When as kids we played Indian, my father told us that a white streak painted on our faces was a most effective disguise. It works out all right with boys but not on Chickadees. The white streak over the MOUNTAIN CHICKADEE'S eye, where the Master Workman's brush slipped has not masked its relationship even to the observer who sees the bird for the first time. It is a Chickadee — there's no mistaking that fact.
They are just as full of vim — just as inquisitively, unsuspiciously friendly as the bird calling phe-be from the old apple tree outside the window this clear July morning. They add another de, tho, and sometimes reverse the notes or vary the call by placing the long phe in the middle between two de.
Dr. Merrill states that the female sits tight and when disturbed keeps up a constant hissing so much like that of some snakes that no prudent squirrel would venture to enter the hole.
Breeds in Canadian and Transition zones in mountains of western United States to eastern slope of Rocky Mountains and from British Columbia south to Lower California.