Alaska Chickadees Stick to What They Know
Abby Hawkins wants to know if you've seen her birds.
Abby is a fifth-grader at Pearl Creek Elementary School in Fairbanks. In a science project, she asked: "How far does a chickadee roam?" I'm sure many feeder watchers have asked the same question while watching the birds appear as puff balls on cold days. Abby decided to try and find out.
Using a permit owned by the Alaska Bird Observatory and a few of the observatory's bird traps, Abby captured birds near her home in Fairbanks. Anna-Marie Barber of the bird observatory helped Abby place tiny, colored bands on the legs of 29 chickadees (18 boreal and 11 black-capped). With the bands, the birds appear to wear colored socks on their right legs.
Abby uses binoculars to check chickadees she sees for the color bands, and that's where she needs some help. More on that later.
In a few months of chickadee-watching, Abby has seen or recaptured 16 of the 29 banded chickadees near her home in Fairbanks. She has also seen another chickadee that was banded by a biologist at his home more than three miles away.
Her preliminary evidence suggests that chickadees stay pretty close to home. She gets no argument from the experts. Pierre Deviche and Susan Sharbaugh both study chickadees at the University of Alaska Fairbanks' Institute of Arctic Biology.
"They are probably the most sedentary little guys up here," Deviche said of chickadees. During winter, the birds might not stray more than a few acres. Researchers in Minnesota found chickadee flocks ranged over about 40 acres there, but Deviche said Alaska chickadees probably travel less because of the energy costs of living in extremely cold weather.
Chickadees may roam a bit farther later in the summer. Birds that hatch in the spring sometimes cover a few miles before they find a new home. Sharbaugh mentioned studies done in the Lower 48 where mated pairs of chickadees bred in territories ranging from four to 20 acres. That's still a pretty small world in which to spend your entire life.
Before I get back to Abby, a few chickadee questions have perched on my desk. Edward Smith of Payson, Arizona, sent a letter in which he asked for "some clarification as to the origin, meaning and derivation of the name chickadee." The lexicographers of the Oxford English Dictionary wrote that the name stems from the birds' song. "Chickadee" is a North American invention of someone who spoke the word some time between the days of Columbus and Henry David Thoreau, who used it in 1838. "Chickadee" is not used in Europe, where this bird is known as don't-giggle-the tit.
Eric Troyer of Fairbanks wanted to know where chickadees and redpolls get their water in the winter. He assumed they eat snow, but wondered if eating snow might cool down tiny bodies already engaged in a battle against heat loss. Sharbaugh said the birds do get their water from snow. She pointed out that anything they eat in the winter--insects wedged in bark, sunflower seeds--is frozen. Snow may be the warmest thing they ingest in an Alaska winter.
Back to Abby Hawkins. She would like a message from you if you see any of her color-banded birds. If you see one, write down the band colors starting with the top band ("red over blue"), and get in touch with me at (907) 474-7468 or send me an e-mail at nrozell@gi.alaska.edu . I'll pass the message to Abby so she can stick a pin in her map to represent the spot where the chickadee was seen. Of course, according to Abby's early results, she doesn't expect any sightings from New York, Anchorage or too far outside Fairbanks. If you live near Abby, in the area between Ester Dome and the University of Alaska, keep an eye on the feeder for chickadees with colorful leggings. Abby thanks you.
