Chestnut-backed Chickadee

by Dave Zittin

If I had to rank local birds based on cuteness, the Chestnut-backed Chickadee would be near the top of the list. Not only is it a beautiful bird, it is an amazing arboreal acrobat, moving with great agility through the canopy as it forages. It is often seen hanging upside down as it gleans insects from the bottom of twigs and leaves. When perched, they constantly look to their left and right.

Chestnut-backed Chickadee by Hita Bambhania-Modha

The Chestnut-backed Chickadee belongs to a genus (Poecile) of which there are 15 member species spread across the Northern Hemisphere. Six of these occur in North America. Chickadees are a member of the family Paridae which also includes tits and titmice.

The Chestnut-backed Chickadee is a nuclear species. This means other species are drawn to the sound and sight of its foraging which can lead to the formation of mixed flocks. I’ve referenced an article on why mixed flocks might be advantageous below.

Chestnut-backed Chickadees are cavity nesters and will readily use nest boxes. They are capable of doing some excavation if the wood is rotten, but usually use abandoned cavities of other species. They use fur in their nest construction and also make a fur blanket which is used to cover the eggs to keep them warm when left unattended.

Attracting Chestnut-backed Chickadees to Backyards

Drawing the Chestnut-backed Chickadee to your yard is easy; use suet or seed. They cannot crack seed with their beaks like finches do, so you will see them come and take a seed from the feeder, fly to a branch, hold the seed with their feet and peck at it to break it into smaller pieces or perhaps to remove a seed shell.

Chestnut-backed Chickadee carrying seed from feeder. Dave Zittin

Description

The Chestnut-backed Chickadee is a tiny bird with a big head and a round belly. Its back is colored with a rich chestnut-red and the black of its head and throat is separated by a white triangular patch. The flanks (the area just below the wings) are gray on Santa Clara County members of this species (subspecies barlowi). A different Chestnut-backed Chickadee subspecies (rufescens), is found in Marin County and north. It has distinct chestnut-colored flanks.

Distribution

This species generally prefers damp coastal conifer forests, but not exclusively. They range from the end of the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska down to Point Conception, California. There are inland populations that span the southern border of British Columbia and Alberta and south into Northern Idaho.

In the past 6-7 decades this species has been moving to the East Bay where it is generally less forested and it's hotter and dryer.

Similar Species

There are no similar species in Santa Clara County. The chestnut-colored back, the black cap and black throat make this species an easy one to identify. In fact, there are no other chickadee species in the U.S. with a chestnut-colored back. You might think you have a different species if you encounter the chestnut-flanked subspecies north of San Francisco, but they are the same species.

The wide spread Black-capped Chickadee. Note the lack of chestnut coloring. Dave Zittin

Explore

To learn more about Chestnut-backed Chickadees, read

All About Birds: Chestnut-backed Chickadee. As you cycle through the photos, note the chestnut sides of the northern subspecies.

To learn more about mixed species flocking, read

Birds of Stanford: Mixed Species Flocking
Birds and Blooms: Decoding Mixed Winter Flock Behavior by Kenn and Kimberly Kaufman

More Backyard Bird Information

View more common Santa Clara County Backyard Birds
Visit our Backyard Birding page
Read our Notes and Tips from a Backyard Birder series
Tell us what you’re seeing in your yard! Send your notes, photos, and sound clips to backyardbirds@scvas.org. We’ll feature your submittals on our website.

Banner Photo: Chestnut-backed Chickadee by Brooke Miller