The Employer

Bird of the Day Series, Social Media Content

Photo: Chen Chengguang

The Black-Throated Bushtit is a tiny, busy little bird found in the foothills of the Himalayas, northern India, and Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Vietnam and Taiwan. They’re 4” long and are social birds that travel in flocks of at least 40, often with other species. They move through foliage, picking insects off leaves and twigs, talking to each other with a ‘tsip’. They are very nimble, and hunt acrobatically or while hanging upside down.  

The coolest thing about this bird is its nest. The male and female, who mate for life, work together to build a remarkable hanging nest. It hangs a foot below its anchor point and has a hole in the side, near the top, that leads down into the nest bowl. The adults make a sac using spider webs and plant material, stretching it downward by sitting in it while it’s under construction. They add insulating material such as feathers, fur, and downy plant matter and camouflage the outside with bits taken from nearby plants, including the tree the nest is built in. One of these nests can take a month to complete. 

The other unusual thing about Bushtits is that they employ helpers. The female lays as many as 10 eggs, so they have other adults move in. What’s more rare is that those helpers are usually male. And everyone piles in, so you could find as many as 15 birds in one nest.   

They prefer to live in open woods or scrubby areas, particularly pine-oak woodlands, nesting at anywhere from 3 to 100 feet. They’re not afraid of humans, so they can be found in suburban parks, although they’re hard to see. They usually eat bugs, but they will eat seeds, sometimes olives; their favourite foods are spiders and raspberries. Humans have little interest in them, so they are not endangered. Their only threat is loss of habitat.