Bush-Tit WESTERN BIRDS 



GENUS PSALTRIPARUS : BUSH-TIT. 



Bush-Tit: Psaltriparus minimus minimus. 

 FAMILY— TITMICE. 



One of the most adorable of birds is the little Bush- 

 tit, which is found only on the western coast, ranging 

 from southern British Columbia and northern Washing- 

 ton to northern Lower California. In its northern range 

 it is a summer visitor, only, but farther south, in Cali- 

 fornia, it is a resident, often coming into the garden to 

 build its long nest, and in the winter time when they are 

 banded together in large flocks, making daily visits in 

 search of scale, and other small insects. 



They are only about four inches long and the tail is 

 about half of the entire length. The body is plump and 

 the bill short. In color they are the most modest of 

 birds, being a dull grayish-brown which is darker on the 

 head and lighter below, the general impression, however, 

 being of dull little bundles of feathers that are never 

 quiet. Their wings are short and the flight jerky. How- 

 ever, they have little need of taking long flights since 

 they frequent wooded places where they flit from tree to 

 tree, or bush to bush. 



The tiny midgets are gregarious and after the nesting 

 season go about in large families of twenty, or more, and 

 are the merriest band imaginable. As they forage they 

 keep up a continuous note, a sort of tsip, tsip, varied by 

 a bell-like tree-e, and a soft tut, tut, tut. This con- 

 tinuous calling always announces their presence in the 

 neighborhood, and I presume is kept up in order to 

 enable them to keep track of one another. 



Sometimes one of the midgets lags behind the roving 

 band and they pass on without him. When he wakes up 



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