Bushtit (Psaltriparus minimus) Aegithalidae Family

Bushtits are busily moving about the landscape in small foraging flocks. It is common to see around 20 in a group, and I have counted as many as 40 together. They are loosely strung along a small area looking for insects on the foliage and limbs of trees and shrubs. They have joyful spirits and acrobatically bounce around often clinging upside down from leaves and branches. Their ability to zip every which way finding tiny insects and spiders is dizzying and makes getting a photo challenging.

Peterson aptly sums up this bird’s movement as “travels in straggling talkative flocks.” They are in constant contact with each other through quick call notes that Peterson describes as “insistent light tsits, pits, and clenks.” This chattiness makes them fairly easy to locate. In addition, you’ll often find them in mixed flocks in the fall and winter with other small, songbirds like chickadees and kinglets. So be on the lookout and keep an ear out for them too.

They are small birds that The Cornell Lab’s All About Birds lists as 2.8 - 3.1 inches. Interestingly, Peterson’s Field Guide to Birds of Western North America has the bird at 4.5 inches. That’s a fairly sizable difference, so I’m assuming that perhaps different ways to measure them are being employed.

They are plain brown and gray birds with a longish tails. The female is differentiated from the male by having a pale, yellowish eye. The male has a dark eye.

Nest Building

Bushtits begin making their nest by anchoring them to some branches at the top. At the arboretum, the nests are mostly constructed of mosses and lichens that are woven together with the help of silks from spider webs and silks of spider and insect cocoons. The nest slowly forms and stretches downward into a sturdy socklike structure. They form an entrance hole at the top and make a cozy nest of downy plant materials and feathers at the bottom to lay their eggs.

Nests

Bushtits build hanging sock-like nests that hang from branches of trees and shrubs. For the first time this year (2023), I found a nest hanging from old teasel flower stalks (second photo).

Foraging

Bushtits eat mostly small insects and spiders. They love aphids! I will also see them eat poison oak berries.

Quick Reference:

Height: 4.5”
Field Marks: Plain brown and gray. Females have yellow eyes.
Habitat: Oak scrub, chaparral, mixed woods, riparian woodland, pinyon-juniper, parks, residential areas.

Journal Location:
Mt. Pisgah Arboretum
Eugene, OR

References

Ehrlich, Paul R., et al. The Birder’s Handbook: A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds: Including All Species That Regularly Breed North of Mexico. Simon & Schuster, 1988.

Peterson, Roger Tory, et al. Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Western North America. 4th ed, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.