What bird says fee-bee?

A fee-bee can come from two birds. If it is a clear whistle, two notes with the second one lower, it is a Black-capped Chickadee, the same song many people write as hey sweetie, and you can hear it from woods and yards even in winter. If it is harsh, raspy and repeated insistently, with the first syllable punched hard, it is an Eastern Phoebe, a gray-brown flycatcher that says its own name from bridges, barns and porches. In Missouri, for example, phoebes are around from March to October.

Listen: the whistled fee-bee is a chickadee

Audubon's field guide writes the chickadee's song as a clear, whistled fee-bee, with the second note lower and often doubled. Mass Audubon hears the same two notes as swee-tie, and says that close up you can catch a third note in front of them: here, swee-tie. Birding writer Laura Erickson goes one step further and calls it the Hey, sweetie! song. She chose that phrase on purpose, because the Eastern Phoebe's raspy song is also written fee bee, and the shared spelling confuses a lot of people.

Whatever words you use, the shape is the same. Erickson notes that researchers describe the song as a simple fee bee, the first note higher than the second, with a very short break in the middle of the second note. At close range that break turns the song into fee bee-bee. The tone is the important part: this is a clear whistle with no rasp in it.

Most of the singing is done by males, though females sing too, and you can hear it in the dead of winter. Erickson hears her neighborhood chickadees singing on winter mornings at the feeders, and points out that higher-ranking males sing more, and birds visiting good feeding stations sing more often than birds that have to work harder for breakfast. The song is separate from the chickadee's name-giving call, a rapid chickadee-dee-dee-dee that Mass Audubon says you hear in all seasons.

Black-capped Chickadees are mostly permanent residents of mixed and deciduous woods, willow thickets, groves and shade trees, and Audubon says they are most common in open woods and forest edges, especially with birch or alder. They live happily in suburbs where they can find nest sites. In Massachusetts, where it is the state bird, Mass Audubon calls it one of the most common and widespread birds in the state.

The raspy fee-bee is an Eastern Phoebe

This is the bird people mean when they search for the bird that says phoebe. The Missouri Department of Conservation describes its voice as a harsh, raspy, insistent FEE-bee! or FEE-b'dee!, with the first syllable accented, slightly longer and higher, often repeated many times. The name comes straight from the song: long ago, people heard FEE-bee and decided the bird was calling the name of Phoebe, the goddess of Greek mythology.

Phoebes often live close to people. They build mud-and-moss nests stuck to buildings and bridges, just under a roof or other overhang, and they hang around porches, barns, cliffs and cave mouths, watching from a perch and flitting out to snatch flying insects before returning to the same spot. The Missouri guide notes that many people know the bird because it nests on the side of a house and keeps crying FEE-bee! FEE-bee! right outside. It also bobs its tail over and over, which is the giveaway if you can see it.

Timing helps too. In Missouri the phoebe arrives in March, very early for a flycatcher, and most leave in October, wintering farther south and into Mexico, with a few staying through mild winters in the far south of the state.

How to tell which one you heard

• Tone: a clear whistle is the chickadee. A harsh, scratchy voice is the phoebe.
• Stress: the phoebe hits the first syllable hard, FEE-bee. The chickadee's second note is simply lower, and often doubled.
• Season: away from the South, a whistled fee-bee on a January morning is almost surely a chickadee, because most phoebes winter farther south.
• Setting: a bird repeating its song from under a bridge, a barn eave or your porch roof, darting out after insects, is a phoebe. A small flock working the treetops or the feeder is chickadees.
• A southern caveat: where Black-capped and Carolina Chickadees overlap, Audubon warns that song may not settle which chickadee you heard, because each species can learn the other's song.

If you are still torn, let Warble listen to the next round and name the singer from the sound alone.

Questions people ask

Warble is a game, not a field guide. Facts about birds on this page come from the sources above.