The long-tailed tit or long-tailed bushtit is a common bird in the bushtit family found throughout Eurasia. An insectivore, it inhabits deciduous and mixed woodlands in addition to scrub, heathland, farmland, parks and gardens. It is a very small, long-tailed bird, being predominantly black and white with varying amounts of pink and grey. Northern subspecies are paler and have completely white heads, lacking the large dark eyebrows of southern populations. It is a social bird, forming compact family flocks of six to seventeen birds outside of the breeding season, when the flocks break up. It has a strong preference to nest in scrub areas, where the nest is often built in thorny bushes less than 3 metres above the ground.
Region
Eurasia
Typical Environment
Widely distributed across temperate Europe and Asia, inhabiting deciduous and mixed woodlands, hedgerows, scrub, heathland, and urban parks and gardens. It favors dense, thorny shrubs and hedges for nesting and foraging. It is scarce in extensive closed conifer forests and treeless high mountains. Outside the breeding season, family groups range through suitable woodland edges and gardens in search of small arthropods.
Altitude Range
Sea level to 2000 m
Climate Zone
Temperate
Ease of Keeping
Beginner friendly: 1/5
Long-tailed tits weave elaborate domed nests from moss and spider silk, camouflaged with lichen and lined with thousands of feathers. They are highly social and often huddle together on cold nights to conserve heat. Northern subspecies often show strikingly white heads, while southern birds usually have a dark eye stripe. Cooperative breeding occurs, with failed breeders helping nearby relatives raise young.
Distribution map of long-tailed tits
Aegithalos caudatus caudatus with white head in Berlin
Long-tailed tit in Russia
"Males fighting for the possession of territory. The feathers have been torn from the crown of the defeated and dying rival" (H. E. Howard (1920), Territory in Bird Life, p. 145)
Long-tailed tits resting, mid-afternoon in energy saving anti-parallel paired formation in a willow
Temperament
social and active
Flight Pattern
short rapid wingbeats with a bouncing, undulating flight
Social Behavior
Outside breeding, they form cohesive family flocks that move together through hedges and woodland edges, maintaining contact with high-pitched calls. Nests are domed and elastic, built low in dense shrubs and lined heavily with feathers. Cooperative helpers may assist pairs, especially after nest failure, and groups roost communally in winter.
Migratory Pattern
Partial migrant
Song Description
Calls are thin, high-pitched tsee-tsee and trrp notes used to keep flocks together. The song is a series of light, twittering trills and sibilant phrases, often interwoven with contact calls.
