Poecile atricapillus
Order Passeriformes
Family Paridae
Adult.— Top of head and throat black; sides of head, and belly white; back, wings, and tail gray; wing-feathers edged with white; flanks washed with light brownish, especially in the fall.
Nest, in a hole in a tree.
Eggs, often as many as eight, white, spotted with reddish-brown.
The Chickadee is a permanent resident throughout New England and New York; in the southern portions of its range it is less common in summer than in winter. At this season little flocks of five or six pass through the woodland, orchards, and plantations, often accompanied by Kinglets, a Brown Creeper, a Downy Woodpecker, or a Nuthatch. As spring approaches, the winter bands separate into pairs, which then often retire from the neighborhood of villages, so that a notion prevails that the Chickadee is only a winter resident. The pair, too, become very silent; the male, however, occasionally utters his whistled phee-bee. The nest is placed either in a natural cavity or in a hole picked out of a soft birch stub by the birds themselves. The pure whistle above described, though uttered oftenest in March and April, may be heard in any month of the year. Besides this song the Chickadee has various little lisping calls, a note something like the syllables tout de suite, and the well-known tsic-a dee-dee. When feeding, the Chickadee has a habit of clinging upside down to the tips of twigs ; occasionally it flies to a limb and there hammers open a seed or a tough cocoon. If bones, suet, or broken nuts are hung on the trees near a window, Chickadees will become constant and familiar visitors throughout the winter. The Chickadee is readily told by its black throat and top of head, and white cheeks.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)