Episode 37: Black-Capped or Carolina? Chickadee ID – Voice of the Wild

This is Illinois Extension’s Voice of the Wild. In today’s episode we’ll hear two voices: the black-capped chickadee and the carolina chickadee.

Here are their respective songs, first the black-capped; which typically sings in notes of two

And now the carolina, which typically sings with notes of four

Aside from sounding very similar, these two chickadees look and act much like one another: both have black caps, white cheeks, and gray backs; both are regular birdfeeder visitors; and both forage trees in mixed flocks with kinglets, titmice, and warblers. So how can we differentiate these two almost identical species?

Well, For most birders, its quite simple. imagine a line stretching from Philadelphia to the panhandle of Oklahoma. In Illinois this line runs from Champaign-Urbana to St. louis. Chickadees found to the north of that line are almost certainly black-capped chickadees. While birds to the south of the line are carolinas.

But what about a chickadee found right on the line, say by someone who lives in Champaign-urbana, like me. Well, I have bad news; while the birds have slightly different songs and the black-capped is on average a little larger and more brightly colored; the chickadees that live right on the line can hybridize with each other, rendering these identifying traits useless. Worse yet, they’ll sing other’s song. There is one bright side to birding in that narrow overlap, though you can’t be confident which species you might be hearing, you can at least hear those songs sung together.

Thank you to the Macaulay library at the Cornell lab for our bird sounds. And thank you for tuning in to learn a new wild voice with Illinois Extension.