the beak and tail. The beak is slender, but a bit short in proportion to its head The tail is a bit long in proportion to its body. There is no crest. All of this points to a chickadee.
I also considered behavior. Judy told me this bird was quite comfortable at their feeders – chickadees always are. It was agile and acrobatic, but it was not upside-down on trees or clinging to trunks. This bird is not albino because the eye is dark – like all chickadees. If it was albino, the eye would have been pink or red.
Black-capped Chickadees are common in central Illinois. Carolina Chickadees are rare or just not here. So are we sure this is a Black-capped Chickadee? We are!
Jim and Judy later told me this sighting of theirs – a leucistic Black-capped Chickadee – was confirmed by one of our best experts here in Illinois. Dr. Travis Wilcoxin of Millikin University.
*If you are unfamiliar with leucism and how it relates to albinism, please see my article: Albinism and Leucism. When is a bird an albino? When is it leucistic?