How to Feed Chestnut-Backed Chickadees with Backyard Bird Feeders

Chestnut-Backed Chickadees are a species of chickadee that resides along the coast of the Pacific Northwest, ranging from Central California up into Canada. If you are a birder along the Pacific coast, you have undoubtedly spotted Chestnut-Backed Chickadees at your backyard feeders from time to time. Chestnut-Backed Chickadees are a pleasant species to concentrate your feeding efforts upon, due to their pleasant "chickadee" calls (listen to a Chestnut-Backed Chickadee call) and their tendency to remain where the food is along their migration route.

I have had the best luck with attracting Chestnut-Backed Chickadees to my backyard feeders with a combination of black oil sunflower seed and suet cakes. Chestnut-Backed Chickadees seem to prefer the black oil sunflower seed over other varieties of bird food such as millet. If you are trying to attract Chestnut-Backed Chickadees to your feeders, just load up the feeder entirely with premium black oil sunflower seeds and the Chestnut-Backed Chickadees will be soon to follow.

I have found that the best type of feeder to use for attracting Chestnut-Backed Chickadees with black oil sunflower seed is the wire mesh type of feeder. The Chestnut-Backed Chickadees will cling to the wire mesh and pull the black oil sunflower seeds through the mesh. Often the Chestnut-Backed Chickadees will fly away to a nearby tree to eat the seed and then come darting back to the wire mesh feeder to pull out another seed. Chestnut-Backed Chickadees will repeat this process until they have consumed their fill of black oil sunflower seed. While Chestnut-Backed Chickadees are rather solitary birds, unlike finches for example, it is not uncommon to see two or more Chestnut-Backed Chickadees clinging to a wire mesh feeder at the same time.

Another method of feeding Chestnut-Backed Chickadees is to use suet cakes inside a wire mesh suet holder. Suet is basically rendered fat, and has long been used to feed wild birds. Chestnut-Backed Chickadees are very attracted to suet, and suet provides the Chestnut-Backed Chickadees with a potent energy source during the colder winter months when natural food supplies have dwindled. To feed Chestnut-Backed Chickadees with suet, simply use a plain square suet cake inside of a wire suet container, and the Chestnut-Backed Chickadees will similarly cling to the wire box and pick out a chunk of the fatty suet.

Chestnut-Backed Chickadees are one of the most delightful birds to feed at your backyard feeders, and they are also among the easiest to attract along the Pacific Coast. Chestnut-Backed Chickadees will be regular visitors to your feeders if you load your feeders with black oil sunflower seed and suet cakes, and Chestnut-Backed Chickadees will linger at your feeders for a spell as they migrate up and down the coast in the spring and fall months.