SUN COMPASS AND LANDMARK ORIENTATION BY BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEES (PARUS-ATRICAPILLUS)

Black-capped chickadees (Parus atricapillus), nutcrackers, and jays us e a variety of visual cues to relocate and retrieve hidden food caches . Results with scrub jays (Aphelocoma coerulescens) show that sun comp ass orientation may play an important role in cache retrieval. In a se ries of experiments, black-capped chickadees were trained to find food along 1 side of an octagonal cage and then subjected to a photoperiod ic phase shift to test for the use of sun compass orientation. In some experimental conditions, search was influenced by sun compass informa tion, even when this produced search in conflict with local landmarks. In other conditions, however, there was no indication that birds used the sun compass for orientation. Sun compass orientation by chickadee s may depend on the nature and availability of familiar landmarks. Dir ectional information provided by the sun compass is probably integrate d with local landmark information, and may require local landmark info rmation, to produce oriented spatial search by chickadees.