Family: Paridae, Chickadees and Titmice
Description: 4 1/2 -5" (11-13 cm). Dusky, black-capped, and black-bibbed chickadee, with chestnut flanks and back.
Habitat: Pacific rain forest; moist areas containing conifers.
Nesting: 5-8 creamy-white, lightly spotted eggs in a natural cavity or woodpecker hole; much like the Black-capped Chickadee, it often excavates rotten stumps and then builds a nest of moss and hair.
Range: Resident from coastal Alaska south to central California; also in western ranges of Rocky Mountains in southern British Columbia, southern Alberta, and western Montana.
Voice: A squeaky chick-a-dee, somewhat shriller and faster than that of other chickadees. Often simply utters a thin tsee-deee and thin lisping notes.
Discussion: In the coastal forests of the Northwest, where the Chestnut-backed and Black-capped chickadees overlap, the former prefers the top half of conifers, while the latter feeds in the lower half of trees, very frequently oaks. Thus they do not compete for space or food even within the same area.
