Laura Erickson’s For the Birds

The idea of ranking beloved people or birds on any “top ten” list seems ludicrous to me—a task somewhere between “prohibitively difficult” and “impossible.” Choosing favorites among birds feels akin to choosing favorites among my children—my connection to each is unique and special.

That said, the Black-capped Chickadee earned its place as Number One because, of all the birds, that’s the one that really does feel like part of my immediate family. The chickadee wasn’t just the first bird I ever saw when I started birding—to figure out what species it was, I had to spend quite a few minutes searching through my field guide, and the little bird was so cosmically obliging, not just staying within view but very close to me, sometimes even making eye contact, as I figured out who it was. And that entire first spring, chickadees didn’t just show up virtually every time I went out—they also seemed to bring friends for me to add to my life list—especially warblers. I wasn’t at all surprised to learn that many small neotropical migrants associate with chickadees as they pass through strange areas—I’d seen firsthand that this was true.

When we moved to Duluth, chickadees were the first birds to visit my feeder and then to feed out of my hand. One with a deformed bill and foot specifically befriended me—he was obviously looking for literal handouts, but the confiding way he trusted looked for me, alighted on my hand, and sat there eating so he could use my fingers to help him wedge a mealworm into a position that he could manage to swallow. The elongated upper bill broke off in the spring, and that’s when I confirmed that he was a male by his frequent singing near my window. He didn’t attract a mate that year, but the next, he did and successfully raised young. I’ll never forget my joy and pride watching him feeding his babies.

I worked at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology from 2010–2012, right when several researchers there were working on chickadee projects. That’s when I got to watch them get banded, see inside their nests, and see exactly how such a friendly, confiding little bird is no wimp. Chickadees may willingly alight on our hands, but it’s strictly on their terms–they have a nasty bite when held against their will.

In 2021, when we were hunkered down at home during the pandemic, a pair of chickadees nested at eye-level in our dead cherry tree, giving me all kinds of opportunities to watch them excavating the cavity, building the nest within, and feeding the young; they even let me make a video of the last one fledging. And when the babies got skilled at flying, the parents frequently brought them to our yard while I was out there, giving me wonderful insights into chickadee family life.

And those backyard chickadees coming constantly to the feeder in my home office window caught my baby grandson’s eye, too—one of the very first words he learned was “dee dee,” and after he learned that his other grandmother was called “Nana,” he himself came up with the name “Dee Dee Nana” for me—the name he still calls me.

Those two old saws—“familiarity breeds contempt” and “absence makes the heart grow fonder”—don’t work for me. I guess a person who is still happy with the spouse she married in 1972 would of course have a special love for the bird who sticks with her every day the whole year round, personally engages with her, and genuinely seems to like her.

So in the same way that I have a special love for my husband, children, and grandchild, I have a special love for the Black-capped Chickadee, the bird who is and always will be Number One on my life list and in my heart.