Oak Titmouse

Oak Titmouse

Hal Brown Park, Kentfield, California, USA
September 2021
Member of the Titmice/Chickadee Family
§A Dissimulation of Titmice§ (just checking dictionary.com here, and dissimulation means "concealment of one's thoughts, feelings, or character; pretense", so yes, definitely a completely deranged collective noun for this bird, if you were wondering)

{Etymology Corner} So, we finally got a titmouse, which means it's time for a trip to the Etymology Corner for sure. I'm sure you're wondering, as I was, why on earth it's called that. The culprit, as is often the case, is Old English. 'Tit' was a word used for any small animal or thing, and 'mase', which eventually morphed into 'mouse', also meant.. small. So the name of the bird means, basically, "teeny, tiny bird (or other animal, who can be bothered, really)"

~True Bird Fact~ Haven't seen this many synonyms for plain when looking up a bird for a long time. "Nondescript save for it's crest" raves allaboutbirds.org, and describes the bird as "very-drab plumaged", meanwhile, audubon.org enthuses that it's "as plain as a bird can be." But, if you dig deeper, you'll see that people really like the Oak Titmouse. Dave Shulford, in his Marin County Breeding Birds Atlas memorably describes him like this "Though drab in color, this crested parid is the voice and soul of the oaks." I guess what I'm saying is, sometimes there really isn't a fun true bird fact, but a bird still just has 'vibes'. Oak titmouse is such a bird.

Quick, read this incredible blog post about the titmouse, from Nature in Novato, and forget that I was supposed to come up with a bird fact myself.

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Point Pinole Regional Shoreline, Richmond, California, USA
June 2014
Member of the Titmouse/Chickadee Family
§A Dissimulation of Chickadees§

~weird Wikipedia quote masquerading as a true bird fact~ "It is often considered the most handsome of all chickadees"

~actual true bird fact~ In areas where they overlap with their close relative, Black-capped Chickadee, they divide up the trees in an orderly fashion to avoid nesting confusion. Black-cappeds take higher branches, Chestnut-backeds lowers. How they arrived at this division is unknown to me.

Gets emotionally close very quickly with new people, usurping older and more reliable friends
Obviously this creates drama. Whether the Chickadee wants this or if it's just an unwelcome bi-product of her actual personality is unknown
Sews and knits
Always searching for meaning

Mountain Chickadee

Welcome back to bird blog's Spooktober special! Today's bird might not be as shockingly scarifying as last week's Turkey Vulture, but you wouldn't know it by the company he keeps-

Ahh! I know, it is pretty terrifying, but try to read on. More than just being a frightening image, this picture raises some haunting questions. A bird on a spooky skull, wow, how did amateurnithologist even get such an awesome Halloween picture? Did he make a deal with the bird devil (presumed to be a goose at this point)? And why is it so mysteriously blurry, is it the spirits of the dead communicating with us from the other side? Or perhaps it was shot through a sliding glass door. Like all the best scary stories, I'm afraid this blog will leave these questions suspiciously unanswered. On with the profile!


Mountain Chickadee
Graeagle, California, USA
Member of the Titmouse and Chickadee Family
§A Dissimulation of Chickadees§

~true bird fact~ Sometimes a bird just doesn't have very many interesting facts about it. My usual sources were full of hopefully worded tidbits, but I like to think everyone involved understood that these details were kind of boring. They make a cap for their nest to keep their eggs warm when they're away! They only need to eat 10 calories per day! Mountain Chickadee Eggs take a week longer to incubate than Black-capped Chickadee Eggs! Wow! The closest I got to a really fascinating thing was that they are colloquially called Cheeseburger Birds, because this is what their call sounds like, Cheese-bur-ger (to an insane person presumably).

Loves rustic DIY projects. Big into Pinterest type stuff
Advocates for her friends a little too enthusiastically without realizing it is not really what they want (ex. Complains about a friend's meal to a waiter when the friend was actually only a little disappointed that they forgot the, i don't know, cornbread, and would have rather just let it be)
Always has a lot of questions for you. Good at keeping up the conversation
Uses the word "discoveries" describe things she has bought

Black-capped Chickadee

Black-capped Chickadee
Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Member of the Titmouse and Chickadee Family
★State Bird of Massachusetts and Maine★
§A Banditry of Chickadees§

~true bird fact~ Chickadees are tiny, tiny birds, so you might expect them to be kind of dumb. They do have super-small brains, after all. However, all evidence points to them actually being very bright- they've got an extremely complex system of communication, having different calls for alarms, contact calls, identifying specific other birds, or even other flocks. They can also remember food that they've stored in hundreds of different places. They even appear to have some kind of social hierarchy within their flocks. How do they do this? Well, apparently Chickadee neurons die off in huge numbers every year in the autumn, allowing them to grow new neurons which quickly pick up new and useful information. In other words they never run out of room to learn new things.

Curiosity and mischievous nature often gets her into trouble
Precocious vocabulary, very dramatic
Plucky
Even grumpy old people can't help but smile at her positive attitude
Orphaned by her parents at a young age