This tiny bird is the only member of its family (Aegithalidae) in the Americas.  Smaller than a warbler, the bushtit’s closest relatives live in Eurasia.

Bushtits (Psaltriparus minimus) are western birds that tend to stay put, though some move downslope for the winter.  At this time of year they flock like chickadees, flitting, chattering and hanging upside down to glean insects and spiders from the trees.

When I saw them in California my first thought was “brown chickadees.”  This closer look shows why.

In February the flocks break up into pairs and the couples spend four+ weeks weaving a foot-long tubular nest like the one shown below.  With a hooded entrance at the top, it is far larger than one bird needs but is big enough to hold the whole family and their friends on cold nights.

Listen for bushtits calling as they follow each other from tree to tree. (recording of American Bushtit by Kristie Nelson, xeno-canto XC363349)

So tiny!  They are smaller than kinglets.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the images to see the originals. Audio from Xeno-Canto XC363349 by Kristie Nelson)

Female house sparrow?  Nope.  When you see her in real life, this bird is way too large to be a house sparrow.  This is a golden-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia atricapilla) photographed in November in California.

Golden-crowned sparrows breed from Alaska to British Columbia and spend the winter west of the Cascades and Sierra Nevadas from southern British Columbia to Baja, Mexico.  At the Snow Goose Festival my location finally matched their range.

Sometimes golden-crowned sparrows hang out with their close relatives, white-crowned sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys) shown below.  I used to think white-crowned sparrows were large but golden-crowned are larger.

Their golden crowns can be subtle at this time of year but the color intensifies as the breeding season approaches.  In spring the male’s head has a bright yellow patch surrounded by black as shown in the Crossley ID Guide below.

I saw these birds for the first time at Bidwell Park in Chico, California (“Life Birds”).  Even the boring ones were wearing faint golden crowns.

(golden-crowned photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the images to see the originals. White-crowned sparrow by Chuck Tague)

Here’s a California bird that lives year round in coastal scrub and chaparral.

About the size of a black-capped chickadee, the wrentit (Chamaea fasciata) usually skulks in dense thickets so he’s hard to see.  But this one came out for a drink and Gregory “Slobirdr” Smith captured his acrobatic stretch.

Male and female wrentits sing all year long.  If you hear this song you might find the bird.  (recorded by Michael Lester Xeno-canto #XC312612).

p.s.  Wrentits are uncommon to rare in California’s Central Valley.  You have to go up-slope to find them near Chico.

(photo by Gregory “Slobirdr” Smith via Flickr, Creative Commons license)