Willow Tit Project
Get involved in our active conservation project as we work together
to protect the red-listed willow tit.
Populations of willow tit have dramatically declined in the UK, with a decrease of 83% between 1995 and 2017, and they are now classed as a red-listed species in the UK.
This decline is believed to be due to habitat loss, nest hole competition from other birds, such as blue tit, and nest predation from great-spotted woodpecker.
WWT Washington Wetland Centre are incredibly fortunate to have a small population of willow tit on the reserve, and continue to manage the woodlands and other habitats to encourage them to stay.
At least three pairs of willow tit breed here, and because of its threatened status and preference for ‘wet woodland habitat’, the species is a priority species in the centre’s reserve management plan and a prime candidate as a ‘wet woodland’ flagship.
We need you!
To allow us to find out more about these secretive birds, we’re asking for your help. Over the next year or two, we’re hoping to build a picture about the movement and activity of willow tit around our site. We hope that this will support our goal of managing our wetland and woodland habitat to best establish and maintain a safe environment for this rare species to live and breed.
We're asking you to be our eyes and ears around our centre and reserve. If you spot a willow tit while on site or in our neighbouring areas (Washington and Sunderland), please complete a form and report it to the team during your visit. Otherwise please let us know directly by emailing info.washington@wwt.org.uk or contacting us via social media @wwtwashington.
If you could give us some detail about your sightings, including a date, time and location, along with the number of willow tit seen and what they were doing (feeding, flying, resting, preening etc) this will help us with our research.
How to identify
Willow tit are similar in appearance to marsh tit, and so we thought it would be useful for you to better understand the visual and vocal differences between these two species, to help when identifying these birds while you’re out and about.
Check out the below image for some of the key visual identifiers.
Another way to tell them apart is by their voice. Willow tit alarm call 'chay chay chay' or sing 'tui tui tui’ whereas marsh tit are a lot more variable and higher pitched. Listen to their faster call and their song. It can also sound more drawn out, faster or like a coal tit.
Audio credits (all Xeno Canto): Willow tit call - Beatrix Saadi-Varchmin; willow tit song - Philippe J. Dubois; marsh tit call - Benjamin Allegrini; marsh tit song - Beatrix Saadi-Varchmin.
Bird ringing
Our team, together with Whitburn Ringing Group and the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) have completed the first phase of bird ringing as part of our willow tit project. From the hundreds of birds caught and ringed, there were three willow tit, all now wearing a BTO metal ring on one leg and 2 colour rings on the other leg. The colour rings are the ones to keep an eye out for as part of our project – red/white, red/yellow and red/blue are the colours of the three willow tit ringed on our site.
It's interesting to look at all the birds that were caught and ringed in the process – these ringed birds are added to the BTO register and can be tracked if ever caught again. It’s a great way for us to keep an eye on a bird’s movement around the country.
We will be arranging more ringing sessions in the future, many of which will be during normal opening hours and publicly accessible to visitors, allowing you to experience conservation research in action. Full details of these bird ringing sessions will be shared on our What’s On pages social media closer to the time.