Welcome to another episode of everybody's favourite pastime: Find the Bird. I recently went on a treasure hunt to photograph cherry blossom trees scattered throughout the city (see this post if you would like to see the results). I was standing under one particular tree when a gang of black-capped chickadees showed up. One of them began to hop around at the top. I could not see it very well because it was so small, but I took the shots anyway. Once I got home, I reviewed the images and tried to find the little bird among all the cherry blossoms.
I organized the images into four sets below. Each set contains two images; the first image is the original wide shot, and the second is the cropped image, so you can more easily spot the chickadee. So, if you would like a challenge try to find the bird in the first image of each set.
Set A
A1
A2
Set B
B1
B2
Set C
C1
C2
Set D
D1
D2
How did you do?
Some facts about the Black-capped Chickadees. They are the most widespread chickadee in North America, able to withstand both cold and warm temperatures. In harsh cold climates, they can thermoregulate their body temperatures, which is something I wish I could do. They nest in rotting tree stumps decked out with hair, fur, feathers, and plant fibers then lay a brood of 6-8 eggs per season. For food, they like to munch on insects and seeds.
(From David M. Bird. 2016. Birds of Canada)
So, if we're keeping score in the evolutionary game, then black-capped chickadees have done very well for themselves.
Images by 