Birdwatching - 3019 🐦

🦉 The long-tailed tit or long-tailed bushtit (Aegithalos caudatus)

• Aegithalos (Greek): tit
• caudatus (lat.): tailed

These cute little cuties are very friendly and social. They scurry around the forest in small flocks, calling to each other. If one bird finds food, the whole company will join it in a minute. They eat everything: in winter they peck seeds out of cones, or look for small seeds of plants and trees, and in summer they hunt spiders and caterpillars, and deftly hang from branches upside down, like acrobats.

They have very interesting nests. They are dense balls of moss, cobwebs and lichens, with a side entrance, similar to a wool ball. The birds make them for about two weeks. Another interesting feature is that the pair is helped to feed the nestlings by so-called "family friends" who do not have their own children, or if the couple already has grown children, and they help feed their younger brothers and sisters.