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The brisk little bird will not stay in camera view for long…

 

 

Crested tits are quite abundant breeding birds in the Estonian mainland (on average a hundred thousand pairs) and as wintering sedentary birds, but in the islands we  rarely meet them. In winter they are usually busy in flocks, more rarely together with other tits.

 

An adult crested tit is recognized by its black-and-white patterned head crest – no other tit has it. We see the black-white crest always held erect. The white cheeks are framed by a black eye streak, a black arched line at the cheek, a black spot under the little dark beak as well. Back plumage brown, chest lighter but also a brown hue. Length and weight slightly more than ten centimetres and ten grams respectively.

 

Outside forests we seldom see crested tits; we can look for them in pine  forests. A high-pitched twitter (also heard in the video) may belong to them. In autumn – that still lasts – they hide spiders and other titbits in bark crevices, collecting stores for winter. Otherwise they would have to survive winter only on seeds.

 

Crested tit