Bushtits

I’m currently in Colorado visiting my folks, brother and young niece for the holidays. Christmas is a big deal for the Shaws and I really look forward to this time of year. In addition to the chance to see my family, I also get a break from the dark Alaska winter, see some bright sunshine, and of course, some different species of birds. As usual, I lugged my camera equipment here and have enjoyed a few hours of shooting the local feeder birds. Today I’ll feature Bushtits.

Bushtits are incredibly small songbirds, similar in size to Kinglets. They are the only North American representative of the predominantly old-world family of long-tailed tits, the Aegithalidae. Bushtits are social moving about in flocks during most of the year. During late summer, autumn and winter, those flocks can get quite large, and as many as 100 individuals have been recorded in single flocks. Bushtits have an interesting range which includes much of the western United States but stretches down into the highlands of Mexico and Guatemala. They are largely non-migratory, but some populations do have seasonal altitudinal movements where they migrate from higher elevation breeding grounds to the less harsh environments lower down. Though they have diverse habitats in their large breeding range, most are found in shrubby semi-arid areas. In the west, Pinon-Juniper and oak woodlands are particularly attractive to Bushtits.

Bushtits are easy to identify. They are tiny, gray birds, often moving in flocks and calling to each other with soft buzzy call-notes. There are 9 recognized sub-species but all are fairly similar. The birds of the far southern portion of their range commonly have black-ear coverts, (more common in males), instead of the usual brown, which gives those individuals a masked appearance. Elsewhere, only subtle differences in plumage separate the races. Males and females are very similar with one major difference: the eyes of females have yellow irises, while males are uniformly dark. Check out the eyes in the birds shown here, and you’ll see that determining their sex in the field is straight forward. This color change happens quickly. Females’ eye color begins to change about two weeks after hatching and they are easily separable from males by the time they have been out of the nest for a month.

Photographing them can be tricky. They are jittery, high-energy critters, and finding one sitting still long enough to snap a sharp image is challenging. In the wild, flocks of Bushtits move quickly through the vegetation and would be really tricky to shoot. Fortunately they do occasionally visit backyard feeders where they are much easier to photograph. They won’t take seed, but are happy to eat a few bites of suet. These images are all made from the deck of my parents home in the foothills of CO, as the flock was visiting the suet feeder positioned just to my left. The birds never stayed around for more than a few minutes, so it was important to move quickly. Here the birds were either side-lit by the bright afternoon sun or shaded in very gray light. So, in a few of these images, I opted to add a bit of artificial light, an off-camera slaved flash gelled with a half-cut of CTO, positioned to camera left, about the same height as the birds.

A happy Christmas eve to all of you, may your day be filled with light.

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