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Which chickadee?


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Black-capped Chickadees have:

- pretty noticeable white-edged coverts, secondaries, & tertials; the white part kind of looks like an upside down hockey stick at a distance

- a raggedly edge to the black bib, especially at the lower corners on each side

- completely bright white cheek (if you look at a CACH, you’ll notice that the back part of the cheek starts turning light gray)

- brighter pink/peach sides & flanks that contrast with the whiter belly & breast

Carolina for me based off these reasons. 

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https://feederwatch.org/learn/tricky-bird-ids/black-capped-chickadee-and-carolina-chickadee/

There is a table at the bottom of the page that lays out the differences that @Birds are cool listed.  The nice thing is, if you click any row of the table, it opens up and shows comparison pics of that specific feature.

One cautionary note:  Your bird has a lot of color on its underparts which favors Black-capped (or more likely a hybrid).  But pay attention to the fine print.  This field mark may not apply in the northeastern part of Carolina's range (they show more color in the northeast).  The northeastern part of Carolina's range includes southern NJ (and my hometown in SE PA). 

You should be below the Black-capped/Carolina integrade range which is further north in NJ.  Calling it Carolina Chickadee (versus a hybrid) seems pretty safe.

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