Titmice and chickadees cache food for winter survival

Several people asked me today if I had figured out why a group of titmice or chickadees is called a "banditry" (from yesterday's post). I wasn’t able to find anything in my books or on the Internet, so I don’t really know, but if I were to guess, it might be because these two little birds stash seeds in a food cache all autumn to prepare for food shortages in the winter ahead. In a previous post, I talked about the birds in our area that stash food. These birds have larger spatial memories than non-caching birds, and the extra brain cells (beefed up during the autumn) help them keep track of the seeds they hide. In our area, food-caching birds are White-breasted Nuthatches, Blue Jays, Tufted Titmice and chickadees.

A pencil sketch I did of my favorite bird, a Carolina Chickadee.

In the autumn, the chickadees and titmice step up their food gathering behavior, so maybe their constant trips to the feeder (or any other food source) appear to be “stealing” as they zoom in, grab a seed, and then fly off without eating it. Maybe this thievery earned them the description of a "banditry" of chickadees or titmice. Who knows...

...or maybe it's just because they appear to wear masks!