Mountain Chickadee

Abstract

This chapter studies the mountain chickadees of the Sierra Nevada. Using sophisticated acoustic analyses, observant biologists have learned that the songs of mountain chickadees at higher elevations are different—in the timing and frequency of their notes—from the songs of their kin dwelling lower down. Such distinctions may signal to prospective mates their fitness for the rigors of high country living. In addition, the high elevation mountain chickadee's hippocampus—a region of the brain associated with spatial memory—is larger and more neuron-dense than that of its lowland relative, giving them a superior ability to find cached stores of seed—a life-saving skill at high elevations where conditions are harshest. The chickadee is just like the improbable life that moves in us when things are at their worst. If we listen, we can attend to an interior world that holds and concentrates all the beauties of the natural world.</p