Fareed Mohmed ← The Indian List

Bird Photography · The Indian List

Long-tailed Tits

1 of 6 species photographed

Six species, all tiny, round-bodied birds carrying a tail longer than the rest of the body — a proportion that makes the silhouette alone enough to place a bird in this family before anything else is visible. They travel in tight, constantly-chattering flocks that move through the mid-storey and canopy together, rarely sitting still for long, which makes a fast shutter and some patience more useful here than a good hide.

Head pattern carries most of the identification weight within the family, much as it does in the parrotbills — a chestnut cap, a black mask, and how much black shows on the throat all vary species to species on birds that are otherwise similarly built and similarly restless.

6Species in India
1Photographed
Himalayan forest, mid-storey to canopyWhere they live
Longer than the bodyThe tail that names them
Tight, chattering flocksHow they travel

The species

Black-throated Tit

Aegithalos concinnus2 frames
Status
Resident
Range
The Himalaya from Himachal Pradesh east through Arunachal Pradesh
Habitat
Forest edge and open woodland, mid to high elevation
IUCN
Least Concern

A tiny, round bird with a chestnut crown, a black mask through the eye, a white cheek patch, a black throat patch, and warm buff-rufous underparts, with a long black-and-white tail trailing well past the body. Almost always found in tight, moving flocks rather than alone, working twigs and buds at speed — the still, perched pose in this frame is a rare pause rather than the bird's usual behaviour.

FM0271
Mar 2024Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary, West Kameng, Arunachal PradeshPerched among budding twigs, looking up past the branch.

Photographs by Fareed Mohmed