BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE 331 



There was a definite tendency for chickadee groups to roost in the same area 

 each night, so that it was possible to station oneself at a known roosting place 

 and observe the birds coming to roost. The flock was usually scattered, individuals 

 seeking places in the dense foliage of different trees. In contrast with the noisy 

 behavior of many species roosting in flocks, chickadees retire with very little 

 calling or ceremony. 



As the flocks break up and pairs form in the spring, the winter roosts were 

 abandoned. During early spring movements the pair seems to roost wherever 

 convenient. After the nesting cavity is excavated and the nest material carried in, 

 the female apparently may spend the night in the cavity even before incubation 

 begins. The male roosts outside in some tree nearby. Likewise, during in- 

 cubation and the feeding of the young the female sleeps in the cavity and the male 

 somewhere outside. After the young are twelve days old, or older, the female 

 may remain outside at night. When the young have left the nest, neither they nor 

 the adult birds were observed to return to the cavity. The first night out the 

 young and adults roosted wherever they happened to be. 



If we are near a chickadee when it it flitting about in a tree, making 

 short flights from twig to twig, we hear each time it flies a faint, 

 rustHng whir of wings, or sometimes two or more whirs, if the distance 

 be longer. This is the chickadee's method of flight — a dehcate, quick 

 flutter, and a pause, then a flutter again. When crossing a wide, open 

 space, the bird flies slowly, undulating in the air a little — each flutter of 

 its wings carries him upward a little way, and during the pause between 

 the flutters he sinks again. 



Katharine C. Harding (1932) reports a banded chickadee at least 

 7y-z years old, and Dorothy A. Baldwin (1935) another of the same 

 age. Mr. Wallace (1941) reports one that was 9 years old. 



Lester W. Smith (MS.), writing to Mr. Bent, gives an instance of 

 the intelligence of the chickadee. He says: "Among the dozen or more 

 spec.ies commonly taken for banding in my Government-type sparrow 

 trap, the black-capped chickadee was the only species with instinctive 

 intelligence to remember its way out. This trap, with its entrance 

 under inward-sloping wires, was successful through the failure of most 

 birds to remember just how and where they came in and the confusion 

 that resulted when escape was found impossible in any general direc- 

 tion, particularly upward. The cjiickadee, selecting a sunflower seed 

 from among the mixed bait in the trap, went in, not to eat the seed 

 there, but to get it out to where it could be opened on a branch. The 

 little bird at its first visit would walk around the trap until the low 

 entrance was discovered, then dart in, select a seed, and, if nothing 

 disturbed it, head back whence it came and with little investigation find 

 its way out. They rarely became confused as did the juncos, tree 

 sparrows, and purple finches. After the first trip in and out the same 

 individual would fly directly to the entrance and as directly out again 

 after he had grabbed the seed. If I shifted the position of the trap on 



