Small songbirds have all sorts of remarkable skills, abilities, and adaptations to survive the extremes of winter. Bushtits huddle. Chickadees, meanwhile, remember. A remarkable essay in The Conversation shows that Mountain Chickadees (Poecile gambeli) rely on their spatial memories to survive the extreme winters of the Rocky Mountain west.
To determine this, ecologists Benjamin Sonnenberg and Vladimir Pravosudov used “smart feeders.” Mountain Chickadees that the two have equipped with tiny transponder “keys” can unlock a single feeder of several the two biologists placed in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Chickadees who better remember which of the feeders survive at a higher rate than those who do not.
Mountain Chickadees Vulnerable to Extreme Weather
There are, however, limits to what these remarkable birds can do. Sonnenberg and Pravosudov’s research also demonstrates that extreme mountain weather — especially extreme snow events — can essentially lock Mountain Chickadees out of their ecological pantries.
When snow cover lasts deep into the spring, Chickadees can’t access one of their key seasonal food sources: emerging insects. Young chickadees suffer. Many don’t survive.
These extremes — and, especially, the oscillation between the extremes of drought and severe snow — may be contributing to the overall decline ornithologists have documented in Mountain Chickadee populations. According to the Birds of the World database (subscription needed), the species has experienced an annual decline of about 1.7% since 1980.
For more on Sonnenberg and Pravosudov’s research of the spatial cognition of Mountain Chickadees…
Credits
Read Sonnenberg’s original article, at The Conversation.
Header Photo by Dana Davis on Unsplash
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