January – The Crested Tit

We all find winter hard-going.  It’s a time when keeping warm and finding good food challenges humans and wildlife alike.

Spare a thought then for the little crested tit.  It’s only fractionally bigger than a blue tit and weighs little more than a £2 coin.  Something of a Scottish speciality (although there are ‘close cousins’ on the continent), it is largely confined to old Caledonian forest or mature Scots Pine woods. Essentially this is a bird of the Scottish Highlands and the 900 pairs or so that live here face winter at the sharp end.

The crested tit features on the cover of the SOC digital version of The Birds of Scotland

Although the ‘crestie’ is a woodland specialist, usually feeding in the canopy of trees and amongst heather ground cover, winter brings out more ‘resourceful’ feeding habits.  They will, for example, visit bird tables and apparently are not averse to raiding the odd bin. Some observers have even seen them taking nibbles from red deer ‘gralloch’.   However, they do plan ahead and are known to store moth larvae in the autumn to eat in winter, and likewise in spring when pine seeds are plentiful they can cache these for harder times ahead. “How do they manage to feed on pine seeds?” you might ask given that the crossbill has a specialist beak for this purpose. Well, crossbills extract the seeds, whereas the crested tit gets into pine cones when they are ripe.

Scots Pine ©Lorne Gill/SNH

But it’s their undoubted good looks that catch the eye.  With their distinctive ‘crown’, crested tits are understandably one of Scotland’s favourite birds. The Scottish Ornithologists’ Club clearly think so as they chose this rare Highland speciality for their badge and emblem back in 1947.

The SOC logo

Desmond Nethersole-Thompson, the well-known ornithologist who specialised in Highland birds, succinctly described the crested tit thus: “a small grey bird with a curious little crest, white cheeks, and a black bib”.  The great historical reference for Scottish birds – Baxter & Rintoul – suggests that the first mention of the crested tit in Scotland occurred in the Synopsis of British Birds written by Walker way back in 1789, whilst Macgillivray, writing in 1837, observed that “This beautiful little bird is apparently confined with us to the extensive woods in the northern part of the middle division of Scotland, and even there is extremely rare”.

And here is a puzzle – the crestie is absent from the eastern Cairngorms but thrives in the west – and we do not know why!

I think we can agree, however,  with our forefathers that this little bird has enjoyed a long and affectionate place in the hearts of Scotland’s wildlife watchers.

Best locations to see them ?  Arguably Strathspey, particularly Rothiemurchus and Abernethy, as well as woodlands south of the Moray Firth such as Culbin Forest, but bear in mind that this little bird is one that is often easier to hear than to see.  Listen to the audio clip on the RSPB website before heading out to help identify this forest charmer.

Want to find out more ?

• Scottish Ornithologists’ Club – The Birds of Scotland pages 1296 to 1299.
• RSPB website at: http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/C/CrestedTit/index.aspx
• Three stunning crested tit videos can be found on the BBC website at:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Crested_Tit
• There is an excellent chapter on the life of the crested tit – Great Excavations – in The Great Wood of Caledon by Hugh Miles & Brian Jackman.