For the Birds: Bushtit - puffs of active fluff

Bushtit on winter seedpod
Photo by Maggie Bond

By Christine Southwick

One brave little bird flies across an open space between a shrub and nearby tree, and calls for the others to follow, which they do one or two at a time, accompanied by flock-wide encouragement.

You have just witnessed the typical movements of a foraging flock of Bushtits. 

These tiny gray birds with brownish foreheads have a tail almost as long as their body, and barely weigh more than a nickel.

They flit around the edges of western forests with open canopy, and in shrubby suburban areas. Their range has expanded as mature forests have become fragmented.

Bushtits travel in gregarious groups of about 40 birds, communicating all the time, searching twigs and leaves for spiders and other tiny insects. With their upside-down probing, they almost best the acrobatic chickadees, which sometimes tag along with the winter flock. 

Bushtit suetfeeder. Photo by Dow Lambert

It is a real treat to see your suet feeder covered in little puffs of fluff, chattering away, never quite still. If you see one or two with white irises, you have spotted the female(s).

Their nests are a marvel, looking like a foot-long wind-sock hanging vertically from a tree fork anywhere between 4-50 feet up. The outside of their nests are made out of spider webs, moss and lichen, with a fur, feather, and plant material lining. Both parents claim a loose territory and make the nest for 4-10 eggs, with two openings: one on the side near the top, and one at the bottom, a passageway to the nest chamber. Sometimes there may be a helper, which is usually a male. Bushtits can have up to two broods a year, but will abandon a nest if they are disturbed before eggs are laid.

Bushtit nest. 1915.
The Bird Book

An interesting fact is that an entire Bushtit family will all sleep in the nest until the young have fledged; after that they sleep on branches. During the winter, they will often huddle together for warmth.

Bushtits seem to have a regular feeding route, often arriving in specific bushes or feeders the same time in the summer; the schedule seems to shift in the winter, but they are still there.

So, when you hear the moving twittering of a flock of Bushtits, grab that cup of coffee, and stand where you can watch them as they cover a suet feeder, constantly moving about, seemingly in friendly agreement. We humans could learn sociability from the diminutive Bushtit.

Christine Southwick is on the Board of the Puget Sound Bird Observatory and is their Winter Urban Color-banding Project Manager. She is a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat Steward, having completed their forty hour class. We're happy that she is sharing her expertise with us about the birds in our backyards.