Species Profile
This trim bird has gray and white plumage, a prominent head crest, and black “shoe button” eyes. The species ranges through eastern North America into southern New York and New England. It has steadily extended its range northward, perhaps because of climatic warming, changes in forest habitat, and an increase in bird feeding by humans. In the early 1900s the tufted titmouse was absent from northern Pennsylvania. Today, it breeds statewide. At higher elevations, it is more likely to be found near wetlands, streams or human habitations.
Titmice eat insects (caterpillars, wasps, bees, sawfly larvae, beetles and many others, as well as eggs and pupae), spiders, snails, seeds, nuts and berries. Like the chickadee, the titmouse forages by hopping about in tree branches, and often hangs upside down while inspecting the underside of a limb. To open a nut or seed, the bird holds the object with its feet and pounds with its bill. Titmice cache many seeds; with sunflower seeds, the birds usually remove the shell and hide the kernel within 120 feet of the feeding station, under loose bark, in cracks or furrows in bark, on the ground, or wedged into the end of a broken branch or twig.
Winter flocks are often made up of parents and their young of the previous year. Titmice are early breeders. Males start giving their Peter Peter territorial song in February. In Pennsylvania, pairs begin building nests in late March and early April. Titmice are believed not to excavate their own nest cavities; instead, they use natural cavities or abandoned woodpecker holes. Breeding territories average 10 acres. The female lays an average of five or six eggs, which are white with dark speckles, and incubates them for 12 to 17 days. The young fledge about 18 days after hatching. Occasionally a yearling bird may stay on its natal territory and help its parents rear the next year’s brood.
