LONG-TAILED TIT (Aegithalus caudatus) - Mésange à longue queue
Summary
A bird of lowland scrub and deciduous woodlands normally below 1000m. Sociable and normally encountered in flocks so the most frequently heard sounds seem like contact calls:
© Arlette Berlie
As the common name implies this species was for many years listed with the “true” titmice, the Paridae. Today it actually occupies a family Aegithalidae of which it is the sole representative in Europe. Weighing in at 7-8g this is a bird only slightly bigger than the Goldcrest and like that species it is constantly active looking for food. Coupled with that it is a very sociable species and usually found in flocks which constantly communicate to keep together, so you end up with a sometimes quite large flock of these small fluffy things that look like darts, fluttering through the trees looking for insects twittering and calling constantly. Studies have shown that members of these flocks are mostly related to each other, often adults with recent offspring (they can lay up to 12 eggs), these flocks will defend territories against other flocks, so the whole affair can get quite noisy despite the small size of the individuals involved. Another interesting factoid is that flocks will roost together at night - huddling up close on a branch to keep warm and conserve energy.
In Switzerland they are present all year round, usually below 1000m in scrub and deciduous woodland. They are widespread north of the alps but usually only found in the low valleys of the mountains.
As above, the most commonly heard sounds are a series of calls as flocks move about, these calls can become combined into a faster series of sounds that are referred to by some authors as "song", but I have not recorded this. There are two calls that are most common, one is high pitched "sweet, sweet" often given in pairs or triplets:
(That was a Mistle Thrush singing in the background)
Another sound commonly heard is a sort of soft churring noise - "prrt"
(And yes, that was a Green Woodpecker who dropped in for a quick yammer! and the loud “wink” was a Chaffinch nearby)
© Arlette Berlie
As you can tell from these the two calls can be mixed together along with other soft noises, and the whole lot can actually carry a long way, especially in winter when an active flock passes through and there may be little other noise.
Here is an active flock where you can hear it all going on:
Aegithalus caudatus caudatus © Arlette Berlie
The "normal" Long-tailed Tit (or Long-tailed Bush-tit as it is sometime called) in Switzerland is Aegithalos caudatus europaeus , the third name makes reference to the sub-species resident in central Europe. Typically this has a broad greyish-brown stripe above the eye as in the two photos above and on the left. Occasionally the A.c.europaeus sub-species lacks the stripe and has a head which is very pale, as in the photo above right. But note that even here there is a little grey area above and behind the eye.
However there is another sub-species, Aegithalus caudatus caudatus, which occurs in Fenno-Scandia and northern Europe east to the Ural mountains (Cramp et al). This sub-species (called the "nominate" sub-species - the first named and hence carries the same specific and sub-species name) has a pure white head. Jansen and Nap (2008) have studied the identification of this bird in Netherlands where they say it is recorded more or less annually, and both it and europaeus undergo occasional irruptive movements in the autumn. Such a movement occurred in 2010 with the caudatus sub-species having been recorded in considerable numbers across the northern plain of Switzerland with a few records in the alpine valleys.
Long-tailed Tit studies © Frank Jarvis
