Hello all. Just a note on our Cecil Chickadee's. The Black-capped Chickadees that have interrupted our area from what information that I have received, may be Black-capped Chickadees from Canada and New England. From what I understand, their Christmas counts and other counts of mention have greatly increased in numbers not seen for many years. These birds are not believed to be birds from PA or Maryland. Now I don't know the exact facts and I am not one for making big arguments. I believe Walter Ellison has much more information on these birds than I do. 

Now as far as being careful on voice, I agree since Chickadee songs are learned. I am wondering if anyone knows, which part is learned? The call note? The song, or all of the above. I have always understood it is all of the above, but I am not real certain.

I would say 40 to 50 percent of my mothers feeders are still filled with Black-capped Chickadees. My feeders are probably around 30 to 40 percent filled with Black-capped, and I do know others in our Cecil area that haven't lost any of their BC Chickadees yet either. We are Identifying these birds from the over all size, length of the tail, the frosted over all look of the bird, the black in the throat is much more chattered and broken where it meets the breast, the white in the cheeks wraps around to the back of the neck, usually it turns gray with the Carolina. These birds are a clearly different bird than what I have seen in Western Maryland and just to the North of us in PA. I have more trouble with our closest BC than these birds. If you would like to see some pictures of these Chickadees, I would be happy to send them to who ever. George Jett took a fantastic shot of a Black-capped Chickadee at my Mothers a while back. Its a perfect photo of what is has come down to our area.

We are not real prone to getting mixed or hybrid chickadees that I am aware of here in Cecil. I have been in this Cecil area my whole life and maybe once or twice can I remember having trouble with Chickadees and I came to the same conclusion. Probably a mixed Chickadee. I believe that the intergraded band is much farther away for us than it is down at the Townsend's Warbler area. I might be wrong.

I know someone had mentioned to me if we would mind if someone would come by and band these Black-capped Chickadee's. This has not happened, and maybe there isn't enough interest. I truly wish someone would. I think this is a most interesting issue and interruption. I wish we could learn more from it. It has been about 7 or 8 years since the last time I have seen this phenomenon.
If someone has an interest in coming out to band these Chickadees please contact me and I can help provide several feeding stations to work at. Time is running out. The last time of this invasion, we had these birds all the way up to the Second week of May. 
In the end I think that Black-capped Chickadee in Cecil is still safe, but caution should always taken every day when identifying all birds especially Chickadees.
Sean McCandless
Elkton, MD