Chickadees and Caterpillars

This time of year, adult chickadees are very busy catching caterpillars to feed their young. This explains why they are suddenly not seen much at the sunflower feeders. They need the protein diet from insects to raise their nestlings.

According to Nestwatch.org:

A single pair of breeding chickadees must find 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars to rear one clutch of young, according to Doug Tallamy, a professor of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware. Even though seeds are a nutritious winter staple, insects are best for feeding growing fledglings. Surprisingly, insects contain more protein than beef, and 96% of North American land birds feed their young with them.

This is why it is important to have native plant stock in the backyard which will host the thousands of caterpillars a pair of chickadees needs to raise a brood. Native caterpillars will not properly hatch or feed on non-native plants as they did not evolve together. This can be an overlooked fact in naturalized gardening as we have been so conditioned to seek out the exotic trees and shrubs in the nursery trade as well as think our native plants are inferior. Obviously it is in the nursery’s interest to sell exciting, often non-native, stock to promote new business. Unfortunately this has created countless stories of unintentional ecological damage. In addition to being unappealing to our our native insects, these “foreign” plants harbor their own “foreign” insects that can invade and often take over our native ecosystems for good.

So when you see a chickadee this time of year, think of caterpillars instead of their usual winter diet of sunflower seeds. If a chickadee fed its nestlings sunflower seeds this time of year, they would not survive. When the young fledge and get almost full grown, they will quickly learn about the sunflower feeders but right now their lives depend solely on the abundance of caterpillars and our ability to promote healthy insect populations.