Part of the joy of working from home is that my desk faces a window looking out into the cedar thicket between my house and the neighbor's. I work with my binocs next to the computer; code a little, bird a little. Life could be worse.

Yesterday morning I was enjoying a little group of White-crowned Sparrows that were working the cedar cones when my attention was drawn to another little bird emerging from the cedar branches. It posed. I focused on it and my mental bird ID flip-book went into high gear: "Chickadee? No, White-crowned Sparrow.? No, White-crowned Chickadee.? White-crowned Chickadee????? Huh? Mountain Chickadee??? Nope... White-crowned chickadee. Confusion reigned.

A quick Google search showed that Mountain Chickadees have, as I remembered, a black head with a white stripe just above the eyes. Feeling utterly addled, I confirmed this with Sibley and with Kaufman. This guy had a white head - imagine a Chickadee with a broad white stripe on its head ending just above its eyes, or a Chickadee with a closely trimmed white mohawk.

It came to the suet feeder a little later on and I was still confused, so I'm just going to call it a Bald-pated Chickadee.

I didn't see it today.

Catherine Alexander
Lakewood Neighborhood
South Seattle


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