The Chickadee

"A glad heart maketh a cheerful countenance." Proverbs 15:13

The black-capped songster

The black-capped chickadee is certain to be a frequent visitor to a winter feeder. It eats everything from sunflower seeds to suet, a change of diet from its usual fare of insects, larvae and grubs found in trees. Since daylight hours are much shorter in mid-winter than in summer, the chickadee is kept busy foraging for food. This is usu­ally done in small flocks from 4-20 birds. The familiar "chick-adee dee" song of the winter changes in the spring to "phee bee" as the males begin to serenade the females.

Territory staked out

Although the chickadees are believed to mate for life, there is usually a dominant pair in a flock, just as there is a dominant pair in a pack of wolves. When a food source is discovered, the dominant pair feed first, although they call other birds in the flock to the food source. In summer, a male chickadee may spend 40% of his day estab­lishing and maintaining his territory (about 3-4 acres) against other males.

A modern diaper service

Mother chickadees do all the incubation of the eggs, usually in a reworked woodpecker hole. The male continues to feed her during this time. If the female is disturbed by animals like squirrels, it will inhale a large breath of air and spit in the face of the intruder.

When the young hatch, their wastes are deposited in membranes - sack-like in appearance, and removed from the nests by their parents. This diaper service keeps the nesting site clean and sanitary - in con­trast to the nests of pigeons and doves which use the wastes as a cement to keep the nests together. Other birds, such as robins eat the wastes.

Bifocals before glasses

Like the woodpecker, the chickadee eats vegetation in the form of berries, fruit, nuts and seeds (about 30%), and the rest of the diet is comprised of insects. A special fea­ture of the chickadee is its ability to focus on objects as does man with both eyes, or to use the eyes independently with a near­sighted focus and far-sighted focus at the same time. This enables the chickadee to watch for predators like hawks circling in the sky while at the same time looking for insects in crevices of trees.

The chickadee is a big help to farmers in controlling the noisome tent caterpillars. There are few fence lines in Ontario where chokecherry and wild apple trees are not afflicted by these voracious leaf-eaters. The chickadee is able to tear the tents apart and devour these wiggly caterpillars (de­spised by other insect-eating birds).

However, the chickadee is not so well-loved by the beekeepers. Chickadees have been observed to perch just outside a hive and then take the bees one after another (and without suffering so much as one sting!). The chickadee holds the bee with a foot and then dismembers it with its beak.

The Chickadee - no chicken

The chickadee is indeed, one of the most cheerful birds, when there seems nothing about which to be happy. Deep in the bush in the frigid cold of winter, chickadees can be heard with their "dee dee." When nearly all other birds have flown south to the warm spots in the U.S.A., the pint-sized chickadee (weighing about the same as 4 one-cent coins) can be heard breaking the absolute stillness with its cheerful choruses. (Only those who have lived in the northern latitudes can know by experience the silence of the bush on an icy-cold winter's day). Now a bird which weighs a few grams is hardly wearing a fur coat with which to survive bone-chilling nights. Nor does it have a large capacity to store energy with which to last out storms that may dump a foot of new snow over everything. Just how does this bird survive? This question has puzzled scientists and only recently are the mysteries starting to unravel.

It has been discovered that the chickadee has the ability to lower its body tempera­ture by as much as 20 degrees during the night. This is quite remarkable when realized that the day-time body temperature of this bird is 108°F. The little bird, equipped with the tremendous insulation value of its feathers, takes nightly refuge within cavities of trees or very thick under­brush (away from owls, coons, weasels and a host of other predators as well as the wind). The shelter enables the bird to reduce its activity so that it passes the night almost like a hibernating groundhog. With lower energy requirements during the night, precious energy can be reserved in its little frame for daytime search for food.

Cheerfulness in Adversity

Despite this amazing characteristic of the chickadee, life is hard. Seven out of ten are estimated to die during the winter. The chickadees compensate for this mortality by large hatches of new chickadees during the warm summers. It is estimated that 17 new birds will be produced from one pair with two hatches during the summer. This is considerably more than most other song birds. Still not much to cheer about, you might say? Nonetheless the chickadee is no chicken nor is it depressed. Just listen for the "dee dee" between the "rat-ta-tap" of the woodpeckers - on the coldest winter day, and it will be the cheerful chickadee.

Whenever hunting troublesome coons, weasels and porcupines in winter, I always hang the carcasses on trees. This provides an excellent food source for many months for these delightful little birds which have such a hard life, yet find so much about which to be cheerful.

The secret of cheerfulness

Cheerfulness is a wonderful virtue to find in a person. "A cheerful heart is a good medicine but a downcast spirit dries up the bones." (Proverbs 17:22). Cheerfulness is an at­titude of mind that has to be acquired, even although some people seem to be naturally more cheerful in outlook than others. The obstacles to a cheerful disposition include disappointed ambition and wounded pride. The remedy begins with self-examination. It grows out of "agape" or divine love: "Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right." (1 Corinthians 13:5-6).

One of the many examples of cheerfulness recorded in Scripture is that of the Apostle Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail. It is remarkable for the suffering endured for a righteous cause, and for the concern it shows for others when in pain oneself. Paul was seized and dragged into the market place where he was attacked by the crowd. He was then inflicted with "many blows" by the rulers and thrown into an inner prison with feet fastened in stocks (Acts 16:19-24).

These circumstances were enough to excite self-pity in even the bravest and most courageous of humans. But it is recorded that Paul and Silas were "praying and singing hymns to God," (Acts 16:25). This is indeed a remarkable account of cheerfulness, for even when freed from prison, concern was first shown for the spiritual welfare of the jailor. "And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all that were in his house," (Acts 16:32). The wounds received from the beating with rods were tended to, only after instruction was given in the matters which related to life eternal. This illustration shows the way in which cheerfulness is an acquired disposition over and above whatever might be attributed to "natural" cheerfulness.

The complainer

Complaining was one of the great sins of Israel which resulted in the bodies of the nation being strewn along in the sands of the wilderness. "They murmured in their tents and did not obey the voice of the LORD. Therefore he raised his hand and swore to them that he would make them fall in the wilderness, and would disperse their descendants among the nations, scat­tering them over the lands." (Psalm 106:25-27, ,cf. Numbers 17:5).

It is much easier for a young person to be a "murmurer in the tent" than a singer of psalms to the Almighty. The natural ten­dency is to be like the spoiled child who takes his ball and goes home because the other children do not want to play the game according to "my rules." This attitude appears ridiculous to an adult observer, and it may even be despised by other children. Complainers, like other sinners, must take deliberate steps to remedy this attitude. A good beginning is to make a commitment to Bible reading and study because it is here where the divine influence is to be found. It can work dynamically to take the self-interested attitudes of wounded pride and frustrated ambition and turn them out­wards: "Not that I complain of want; for I have learned in whatever state I am to be content; I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound; in any and all cir­cumstances I have learned the secret of' fac­ing plenty and hunger, abundance and want. I can do all things in him who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:11-13).

CHEERFULNESS - AN ATTITUDE OF MIND!

What is needed is more chickadee-like disciples. Despite the biting cold of adver­sity, the grey skies of disappointment, and the long dark nights of discouragement, the chickadee continues its cheerful songs. "Is any cheerful? Let him sing praises," (James 5:13). "Whoever renders service, as one who renders it by the strength which God supplies; in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 4:11).

Ron Abel