Released: February 12, 2004

It’s Chickadee Checkoff Time – Where Are All the Chickadees?

JUNCTION CITY, Kan. – Kansas’ long-time, highly successful Chickadee Checkoff allows state taxpayers to route a small portion of their return to helping non-game wildlife, such as bald eagles and bluebirds.

Ironically, however, the program’s symbol, the dark-capped little chickadee, may not be doing too well itself in 2004.

“We conduct more than 50 Christmas Bird Counts in Kansas between mid-December and mid-January. There was no consistent pattern this year, but some sites had fairly average numbers of chickadees. Others were historically low,” said Chuck Otte, a Kansas Ornithological Society spokesman and the agriculture and natural resources agent for Geary County’s Kansas State University Research and Extension office.

Otte did the counts for the north and south ends of the Milford Lake area. His counts were a week apart. Record-low numbers of chickadees in the north countered fairly typical numbers in the south.

“There’s a general consensus that West Nile virus probably has had something to do with this, as well as with some other species’ unusual counts,” he said. “But it’s very difficult to sort out the impact of West Nile from other, more typical population factors.

“For example, drought over the past four years has definitely had an impact on many small bird species’ food sources. The short period of cold weather we had in early December could certainly have moved some birds out of an area – or at least to a different location, since chickadees don’t truly migrate very much. Heavy snows can reduce food availability, too, and sometimes affect small birds’ survival.”

Still, Otte is cautiously optimistic that the chickadee population will rebound.

“If the problem is strictly weather – we do see weather-induced cycles in many species – then we should see a rebound in chickadee numbers fairly quickly,” he said. “A West Nile virus impact is much harder to predict. But, based on short-term observations in the northeastern United States, where the initial West Nile outbreaks occurred, virus-affected bird numbers could start to return in just a year or two.”

Although he’s still receiving worried questions about chickadees from as far away as Wichita, Otte started noticing more chickadee activity at his home feeders in Junction City this February. He’s recently heard more chickadee calls than he’s heard for several months in his neighborhood.

“The problem may have been one of relocation, as much as actual population reduction. We won’t know, however, for several months,” he said. “Either way, people should be seriously considering adding their support to the checkoff program during this tax season. The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks always has worthwhile projects that the checkoff can’t quite stretch to fund.”

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K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and regional research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus, Manhattan.

Story by:
Kathleen Ward, Communications Specialist
kward@oznet.ksu.edu
K-State Research& Extension News