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Willow Tits in Surrey (1 Viewer)

F

Factor

Neil Randon
I've been on the search for Willow Tit in Surrey, in the belief there might be some somewhere. I've had mixed reports. On the Surrey Birders website I'm signed up to one or two people appear to have found them this year, but having spoken to some experienced birders recently they questioned whether there are any.

Can anyone help?
 
In Feb 2009 I asked Hugh Evans if there had been any Willow Tit reports from the first year of Atlas reporting as I've not seen it in Surrey either. He said there had been the following reports :

Marsh Tit : 52 summer and 116 winter reports
Willow Tit : 5 summer and 2 winter reports

Add in the possible misidentification factor and it looks pretty bleak. I doubt there are any regular sites in Surrey, it's become a northern/midlands speciality now. I just hope they can at least hang on there.
 
Factor said:
I've been on the search for Willow Tit in Surrey, in the belief there might be some somewhere. I've had mixed reports. On the Surrey Birders website I'm signed up to one or two people appear to have found them this year, but having spoken to some experienced birders recently they questioned whether there are any.

Can anyone help?
Click to expand...

Willow Tit is now a full description species in the County. We had notes supplied on two birds in a Forest Green garden (coming to a feeder) during the cold weather in January. The notes didn't quite pass the grade, but they may have been Willows.

Although there is the odd scattered record, there have been none from the last 'stronghold', Tugley/Oaken Wood, for almost ten years now. There are I believe one or two pairs in Sussex and several (?) pairs in Berks, but as Clive says, there don't appear to be any left breeding in the County.

I lived in Cranleigh in the late 1980's, and I couldn't go out locally without bumping into one or two. The last one's I saw in Surrey were in 1994 at Frensham Little Pond (twitched during a Surrey year list!)

Regards
Dave
 
Clive Watson said:
In Feb 2009 I asked Hugh Evans if there had been any Willow Tit reports from the first year of Atlas reporting as I've not seen it in Surrey either. He said there had been the following reports :

Marsh Tit : 52 summer and 116 winter reports
Willow Tit : 5 summer and 2 winter reports

Add in the possible misidentification factor and it looks pretty bleak.
Click to expand...

This does unfortunately illustrate the problem with the atlas; the BTO has invited all records for all observers with only a half ar$ed attempt to check/validate the date. There will be so much rubbish in this atlas, it will make some species such as Willow Tit and Tree Pipit completely unreliable. Shame, but they've dropped a proverbial on this one.
 
Dave Harris said:
I lived in Cranleigh in the late 1980's, and I couldn't go out locally without bumping into one or two. The last one's I saw in Surrey were in 1994 at Frensham Little Pond (twitched during a Surrey year list!)
Click to expand...

I've been in Surrey since late 1991 and I've never tried very hard to see them in the county, having seen quite a few during my time at Sheffield University (mainly at Fairburn Ings and the area which is now Old Moor reserve). I wish I'd made more effort now!
 
Thanks to everyone who has responded. I think I'll focus on a few other birds I'm missing from my list - notably Turtle Dove.
 
Many will know of the debate as to whether or not Willow Tit survives in Surrey. There have been consistent reports of this species in Forest Green with birds visiting a bird feeder. I have been to this location previously and seen only Marsh Tit but today following a three hour tetrad survey saw one individual on the said bird feeder which was confirmed as the bird called before alighting. Identification of this species is fraught with many pitfalls and the call is possibly one of the best ways to confirm.

In total I saw a minimum of 5 Marsh Tit at the same location.

A happy man!
 
I believe that Willow Tits are now extinct in Surrey and have been for about fifteen years. Anyone who reports one is either extremely lucky or somewhat dodgy. The places where I used to see them, or where they used to occur, seem the same now as they were some years ago. I don't think that the problem was with the habitat. What I have noticed with Willow Tit is that you only seem to get them where there are either no, or very few, Blue, Great or Marsh Tits. The Willows cannot cope with the competition. In Sussex I used to watch Willow Tits in West Dean Woods, and in 2009 watched a pair of Marsh Tits rob a pair of Willow Tits of their excavation. Despite recent claims, I believe that they are now extinct there too. The clue to the Willow Tits decline is in its Latin name borealis. It is a boreal bird and it is retreating north because of all the things that global warming throws at it. What staggers me about the declines of some of our formerly common birds is how quickly, how suddenly they decline and are then gone. One problem with Willow Tit (unlike in Europe), is they can be hard to separate from Marsh Tit, and false reports make it difficult to follow what is really happening.
 
gerrywestdean said:
...In Sussex I used to watch Willow Tits in West Dean Woods, and in 2009 watched a pair of Marsh Tits rob a pair of Willow Tits of their excavation. Despite recent claims, I believe that they are now extinct there too...
Click to expand...

Not unless Marsh Tits have learnt to sing like Willow Tits they ain't!
 
gerrywestdean said:
I believe that Willow Tits are now extinct in Surrey and have been for about fifteen years. Anyone who reports one is either extremely lucky or somewhat dodgy. The places where I used to see them, or where they used to occur, seem the same now as they were some years ago. I don't think that the problem was with the habitat. What I have noticed with Willow Tit is that you only seem to get them where there are either no, or very few, Blue, Great or Marsh Tits. The Willows cannot cope with the competition. In Sussex I used to watch Willow Tits in West Dean Woods, and in 2009 watched a pair of Marsh Tits rob a pair of Willow Tits of their excavation. Despite recent claims, I believe that they are now extinct there too. The clue to the Willow Tits decline is in its Latin name borealis. It is a boreal bird and it is retreating north because of all the things that global warming throws at it. What staggers me about the declines of some of our formerly common birds is how quickly, how suddenly they decline and are then gone. One problem with Willow Tit (unlike in Europe), is they can be hard to separate from Marsh Tit, and false reports make it difficult to follow what is really happening.
Click to expand...

Gerry,

Mate - 'somewhat dodgy' is a rather odd remark, given that you weren't there and perhaps best kept off this forum! This is not a false report. This species has been reported from this location for some time and the bird yesterday was a Willow Tit - the call, if nothing else, was unmistakeable and I am still young enough to still have my hearing. This species is found in Passfield in Hampshire and locally towards Odiham and there is no reason why this species does not hang on in pockets in areas not watched by birders. Watch this space.

Last I read the latin name of the British ssp was Poecile montanus kleinschmidti . Borealis is the ssp in Northern Europe and not the one found in Britain. Granted this ssp is a Boreal Bird and one I have experience of in the northern forests.

Rich
 
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Rich,
Sorry you should think yourself as dodgy rather than extremely lucky. I did not mean to critisice your ID skills; I doubt I will get an invite to see your Mesange boreale now. My hearing is good and I can still hear coneheads stridulating (a lot higher pitched than grasshopper warbler).
Best wishes,
Gerry.
 
gerrywestdean said:
Rich,
Sorry you should think yourself as dodgy rather than extremely lucky. I did not mean to critisice your ID skills; I doubt I will get an invite to see your Mesange boreale now. My hearing is good and I can still hear coneheads stridulating (a lot higher pitched than grasshopper warbler).
Best wishes,
Gerry.
Click to expand...

Gerry.

Invites to Weidenmeise always open.

Which species of Conehead? Trust me I was lucky!

Rich
 
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Willow Tits are still relatively numerous in North Hampshire, with perhaps as many as ten pairs in one large area of forestry. This borders with Berkshire, where perhaps two pairs may still survive in the county. Elsewhere in the south, this species is in stark decline, with no recent reliable records from London, Kent, Essex, Herts, Bucks and Beds. Sussex still has up to 5 pairs and Oxfordshire maybe 3 but as others have already commented, the stronghold is in the North Midlands - in Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Greater Manchester and Yorkshire.

Marsh Tit is also in decline as well now after initially enjoying a population boom and spread.
 
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