A European Crested Tit, Lophophanes cristatus, formerly Parus cristatus, perched on a branch with a seed in its beak.
Crested Tits range throughout Europe from Iberia to the Ural Mountains and from 66oN in Scandinavia to northern Greece and the Balkans.
Crested Tits are confined, in the UK, to the ancient Caledonian Pine Forests in Easter Ross, the Beauly to Glen Affric area, Strathspey and the Moray Firth coast, and to new pine plantations, which is enabling the species to flourish.
Crested Tits will take to next boxes but only if they can excavate them as they would an old Pine tree, and successul experiments have been done by erecting suitable nextboxes filled with sawdust or wood chippings.
Outwith the breeding season they can join mixed tit flocks and will come to bird tables. In addition, they stash food in early winter to recover and eat later in the season. A good place to see them, particularly out of the breeding season when they more readily come to feeders, is the Loch Garten RSPB reserve near Boat of Garten. Being geographically isolated from the main population on mainland Europe, the Scottish population are their own subspecies, Parus cristatus scoticus.
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