I've never actually heard anyone use the name bushtit for this species before. Just from the title I didn't actually know what species you were referring to at first. I realise it removes ambiguity to refer to all Aegithalidae as bushtits, but I'm not really keen on the name. Just plain tits for me.
HBW/Birdlife still refers to all the Aegithalidae (except the American species) with just tit as well.
@LaughingDove Yeah I simply used bushtit to remove the aforementioned ambiguity. This is not a species I am familiar with or even knew existed until this trip (first saw them in Madrid) so changing the name up a bit felt fine to me. I imagine it's sort of like how certain Malagasy carnivores are traditionally called mongoose but that name isn't exactly correct anymore.
During our visit to Tierpark @TeaLovingDave refers to these as "Siberian Long-Tailed Tit"
Siberian Long-tailed Tit is presumably the name @TeaLovingDave is using for the nominate caudatus? They are quite different to the Long-tailed Tits in the UK which are rosaceus and part of the Western 'europaeus group' because the with the Western group having a lot more black on the head.
There's very extensive hybridisation along the edges of the ranges of the different subspecies groups of Long-tailed Tits and this one is showing some slightly darker markings on the head whereas if you were to go further East to Poland, particularly once you get to Eastern Poland the birds have really striking pure white heads.
That's the difficulty with the subspecies groups of Long-tailed Tits which can be morphological very different across the range but integrade significantly at the edges of subspecies ranges (hence why no one's splitting them). The British ones are strikingly different though.
@LaughingDove You are correct, I did get a poor photo of the Iberian bird for ID purposes and it did have a much dark head.
I think that is the name he used for the nominate but iirc HBW mentioned that the Siberian population (which I think this bird would be apart of) used to be considered a separate subspecies before being lumped with the rest of the Northern 'caudatus' (bush)tits.
I have a feeling that I actually referred to the Long-tailed Tits we saw in Berlin as "Scandinavian" but it's really a case of six-and-two-threes as the subspecies is found in Siberia too.
@TeaLovingDave I have "Siberian" written in my notes but no matter, as you said it doesn't make a difference anyhow
@vogelcommando thank you, they are indeed very nice birds and as I mentioned before they were a lifer for me this year (having gotten to see two varieties of them). Hope to see more next time I head over there.
