Your Morning Bird Pic

[sleigh]

In the comments yesterday over on FB, Autumn asked for a picture of a black-capped chickadee; I said I hadn't yet seen one at the feeder.

I lied. In looking back at the pictures I've taken and checking out the unidentified birds, I found that I do have a picture of a black-capped chickadee (though it might more likely be a Carolina chickadee, which looks nearly identical, according to my "Birds of Ohio" guide.)

So Autumn, either way, here it is (complete with the head of what looks like it might be a female goldfinch peeking from around the other side of the feeder)...

Comments

[maiac.livejournal.com]

That looks more like a male House Sparrow to me than a chickadee.

Here's a Black-Capped Chickadee:

(https://www.flickr.com/photos/maiac/6767816535)

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I bow to your superior knowledge!

[maiac.livejournal.com]

I know very few birds, but the few I know, I see a lot.

Especially the House Sparrows.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

my feeders get the same birdie action here... they like to wait their turns on my fence pickets ..

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

That's definitely a House Sparrow, at an angle where it looks a lot like a chickadee, If you could see its back and wings, you'd see that they're brown and unlike a chickadee.

Black-capped and Carolina Chickadees can be told apart, but if you don't have much experience with birds, it can be really hard to do so. Most places only have one or the other as breeding birds although areas with breeding Carolina Chickadees may also have wintering Black-capped Chickadees. In places where they both breed, they hybridize. It is not possible to identify your chickadees if you live in the hybrid zone. Hybrid chickadees can look like either species or something in the middle and they can sound like either, both, or neither. I live in a hybrid zone. You may as well. The hybrid zone goes across Ohio somewhere north of the center of the state. If you are south of the center of the state you probably have Carolina Chickadees.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I'm in Cincinnati, which is at the bottom west corner of the state -- so, Carolina Chickadees.