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by Terry Krautwurst

You don't have to look far in nature to see that not just good things come in small packages, but truly remarkable, holy-smoke kinds of things. Take, for instance, those diminutive little chickadees flitting about our winter bird feeders.

At first, you might not think they're anything special. Certainly, few North American birds are more common. Black-capped chickadees live coast to coast throughout most of the northern half of the contiguous United States, plus much of Canada and Alaska. In the Midwest and the South, where the black-capped's range ends, the look-alike (but somewhat smaller) Carolina chickadee takes up residence. The mountain chickadee, with masked-bandit face markings, claims the West. Plus, three other chickadee species make their homes in North America — the chestnut-backed (Pacific Northwest), the Mexican (Southwest) and the boreal (Far North).

But "common" hardly means "ordinary" in the case of chickadees.

BRRRRRRD, IT'S COLD!

Your average chickadee, a fidgety puff of mostly feathers and bone, weighs about one-half ounce. How do these tiny birds routinely survive frigid days and freezing nights?

In autumn, chickadees, like other small birds, grow a thicker coat more — small, downy feathers, with lots of heat-trapping air spaces. By winter, the birds have gained 25 percent more plumage. On a cold day, chickadees fluff up these feathers to at least an inch. The result is a downy ball of a bird, its spherical overcoat astonishingly effective. At 10 degrees below zero, the difference between a tiny chickadee's body temperature (108 degrees) and the outside air — just an inch of insulating feathers away — is 118 degrees.

Of course, it takes quite a furnace to generate and maintain the bird's high body temperature. Indeed, the chickadee is a metabolic fireball. Its heart beats 500 times a minute — at rest. Given intense activity, the rate doubles to 1,000 beats. Even when perched, the little chickadee is never still, cocking its head, shifting its feet. And beneath all those feathers, the bird continually flexes its chest muscles, shivering to generate yet more heat.

NIGHT SHIFT

Being all fired up is fine during the day when the sun is up and there's food to be eaten. But come sundown every winter day, the bird faces 12 or more foodless hours of dark and cold. How does it cope? First, by holing up in a tree cavity. Chickadees are the only birds besides woodpeckers who excavate their own holes. A cavity just big enough for one bird to cram its body and its fluffed feathers into is perfect. Watch your bird feeders in the morning for chickadees with rumpled tail feathers — the result of a night spent in cozy quarters.