The chickadees are a group of North American birds in the family Paridae included in the genus Poecile. Species found in North America are referred to as chickadees; species found elsewhere in the world are called tits. They are small-sized birds overall, usually having the crown of the head and throat patch distinctly darker than the body. They are at least 6 to 14 centimeters in size. Their name reputedly comes from the fact that their calls make a distinctive “chick-a-dee-dee-dee”, though their normal call is actually “fee-bee,” and the “chick-a-dee-dee-dee” call is an alarm call. The number of “dees” depends on the predator. The chickadee is the official bird for the US states of Massachusetts and Maine, the Canadian province of New Brunswick, and the city of Calgary, Alberta. One holarctic species is referred to by a different name in each part of its range: grey-headed chickadee in North America and Siberian tit in Eurasia.
![Chickadee B&W [OC]](https://lemmy.sdf.org/pictrs/image/67ae6cb9-79f2-489e-9fd3-f641a0ec9ba2.png){kind=link}