Marsh Tit

[julia-mag]

How common is the Marsh Tit ? I have to-day seen one in my garden for the very first time and had to look it up for identity. I live in the South West.

[mazie]

Here's a link julia....

http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/birdguide/name/m/marshtit/

[julia-mag]

Thanks mazie , It would appear they are wide-spread. Have book-marked that site for future reference.

[Chipchopper]

Was it feeding at a bird table or feeders ?.
I'v been on the lookout for them among the blue, coal and great tits that I get but so far no luck.

There seems little difference between the marsh tit and the willow tit but I guess they have no trouble.

[ladybirder]

Very very difficult to tell between the Willow and the Marsh Tit. Their song will determine it.

[Hypognosis]

You will need several seconds of a good binoculars view to tell marsh apart from willow tit. Whatever the books say about gloss versus matt black head, comments I've read all seem to agree that this is next to impossible to call, in the field. Obviously, if you had both species on your feeder at once, you'd be able to tell them apart and we'd all be green with envy (or is that just me?).

The pale wing bar positively IDs Willow Tit but I find the Marsh's will never sit still long enough, nor do they obligingly display that wing area towards me.

Their is a iphone app, for about £1.50 with birdsong for UK species. The Marsh/Willow songs differ and your sighting might not be accepted by county bird recorder without your description of the songs heard.

If you find a Willow Tit, the county recorder might also insist on an Ordnance Survey grid reference.

I can't be certain but I think Willow Tit is one of those species which is very fussy over its habitat and they're so rare because of farmland changes and housing development on scrubland.

[Hypognosis]

Incidentally, I've been wondering about what proportion of 'species decline' is down to "observer effect", by which I mean observers get better at identifying what they see, year on year, so there are fewer reports which are misidentifications.

I have to confine that to what you get by word of mouth from other birders as to what changes they've noted.

If you report your sightings on BTO Birdtrack, for example, their rule is that, if you are in any doubt over what you saw, then don't log the sighting.
This slightly contradicts their homepage, where they encourage you to use their site in place of a personal logbook, on paper, or in a spreadsheet. You'd naturally be more flexible with wholly private records of what you only half-saw.

(I'm just thinking out aloud here, comment not aimed at anyone).

[melv16]

Marsh/willow tit identification was discussed at my local bird study group. The only cast iron way to identify them confidently is by the song each species makes.
They helpfully had the 2 different songs to hand.

[julia-mag]

Unfortunately I never heard it sing, it was feeding on seed we put out and it was actually down with a couple of finches and when I saw the black head I thought it was a great tit until I realised it had the wrong colouring, so I immediately put the binoculars onto to it and studied it properly. Luckily it stayed on the garden about 10 feet away for 2/3 minutes until magpies disturbed it ! I do live on the outskirts of the town not far from fields and open spaces, but never seen one before and we have fed the birds for 53 years here.

[Hypognosis]

Does this page help? (Marsh/Willow comparison chart)

http://www.birdwatch.co.uk/categories/articleitem.asp?cate=23&topic=119&item=486

[julia-mag]

Thank you for the 'site', I had a look but it left me more bewildered than ever! All I can honestly say is that its black cap looked exactly like a great tit, so it was 'shiny' but I cannot confirm any more than that. I have not seen it since unfortunately, but that does not mean it has not visited does it ! I am not watching all the time, although I would like to..Lol.....