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Why Is It Called a Chickadee? The Surprising Story Behind Bird Names · Wildly Curious

• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, it's me, Laura, and it's really weird to be here without Katie.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Bear with me as I fly solo.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: I apparently have a tickle in my throat.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna continue on with our mini sodes talking about where birds' names come from.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about chickadees and tit mice, which are some of my most favorite birds.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I remember taking one of those Cornell bird quizzes about which bird personality are you, and I got chickadee, so they're like very near and dear to my heart.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I actually have a cool painting that was commissioned for me and my husband that's a chickadee and a great hornell, because that's the two birds that we got.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty cool.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to start with just a little bit of natural history, and then we'll dive into what their name actually means.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: So these two little birds, chickadees and tit mice, are pretty familiar.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen them in our backyard all the time.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Chickadees, at least around here on the East Coast, we have mostly black capped or Carolina chickadees.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're little tiny chubby birds, little black head caps on their head, white.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then the tit mice, the tufted tit mouse is what lives around me.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's gray and has a little crest on its head.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: But they're feeders year-round.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: There are also birds whose names sound almost cartoonishly cute because of just the way they are.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: But the story behind these names are actually linguistic accidents, sound imitations, and just a few hundred years of English evolving.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start with the bird that actually named itself the chickadee.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, quick natural history facts.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Chickadees are small songbirds in the Paraday family.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: There are seven species of them, and they're pretty common across North America in a variety of habitats, including parks, forests, thickets, and just suburban areas and backyards.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're known for being curious and bold, frequent visitors to bird feeders, they're extremely vocal, and they have incredible memories.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Some really cool studies have been done, you guys should check out.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: In the fall, their brains actually increase in size up to 30% so that they can remember where they cache 80,000 seeds.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so not only do they talk a lot, they have great memories.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so, speaking of their calls, that's kind of linked lead us into this linguistic where their name came from thing.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So their calls are actually quite complex communication systems.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Their famous chickadee-d call can vary depending on context.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And according to American Scientist, the magazine, the call is one of the most complex signaling systems documented in non-human animal species, which is pretty cool.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Chickadees change the number of D notes, so like D D D D or just D D, depending on the threat level.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So they can talk to each other.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Bird calls and songs are different.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Calls are more for telling each other short messages, territory, danger, things like that.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas songs are more for breeding.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: The chickadee, that's a call.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if they see some kind of threat level for a predator, they're gonna make that noise.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the more D's, typically the greater the danger.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I had to op in here for one second just to get it out.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm editing and I can't I couldn't help it.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: All right, back to Laura.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: They also can use that chickadee sound as an all-clear because sometimes they also will make like a see sound, like really shrill and short, if something is approaching very quickly and they don't have time to make a longer call.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: All the birds just freeze, and then when they hear a chickadee, it's like all clear and they can move around.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: So they have this awesome little complex signaling system.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So the name chickadee is just based on what they say.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: They essentially name themselves to the sound that they make.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's pretty straightforward.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, tit mice, on the other hand, that's a little more confusing.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: So tit mice are also part of the Paradae family, closely related to chickadees.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're very similar.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's five species, all found in North America, same as the chickadees.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And they're small active birds that are seen, again, in the same habitats as chickadees.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're often gonna be you're gonna be seeing them in mixed flocks a lot of times.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're known for their energetic movements, the little crests on their heads, and their curious personalities.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're very sassy little birds.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: They will definitely tell you off for being too close to them.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And like chickadees, they're very social and vocal.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: So how did they get their name?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, tit mouse, although it sounds pretty strange to us today, is it's a little bit misleading because the mouse part actually has nothing to do with the animal.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: The original old English form of the name was mace.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, I don't speak Old English.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even speak Middle English, with all the inflections that I'm sure it entails.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: So forgive me as I as I butcher old and Middle English.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: But mace was old English, turned into mouse, which was Middle English.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the word mace just meant small bird.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: So they would often call just any small bird mace or even just tit mace.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: The word mace or mouse probably came from ancient Greek roots, meaning small or less, and you'll hear that word today used a lot.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: It that word was mikros, like micro, microscope, small, things like microorganisms.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So micro, mikros, mace, mouse, small.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: People start associating it with the familiar word though, mouse, because mice are also small.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so that kind of just caught on.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And English just changes.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: As time passes, and different dialects and different areas and things like that, it just changes over time.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Especially because we're talking old English was in Europe, and then tit mice are here in the in North America.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: So language, of course, there was so many different languages coming over here with different inflections, and so those words are changing.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: So tit mace gradually became tit mouse, just meaning little bird.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So not a very like deep meaning name, but definitely you can see where it comes from.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And fun fact, and real nerdy etymology thing.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: The word, because the word originally ended with mace, the technical correct plural is tit mouses.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: But that'd be a really weird thing to say, and it doesn't sound right to most of us, so we say tit mice, which is also grammatically correct according to the dictionary.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you can say either one.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And just, you know, actually, it's tit mouses.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So both of these names show how language evolves over time.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Chickadees got their names just from the sounds that they make, and people were like, that's cute, let's just call them what they say.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Tit mice got their name from the old word for just small bird, and that slowly morphed into something that sounds like an involved mice.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes bird names are scientific, sometimes they honor people, and sometimes they're just what the bird sounded like to someone hundreds of years ago.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: So not that deep, but pretty cool fun facts.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, guys, I know that's a short one, but that's all I have for you today.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do a couple more of these where did the bird name come from, and then we're gonna move on to our next season.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to y'all soon.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.