84 BIRDS OF NEW ENGLAND AND EASTERN NEW YORK 



The dee dee dee of the Hudsonian Chickadee sounds 

 more " babyish " than that of the common species ; the 

 notes are lower and more drawled. The Hudsonian Chick- 

 adee seems to have no note that corresponds to the phee-bee 

 of the common Chickadee. 



Chickadee. Pants atricaplUus 

 5.27 



Ad. — Top of head and throat black ; sides of head, and belly- 

 white ; back, wings, and tail gray ; wing-feathers edged with 

 white ; flanks washed with light brownish, especially in the fall. 



Nest, in a hole in a tree. Eggs, often as many as eight, white, 

 spotted with reddish-brown. 



The Chickadee is a permanent resident throughout New 

 England and Xew York ; in the southern portions of its 

 range it is less common in summer than in winter. At this 

 season little flocks of five or six pass through the woodland, 

 orchards, and plantations, often accompanied by Kinglets, a 

 Brown Creeper, a Downy Woodpecker, or a Nuthatch. As 

 spring approaches, the winter bands separate into pairs, 

 which then often retire from the neighborhood of villages, 

 so that a notion prevails that the Chickadee is only a winter 

 resident. The pair, too, become very silent ; the male, how- 

 ever, occasionally utters his whistled phee-bee. The nest is 

 placed either in a natural cavity or in a hole picked out of 

 a soft birch stub by the birds themselves. The pure whistle 

 above described, though uttered oftenest in March and April, 

 may be heard in any month of the year. Besides this song 

 the Chickadee has various little lisping calls, a note something 

 like the syllables tout de suite, and the well-known tsic-a 

 dee-dee. When feeding, the Chickadee has a habit of cling- 

 ing upside down to the tips of twigs ; occasionally it flies 

 to a limb and there hammers open a seed or a tough cocoon. 

 If bones, suet, or broken nuts are hung on the trees near a 

 window, Chickadees will become constant and familiar vis- 



