The peepingest marshmallow peeps. A bug of a bird. There’s a trend in evolution that the adaptable base of a family tree is drab brown things that lack extreme specializations. Merely being a minuscule flying dinosaur is a pretty extreme specialization, but within that, there are some birds that are more flexible than others. For all I know, a bushtit is so specialized they’ll go extinct when left-handed buttercups fall to invasive ultrageraniums. But colorwise, this feels very basal. Everybody knows tits (haha, heyo heyo) have strong black and white marks on their heads and showy songs, fierce attitude. So how is this timid tittering beige bug-bird a tit?
I looked it up. They are not tits at all! They’re in a mostly Eastern Hemisphere group that includes other bushtits and long-tailed tits, which are not even in the same branch of Passerida as the bold and familiar tits. Sheisty. American bushtits are the only members of the clade in North America, in all their beige glory.
I can’t emphasize enough how drab these birds are. What color is their head? Slightly reddish beige. No, slighter than that. It’s the Lacroix of reddishness. It’s essenced. How about the belly? Yellowish beige. No. Less yellowish than the reddish essence on the head. It’s all beige, man. With beady lil black eyes. If you don’t demand color in your birds, this is a cute look. They have a nice shape – a borb with a long tail, just about kinglet sized. Puny as hell. They fly like those practice footballs with the little rocket part sticking out the back, almost always in a small flock.
I don’t remember the first time I took note of them, but while working as a security guard way back in the elevatorgate era, I started noticing them flying from one short tree to another, usually in the winter and usually when it was less busy with traffic or people on foot. I have seen them in other seasons. Maybe they’re more obvious in winter because that’s when they flock the hardest?
They don’t even sing boldly. They squeak, like a chickadee that isn’t brave enough to get past chicka. Not a lot to say here. Cute little birds are cute, but unremarkable. This series calls for remark and now I remarked. Mark another one down. American Bushtit.
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In the UK a lot of tits do flock in winter, in mixed gangs with other tits and even finches. We regularly see great tits, long tailed tits, gold finches, green finches and chaffinches flocking. There haven’t been so many blue tits recently nor coal tits but we do see a few of them. I don’t think the other like having the chaffinches along, they always bully the others off the feeders making sure they get a good feed in before letting anyone else have a go. Oh and there are quite often sparrows in the mix too. I think they’ve stopped now, though it’s difficult to be sure as they’ll visit the garden for ten minutes several times over a few days, then we won’t see them for a while,
i wonder if our birds are prejudiced – i hardly ever see mixed flocks. just one time on vacation, saw surfbirds and ruddy turnstones.
It might just be that there are enough of one kind in an area to make a gang. Mine are having to fit themselves into a highly developed country with relatively low amounts of suitable habitat. My perception of the USA is that you just have more space that isn’t completely developed, with exceptions like the down town of the biggest cities and the residential areas immediately surrounding them, but I’m quite prepared to be told I’m wrong.
It’s hard to say regarding: development. There may be more random patches of larger size in some areas, mostly by merit of the country itself being ridiculously huge, but it’s still remarkable how much of the land is being actively exploited. What effect does this have on birds? idk. Books about birds here frequently mention flock mixing. It must happen; maybe I just miss it.