Just so we’re all on the same page, a chickadee is a bird. A rather common type of small bird found across the northern hemisphere ans in Africa. In some parts of the world, this type of bird is called a tit, or a titmouse. Fortunately, in Canada they go by the name chickadee. (I say fortunately because when I was a kid I had a subscription to to “Chickadee Magazine”.)
Recently it’s been discovered that the chickadee has a rather unique talent to grow more brain when it’s needed. In the autumn, they begin hiding seeds and nuts to eat during the winter. They do not rely on a single storehouse, but rather, scatter their collection across hundreds of secret nooks. As they are doing this one part of their brain, the hippocampus, grows by about thirty percent. This sort of thing has never been seen in any other vertebrate species.
The hippocampus is the part of the brain responsible for spatial memory, so the reason for the seasonal growth is to help with the process of remembering all those hiding spots throughout winter. Come spring, when food becomes plentiful again, the hippocampus shrinks back to it’s usual size.
All in all, now is not the best time to challenge a chickadee to a game of Simon.
