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Long-tailed Tit

Long-tailed Tit

Aegithalos caudatus

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The Long-tailed Tit is a tiny, round-bodied songbird of Europe and Asia, instantly recognised by its extremely long tail. Northern birds are strikingly white-headed, while southern populations show dark stripes on the head. Outside the breeding season it roams in tight, chattering family flocks through woodland edges and hedges. It is mostly resident, although northern birds make irregular movements and irruptions in some years.

Did you know?

  • It stitches its sac-like nest together with spider silk and tiny moss “hooks”, a natural Velcro, and lines it with over a thousand feathers.
  • Despite its name, it is not a true tit but belongs to its own family, Aegithalidae.

Voice

Call

About the species

Identification

Its extremely long tail relative to the tiny body is the clearest feature and separates it from all true tits. The northern subspecies is white-headed, with a back patterned in black and brownish-pink and pale underparts. It moves restlessly and hangs nimbly from twigs. Age and sex cannot be told from plumage in autumn, as both young and adults have completed a full moult.

Family

Aegithalidae

Size

Tiny (goldcrest)

Colours

white, black, brown, grey

About the habitat

Deciduous and mixed woodland with a well-developed shrub layer, especially young broadleaved stands along water, as well as scrub, hedgerows, riverine thickets, parks and gardens.

Diet

Mainly small insects, spiders and other arthropods and their eggs and larvae, especially moth caterpillars; a little seed in autumn and winter, and it readily visits feeders for fat.

Behaviour

Highly social and vocal; family flocks forage acrobatically through trees and shrubs, often hanging upside down, and keep contact with thin, high calls and rattles. The flocks break up for breeding. An expert nest-builder, it weaves a flexible, domed nest of moss and lichen bound with spider silk and lined with feathers.

Sources

Photo: nathanmes, CC BY 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aegithalos caudatus aremoricus, La Guérinière, France 1.jpg

Sound: Sonothèque ADVL, XC707392, CC0 1.0 https://xeno-canto.org/707392

Text: Wikipedia (English) + FinBIF species descriptions + Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0; FinBIF: CC BY 4.0; Wikipedia: CC BY-SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-tailed_tit

See also