Chris Templeton and his colleagues have found that chickadees use their calls like language, complete with syntax that can...convey their location or...news of a tasty treat... warn of predators - both the type and magnitude of the threat. A soft, high-pitched call signals a threat on the wing...the signature chickadee-dee-dee flags a stationary predator...the number of those skipping-stone "dees" indicates the predator's size.
p.40, 'The Genius of Birds,' Jennifer Ackerman.
Mountain chickadees that live in the colder, snowier conditions of higher elevations have bigger hippocampi [the brain region vital for spatial learning and memory] than their lower-elevation peers... This makes sense. At higher elevations, where it stays cold longer, birds must store seeds and remember where they put them. Recovering caches is not so critical in milder climates, where food is available year-round. p. 53, 'The Genius of Birds,' Jennifer Ackerman.
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