Chickadee (1 Viewer)

Living in St. Louis, MO we get both carolina and black-capped chickadees. I'm not 100% positive which I photographed, but I'm leaning towards black-capped based on tail length and the extension of the black bib. Any thoughts? Unfortunately, I didn't hear it make a call before it flew away.

Tough call on these pics alone,but I'd say black-capped on the basis of what appears to be suficient white on the wing.

Hi Lassa8,

I'm going to go the other way, and say Carolina Chickadee, as the white fringes on the secondaries are not matched by any whitish fringing on the greater coverts.

Michael

I've seen both, but I ID'd them the lazy way - on range (in Canada and in the Carolinas) - so I've never mugged up on the differences. But I've just been looking at Kenn Kaufmann's chapter in his "Advanced Birding".

He says that the "more white in the wings" field mark for Black-capped is widely misinterpreted as both species have pale edgings to the secondaries (white in Black-capped, grey in Carolina). The critical area is the greater coverts.

In Black-capped these have broad white outer edges contrasting with the dark grey inner webs and with the dark grey tertial centres. (They can be obscure on worn birds in summer.)

In Carolina the greater coverts have grey outer edges, hardly paler than the inner webs. Thus they look uniformly medium grey, often contrasting with the paler edgings of the secondaries.

Bib: Carolina Chickadee has a neat, even lower border; Black-capped's is more uneven with some white feather edgings in the lower part of the black area (thus, I would suppose, looking more "untidy").

Tail length: Black-capped is proportionately longer-tailed than Carolina.

On all these points, your bird would seem to me to be a Carolina. Compare this Black-capped:
http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showphoto.php/photo/17814/password//sort/1/cat/all/page/2

Jason

On the other hand the paler greater coverts on Black-capped can look quite subdued and the bib quite neat. See the two pics here: http://personalpages.tds.net/~mmcdowell/avian2.html
However, I still think lassa's bird is a Carolina.

Jason

Thanks for the help! I think my opinion has been swayed...