Tippecanoe Co. Chickadee IDs
(Jotting down thoughts to justify my personal opinions on local chickadee ID)
I've been working through Poecile records in Tippecanoe county (my home birding county). For credibility, I'm a fairly dedicated local birder in Tippecanoe county for close to a decade and have been particularly interested in this issue for a while. Carolina vs. Black-capped is a tricky ID, even more so from photos which can distort the colors of the bird and strip the observation of its auditory context. In an identification which relies on subtle plumage cues, slight differences in the call, and distinctly different songs, this means that a lot of chickadees near the "overlap zone" are tricky to ID especially on iNaturalist. To make things more complex, these species do hybridize, making the song and call identification somewhat risky.
With that being said, my current informed understanding of Carolina Chickadee range is that they are overwhelmingly the species found in the county. In fact, as of 2/23/24 I have not been able to find any accepted records on eBird for Tippecanoe. This includes major hotspots such as Celery Bog and Prophetstown SP which are birded on a weekly if not daily basis by experienced birders who would recognize black-capped calls and songs. Speaking from experience, the complete lack of records is a strong incentive to document what would potentially be a first county record, but there are still no documented records. In this context, the lack of records do strongly suggest that any Black-capped Chickadee in the county should be thoroughly documented in order to be confirmed here on iNaturalist, let alone eBird.
So what are the practical implications of these findings? I think any records falling inside Tippecanoe county can very likely be identified to Carolina chickadee, or at least Poecile sp. Any purported Black-capped Chickadee records in my opinion would need to include both good photos showing diagnostic marks and a recording.
