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A tiny, long-tailed, fluffy gray ball of a bird. Distinctly drab brownish-gray with a stubby dark bill. Multiple populations differ slightly: eye color ranges from dark to pale, and some have black cheeks. Constantly in motion; active, twittering flocks move quickly through bushes and trees. Listen for their high-pitched, scratchy calls. Found in brushy woodlands and pine-oak forests in western North America, south to Guatemala.
One of the more interesting things I saw on my recent trip to Arizona was a group of Bushtits accompanying a single nest-building female. She fluttered to the ground and spent a fair amount of time ripping off bits of leaf from this small mullein before taking it away, presumably to line her nest.
Physicists have determined that our January woods exist in two fundamental quantum states: #Bushtit Negative. All very quiet. Okay to yawn, meander in circles. Somewhere in the distance a crow caws. Bushtit Positive. Tsip tsip tsip.... Bushtits one two three seven! twenty-two? Many? Chickadees and kinglets along for the ride because why not?!? Don't forget the yellowrump! Bushtit on a twig three feet away looking you in the eye. You can never have just one! #Birding#BirdsOf2024#Oregon
A pink-flowering cherry tree (maybe plum? one of those) in full bloom under gray skies and drizzly rain. This tree was packed with a foraging #OrangeCrownedWarbler flock pecking carefully at the centers of the blossoms, as well as a #Bushtit and two zippy first-of-year #RufousHummingbirds darting about. #Birding#Spring#Migration
Drippy day today. Hung out on the covered footbridge for a pleasant interlude and watched dozens of #VioletGreenSwallow aerobatically zooming the creek corridor. Close by was a nearly complete #Bushtit nest under construction amid brown clematis vines. Bushtit nests are kind of cryptic but stand out once you get the right search image for a bulbous gray sock shape dangling from low branches - always fun to find them! Will try to keep tabs on progress of this one. #Birding#Oregon
A dozen Bushtits glommed onto the suet feeder, with more waiting in the maple branches & holding a continual casual conversation of intermittent twitterings and chips. Then their idle dialog snaps into unanimous shrill high gear and all fly up. The alarm gets my hominid notice too; I hear this massed call when an accipiter flies past. Today, only a scrub-jay coming in. Less dangerous, sure... but still omnivorous, not picky, and outweighing an unwary #Bushtit 15 to 1. Careful! #Birding#ScrubJay
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