Gray-headed Chickadee Life History

Habitat

Gray-headed Chickadees frequently reside in low-elevation, old-growth spruce forest, but they also use other coniferous, deciduous, and mixed forests and woodlands. They reach their highest abundance anywhere in the world in mature forests in Finland with large spruces, pines, and birches. Elsewhere, they occur in mountainous birch and conifer forests, as well as in deciduous forest and birch-willow thickets along rivers.

Food

Gray-headed Chickadees feed mainly on insects, spiders, and seeds, and during the winter they also visit bird feeders. Insect prey include bugs, larval and pupal moths, caddisflies, small flies, and beetles. They are methodical foragers, carefully searching branches, leaves, and conifer needles to glean their prey. They consume seeds—including spruce, pine, larch, juniper, birch, and rose—by holding a single seed on a perch and using their bill to hammer the seed open.

Nesting

Nest Placement

Nest is built in a natural cavity, woodpecker hole, or nest box; does not appear to excavate its own nest cavity.

Nest Description

Female builds a cup nest, lined with fur, on top of a base of moss inside the nest cavity.

Nesting Facts

Behavior

Gray-headed Chickadees show little fear of humans. Like other chickadees, they are acrobatic foragers, often hanging upside as they inspect vegetation. They fly on rapid wingbeats, but they avoid flying across large open areas and rarely fly above the canopy. To help survive harsh arctic winters, Gray-headed Chickadees are prolific hoarders of food, caching seeds and insects year-round in conifer needles, lichens, and crevices.

Gray-headed Chickadees are monogamous and mate for life. The female builds the nest, incubates the eggs, and broods the young chicks. The male feeds the female while she is incubating and brooding, and both sexes usually feed the nestlings. Young birds leave the nest after 19–20 days and then stay in the parents’ territory for about 14 days before dispersing. After the breeding season, Gray-headed Chickadees form winter flocks consisting of mated pairs plus juveniles. This species also joins mixed species flocks, regularly joining flocks with Willow Tits and European Nuthatches.

Conservation

The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists Gray-headed Chickadee’s conservation status as Least Concern. Although its population trend appears to be decreasing, this species has an extremely large population (estimated by IUCN as 15–26 million mature individuals) and an extremely large range.

Credits

BirdLife International. 2016. Poecile cinctus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T22711750A87424950. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22711750A87424950.en.

Brazil, M. (2009). Birds of East Asia: China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and Russia. Christopher Helm, London, UK.

Dunne, P. (2006). Pete Dunne's essential field guide companion. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, USA.

Hailman, J. P. and S. Haftorn (2020). Gray-headed Chickadee (Poecile cinctus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.gyhchi.01

Harrap, S., and D. Quinn (1996). Tits, Nuthatches and Treecreepers. Christopher Helm, London.

Jonsson, L. (1992). Birds of Europe: with North Africa and the Middle East. Christopher Helm, London, United Kingdom.

Partners in Flight. 2024. Avian Conservation Assessment Database, version 2024. Available at http://pif.birdconservancy.org/ACAD.

Sibley, D. A. (2014). The Sibley Guide to Birds, second edition. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY, USA.

Svensson, L., K. Mullarney, and D. Zetterström (2009). Collins Bird Guide. Second edition. HarperCollins, London, UK.

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