The willow tit still going for a song

Things might not be so bleak for our fastest vanishing songbird – it turns out numbers lurking in swampy woodlands are higher than first feared.

Conservationists say recent survey work reveals that the population of willow tits is now above the threshold for them to continue being monitored by the Rare Breeding Birds Panel.

The timid willow tit is so unobtrusive that it was only “discovered” – preserved in the vaults of the British Museum – little more than a century ago.

Growing up, most of my bird books barely mentioned willow tits as they were always overshadowed on the page by their near identical relative, the marsh tit. Telling these two species apart in the field is an identification challenge even for the experts.

Willow tits have whiter cheeks and more bullish necks than marsh tits, while also showing a distinctive wing panel.

The real clincher is that marsh tits have a small white spot at the base of their bills. Both birds also have their own distinctive songs and calls.

Delving into the archives, the story of the willow tit has been one of decline since the British Trust for Ornithology’s first Atlas of Breeding Birds in 1976 estimated a population of between 50,000-100,000 pairs.

Within 25 years, the State of the Nation’s Birds was reporting the UK population to be at 25,000.

By 2010, the willow tit had been put on the Red List of Threatened Species and its plight began being monitored by the Rare Breeding Birds Panel. The estimated number that year was a mere 1,500 pairs.

Come forward a decade and the Rare Breeding Birds Panel has announced recent surveys reveal a provisional population of 5,700 pairs, well above its own 2,000 pairs monitoring threshold.

Conservation efforts by wildlife organisations, particularly in northern England to enhance habitat requirements in old industrial areas, are paying dividends.

Reasons for the willow tit’s long-term decline remain hazy but competition for resources from combative great tits and predation by growing numbers of great spotted woodpeckers are possible factors in their struggle.