Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:54:09 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Patty Craig Subject: Re: Black-capped Chickadee MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rick and All, I knew I was going out on a limb mentioning the chickadees that I saw early in September. I think these things need to be mentioned if only to indicate a possibility that hybrids do migrate or to illustrate that there is no way to make an accurate identification in the field. Since these birds were at my feeder I had a chance to study them much more extensively than one would in the woods. The birds in question had very wide white feather edges on the inner greater coverts extending the white of the tertials and contrasting with the dark of the outer greater coverts. The corners of the black bibs were ragged, the black cap was squared off in the back and the sides of the breast and flanks were very buffy. The cheeks also seemed whiter. There was also a behavior trait that attracted my attention. They were more willing to come to the side of the feeder next to the house and linger there like goldfinches. The resident chickadees generally fly to the back side of the feeder, immediately retrieve a seed and fly away to a distant perch only coming to the near side if they can't get a turn at the back side. Good Birding, Patty Craig Dameron, Md pattycraig@mail.ameritel.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================