Ball o' Bushtits

"Come join us--there's plenty of room!" Bushtits, Beaverton, Oregon, 8 December 2011 by Greg Gillson.

 

One of the familiar Pacific NW backyard birds, especially west of the Cascades, is the Bushtit. While they glean the foliage in little straggling twittering flocks, they all share pleasantly at the suet feeder. How many are there on this suet feeder? Over 20 (not counting the one on the fence)!

Friday Foto: Bushtit

Bushtit, Hagg Lake, Oregon, 11 March 2011 by Greg Gillson.

 

This is the brown-headed California race, common west of the Cascades in the Pacific NW.

The pale eye indicates a female.

See a previous post on Bushtits.

In the backyard... Bushtit

Bushtit, Jackson Bottom Wetlands, Hillsboro, Oregon on 26 March 2009 by Greg Gillson.

 

Outside of the breeding season, these tiny, long-tailed balls of gray fluff stay in family flocks and small groups of rarely more than 35 individuals. In the backyard, they search for spiders and small bugs among the leaves of ferns, bushes, trees, and even in crevices in the window sills or siding of the house. Here the constantly twittering birds seem to crawl in short jerky flight from one bush to another, a couple of birds at a time; rarely does the whole flock take flight at once.

In spring they search for bugs among willow catkins, getting covered with yellow pollen, as shown on the bird above. Some birds with excessively pollen-covered heads have been mistaken for Verdin, a similar yellow-headed bird found in the cactus deserts of the Southwestern United States.

Bushtits are residents from extrmeme SW British Columbia, southward from California to Texas. They also occur south in the mountains through Mexico to Guatemala.

In the Pacific NW they are scarce and local east of the Cascades in south-central Washington, more widespread, but still local east of the Cascades of Oregon along rivers and in juniper rimrock canyons and in towns. They are found in southern and southwestern Idaho, and southward. These birds have extended their range and become more common in many areas east of the Cascades through the Great Basin deserts in recent years.

West of the Cascades they are common residents in lower elevations throughout western Washington and Oregon, south through northern California, and from there south.

There are several races, each differing only slightly from one another. The bird in the photo above is typical of those west of the Cascades, quite brownish, especially the crown. Birds east of the Cascades and southward through the Great Basin are a much flatter pale gray, including the crown.

You can attract Bushtits to your yard with a suet feeder. On the small block of suet, a dozen or more birds may cover every inch as they feed!