ARE YOU AS SMART AS A CHICKADEE?
Her voice hushed, barely a whisper, a female Mountain Chickadee is calling inside the cavity in a weathered gray snag. From a nearby pine, her mate sings to her. He, too, is scarcely audible.
The female pops into view at the entrance to the cavity. Her dark eyes glint in the black stripe across her face. The two little birds call back and forth. Their hushed voices suggest an intimate conversation. I feel like I’m eavesdropping on a private exchange. I’m overhearing secrets being shared.
Secrets I would love to understand.
She must like what the male is saying to her. She lifts out of the cavity and bounces into the tree where he is singing.
This pair of Mountain Chickadees are nesting in the pine forest of the Sierra Nevada not far from Truckee, California. Their nest is in a stump at a research site where biologists have uncovered startling secrets about the minds of these birds. It’s a clever study, using innovative, high-tech, programable “smart feeders” that enable the scientists to test memory and learning.
The research on this species of mountainous regions of western North America is part of a sea change in the interest in and study of the avian mind. These unlikely chickadees may possess mental abilities that rival the skills of some of the more celebrated intellectual stars of the bird world.
The data might even help me understand the secrets that pass between these two courting chickadees.
Chickadees are among the most beloved birds
