The Crested Tit (Lophophanes cristatus). I’ve actually never seen them ‘in real life’ myself, but many Instagram photographers have. This photogenic bird, about the size of the blue tit, has therefore been photographed a lot. One of the photographers, @rvisser_fotos, allowed me to use his photo as reference for one of my paintings.

Crested tits actually only seem to occur in Europe, not elsewhere. You don’t really hear that much. When I see the observations, they mainly live (in the Netherlands) on the eastern side of the Netherlands and I’m living in the western part. So, I have to go to the East more often! And especially to coniferous forests, because that’s where they seem to be most common, especially in the treetops.

They are resident birds and quite stable. This means that if you have spotted a few crested tits, there is a good chance that you could find them again later in the same spot. Only young birds roam in groups during the winter.

The Crested tit has a striking black and white head with a beautiful pointed triangular crest (hence the name) that can be completely raised when excited (danger, quarrel or during the mating season). You then can see that it is a kind of a layered crest, all layers of feather on top of each other. Both the male and female look the same, including the feather crest.

I read that woodpeckers like tit eggs very much and that they therefore have no problem eating such a tit nest (containing 4 to 11 eggs). An unexpected enemy!

Reference foto: @rvisser_fotos (instagram) / Ronald Visser (facebook)

Cotman watercolours tubes, Faber Castel Pastel pencils on Saunders Waterford 300gsm 310×230 Cotton Satiné High White paper

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