Mexican Chickadee

Poecile sclateriOrder: PASSERIFORMESFamily: Titmice and Chickadees (Paridae)

General

Mexican Chickadee: Small chickadee with gray upperparts, sides, and undertail coverts, black cap and bib, white cheeks, and white lower breast and belly. Wings and tail are gray. Sexes are similar.

Range and Habitat

Mexican Chickadee: Resident in extreme southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico; also in Mexico. Preferred habitats include coniferous or pine-oak forests at high altitudes.

Listen to Call

Voice Text

"chischu-wur", "cheelee", "chick-a-dee-dee-dee", "chi-pi-tit"

Interesting Facts

Although primarily nonmigratory, Mexican Chickadees sometimes fly to lower elevations during the cold of winter.

Unlike other chickadees, it does not store food.

When leaving the nest, females may cover the chicks with nesting material. Upon returning, the female often applies crushed beetles to the outside of the nest cavity; the chemicals may repel predators.

A group of chickadees are collectively known as a "banditry" and a "dissimulation" of chickadees.

Author

Gary Owen Dick

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Bird Call Credits: The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Martyn Stewart, http://www.naturesound.org, Redmond, Washington USA. The reuse or copying of bird calls in this database is strictly forbidden.

Mexican Chickadee

Mexican Chickadee: Small chickadee with gray upperparts, sides, and undertail coverts, black cap and bib, white cheeks, and white lower breast and belly. Wings and tail are gray. Legs and feet are gray-black. The only chickadee found in Mexico, and is vulnerable to diminishing habitat.

● Song: "chischu-wur", "cheelee", "chick-a-dee-dee-dee", "chi-pi-tit"

● Foraging & Feeding: Mexican Chickadee: Eats insects, spiders, arthropod egg cases, and seeds from conifers and other plants; clings under branches or pinecones when foraging, or gleans trunks, branches, and foliage.

● Breeding & nesting: Mexican Chickadee: Five to eight white eggs with red-brown spots are laid in a nest made of fine grass, bark strips, moss, and plant down, lined with animal fur, and built from 5 to 45 feet above the ground in a snag or tree. Incubation ranges from 11 to 14 days and is carried out by the female.

● Similar species: Mexican Chickadee: Mountain Chickadee has white eyebrow. Black-capped Chickadee has pale olive-brown wash on sides, flanks, and undertail coverts, smaller black bib (does not reach breast), and has more white edging on wing feathers.

Flight Pattern

Short slow weak flitting flights on rapidly beating wings. Often folds wings to sides after several shallow strokes; repeated.

Mexican Chickadee Breeding Male Body Illustration

● Range & Habitat: Mexican Chickadee: Resident in extreme southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico; also in Mexico. Preferred habitats include coniferous or pine-oak forests at high altitudes.

^BreedingMonogamous

^PopulationStable

^MigrationNonmigratory

^Weight0.4 Ounces

Field Guide to Birds of North America