Overview
Bushtit: Tiny, acrobatic bird with gray-brown upperparts and paler underparts. Eyes are dark brown, bill is tiny, and tail is long. Pacific coast race has brown crown. Rocky Mountain race has gray cap and brown ear patch. South New Mexico/Texas race has black mask, ear patch. Weak fluttering flight.
Range and Habitat
Bushtit: Resident from extreme southwestern British Columbia, southern Idaho, southwestern Wyoming, and the Oklahoma panhandle southward. The preferred habitats include coastal forests among second-growth alder thickets and edges of coniferous forests composed of maple, dogwood, and birch.
Topo Map:
Perching-like Body
Listen to Call
Voice Text
"tsip", "pit"
Interesting Facts
Bushtits travels in flocks of up to 60 birds until breeding season when they break off into pairs.
The nest is an impressive, woven, hanging basket with a hole high up on the side of the nest and a passageway to the nest chamber at the bottom. It can be up to a foot long, and is generally built of spider webs, moss, lichen, and other plant material.
Both the male and female will incubate the eggs, sometimes even at the same time.
This bird often has helpers at the nest, birds other than the parental pair that feed nestlings. All family members sleep together in the complex nest during breeding, but they leave it after the young fledge, and sleep on branches.
Bird Term Glossary
Author
Gary Owen Dick
Artist
Imran Kahn
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