Another common Rocky Mountain bird is the Mountain Chickadee (Above, 7-4-10), often seen foraging in conifer forests. I shot this photo just yards off a busy bike trail in Silverthorne, CO. She was hanging around a Spruce tree with a couple of her older young. I just missed getting a pic of her feeding one of her youngsters, which was almost as big as her (Below, 7-4-10). The juvenile is on the left.
In Northern Illinois and throughout the Midwest, the Northern East and West is the common Black-capped Chickadee. They are the same size and have the same habits as the Mountain Chickadee. The main visual difference as you can see the Black-capped (Below, 2-9-10 in our front yard, and Bottom, 2-21-09, feeding on suet cake in our backyard) has a full black cap; whereas, the Mountain Chickadee's cap is broken by a wide white eyebrow (which gives it a more devilish look) and has less white in its wing feathers. The Black-capped chickadee's flanks are more buff colored than the Mountain Chickadee's grayish flanks.
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