GRAY BIRDS SEEN IN NORTH AMERICA

Boreal Chickadee

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Poecile Hudsonicus

Boreal Chickadee

Adults have gray-brown upperparts with a brown dap and grayish wings and tail.

The face is mainly gray with white on the sides.

The underparts are white with brown on the flanks and they have a black throat.

They have short wings and a long notched tail.

BILL: dark and short.

SIZE: measures about 4.9 – 5.7 inches in length, with a wingspan of 7.9 inches.

WEIGHT: weighs about 7 – 12.4 grams.

COLOR: gray-brown, gray, brown, black and white.

Insects (pupae and eggs), spiders and seeds; caterpillars and animal matter during breeding and nesting period.

Coniferous forests, mainly in black spruce and balsam fir.

Alaska to Newfoundland, and southwards, to the northern United States.

CALL: A nasal “tseek-a-dee-dee-“.

SONG: A short warbler, with “p-twee- titititititi” introductory notes.

NEST: The female, sometimes helped by the male, excavates or enlarges a cavity in soft wood and builds a nest inside made of moss, lichens and bark strips, and lines this foundation with hair (from rabbit), feathers and plant down.

EGGS: 4 – 9 white eggs with fine red-brown spots, or olive or gray markings.

INCUBATION: 14 – 18 days, female.

They forage agilely and restlessly among limbs and branches, with frequent acrobatic turns while perched; sometimes hover-gleans prey from tips of branches.