BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 377 



237. Parus atricapillus Linn. 



Chickadee. Black-capped Chickadee. Black-capped Titmouse. 



Permanent resident, abundant in autumn and winter, common in spring and summer. 



NESTING dates. 



May io — 25. 



Chickadees, in flocks containing from three or four to ten or a dozen birds 

 each, may be met with ahnost anywhere in the Cambridge Region during autumn 

 and winter. They seem to be more numerous at these seasons than they ever 

 are in summer, and there are good grounds for beheving that many of them 

 come from regions further north. Indeed, it can scarcely be doubted that a 

 considerable number of migrating Chickadees regularly pass through eastern 

 Massachusetts in September and October. Some of these apparently go still 

 further to the southward before the close of November, after which the birds 

 that remain settle themselves in their winter haunts. Although they appear to 

 ramble rather widely and aimlessly, each flock really has a well-defined and often 

 rather restricted range, beyond the limits of which its members seldom pass. 

 Within these limits they move actively about in search of food, reappearing at 

 the same places with some frequency and regularity, although their movements 

 are governed, to a certain extent, by conditions of weather. During stormy or 

 very windy days they confine their wanderings chiefly to sheltered hillsides or to 

 dense evergreen woods, but when the weather is calm and mild they venture 

 well out into the open country, visiting apple orchards, clusters of trees near 

 houses, thickets about the edges of swamps and along the courses of brooks, 

 and lines of willows bordering causeway roads. 



I remember when Chickadees appeared more or less frequently in winter 

 throughout practically the whole of Cambridge. As far as I know they have 

 ceased to occur — at least regularly — in Cambridgeport, but they still visit the 

 elms in the Harvard College Grounds, the garden and shade trees along Kirkland 

 and Oxford Streets, the trees about the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Nor- 

 ton's Woods, and most of the region — now so densely populated — lying be- 

 tween the Botanic Garden and Elmwood. To our garden they are familiar and 

 almost daily visitors during the colder months, when we keep them well supplied 

 with suet and other food. I see them here rather frequently in April, Septem- 

 ber and October, and occasionally in May and August, but seldom or never now 



