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    Willow Tit Habitat Guide

    Uploaded by

    Jovica Sjeničić
    The Willow Tit has experienced severe population declines and range contractions, and is now considered the UK's most threatened resident bird. Its core range is now limited to parts of Wales, England, and Scotland. Key threats include habitat loss, fragmentation, and changes that allow increased competition and predation. Willow Tits rely on damp woodlands and scrub habitats with dense shrub layers, wet features, standing deadwood for nesting, and connectivity between habitat patches. Conservation efforts should focus on maintaining early successional habitat, enhancing wet features, improving nesting opportunities through natural deadwood and artificial logs, and managing vegetation structure and composition.

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    Willow Tit Habitat Guide

    Uploaded by

    Jovica Sjeničić
    48 views4 pages
    The Willow Tit has experienced severe population declines and range contractions, and is now considered the UK's most threatened resident bird. Its core range is now limited to parts of Wales, England, and Scotland. Key threats include habitat loss, fragmentation, and changes that allow increased competition and predation. Willow Tits rely on damp woodlands and scrub habitats with dense shrub layers, wet features, standing deadwood for nesting, and connectivity between habitat patches. Conservation efforts should focus on maintaining early successional habitat, enhancing wet features, improving nesting opportunities through natural deadwood and artificial logs, and managing vegetation structure and composition.

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    Willow-Tit-Habitat-Guide

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    The Willow Tit has experienced severe population declines and range contractions, and is now considered the UK's most threatened resident bird. Its core range is now limited to parts of Wales, England, and Scotland. Key threats include habitat loss, fragmentation, and changes that allow increased competition and predation. Willow Tits rely on damp woodlands and scrub habitats with dense shrub layers, wet features, standing deadwood for nesting, and connectivity between habitat patches. Conservation efforts should focus on maintaining early successional habitat, enhancing wet features, improving nesting opportunities through natural deadwood and artificial logs, and managing vegetation structure and composition.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    48 views4 pages

    Willow Tit Habitat Guide

    Uploaded by

    Jovica Sjeničić
    The Willow Tit has experienced severe population declines and range contractions, and is now considered the UK's most threatened resident bird. Its core range is now limited to parts of Wales, England, and Scotland. Key threats include habitat loss, fragmentation, and changes that allow increased competition and predation. Willow Tits rely on damp woodlands and scrub habitats with dense shrub layers, wet features, standing deadwood for nesting, and connectivity between habitat patches. Conservation efforts should focus on maintaining early successional habitat, enhancing wet features, improving nesting opportunities through natural deadwood and artificial logs, and managing vegetation structure and composition.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
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    Willow Tit Habitat Guide

    Distribution and status  Fragmentation of habitat


     Loss of habitat to natural succession
    Following severe population declines and
    contractions in breeding range, the Willow Tit  Loss of habitat to development
    has been on the Birds of Conservation Concern  Increased predation from species e.g.
    Red List since 2002. Greater Spotted Woodpecker
    The core range is now limited to mid-Wales, the  Increased competition with other
    Midlands, Northern England and South-West species e.g. Great Tit, Blue Tit
    Scotland. Willow Tits are now considered locally
    extinct in South-East England and declining and In terms of habitat management for Willow Tits,
    scarce in the South-West. aims should look to slow down or reverse
    maturation of young woodlands, maintaining a
    low canopy with a dense shrub layer;
    Key habitat features
    maintaining or increasing soil moisture,
    Willow Tits will occupy habitats such as wet
    particularly around nest sites to encourage
    woodlands or damp woodland margins, scrubby
    deadwood availability; exclusion or low-
    wetland margins, post-industrial sites with
    intensity grazing from livestock or wild
    scrub and a high water table, and occasionally
    browsing animals (such as deer); ensuring good
    mixed damp scrub along conifer and young
    connectivity between patches of habitat.
    plantations.
    They rely on stands of rotting deadwood to
    excavate nest holes. Pairs will use a new nest
    hole each year, but they can use the same stand
    of deadwood multiple times. Breeding pairs will
    establish territories from January, and
    excavation takes place between April-May.
    Birds will spend most of their time foraging in a
    dense shrub layer. They feed mainly on insects
    during the breeding season, and wet features
    within the habitat (such as springs, ponds, or a
    high water table) will increase food abundance.
    Populations are more stable where suitable
    patches of habitat are connected through
    scrubby corridors. Mature hedgerows and
    scrub-lined river corridors and disused or active
    railway lines can all provide connectivity.

    Management issues associated with


    decline
    The Willow Tit is the UK’s most threatened
    resident bird. The main drivers of decline are not
    fully understood, but the following factors are Willow Tit
    widely considered to have contributed:
    Managing habitat structure and dams, can be installed to slow drainage away
    composition from the site but not block the flow completely.
    Breeding Willow Tit pairs require at least 2 If there are no wet features present, creating
    hectares of suitable habitat, and could need up artificial wallows (small depressions which fill
    to 7ha. with mud or shallow water) can attract
    Suitable habitat comprise a mix of vegetation invertebrates as a food source. On a larger scale,
    heights and structure, usually with a high pond and scrape creation are ideal additions.
    component of scrub. Structural variety is Planting around ponds and scrapes with key
    important, as is species composition and species and ensuring availability of deadwood
    wetness. Willow Tits are associated with early will make the feature more attractive to Willow
    successional habitat, as competitive species and Tits.
    predators are usually only present at low
    densities.
    Habitat works should look to maintain areas of
    early successional habitat through glade
    creation, thinning, clear felling and rotational
    coppice. Maintaining a dense shrub layer in
    important. Natural encroachment of bramble
    should be encouraged where possible. Planting
    key species as an understory can improve
    structural diversity. Key species for planting
    considerations include: elder, birch, hawthorn,
    blackthorn and hazel.

    Glade creation, leaving nest stumps and brash


    piles Leaky dams

    Enhancing wet features Improving nesting opportunities


    Where wet features already exist, management Willow Tits need soft rotting deadwood which
    should look to hold water within Willow Tit they can excavate a nest hole in. Standing
    habitat. Simple constructions, such as leaky deadwood is preferable, but birds will also nest
    in fallen deadwood or in decaying parts of living Species which are used for nest stumps should
    trees. be soft woods. Ideal species are willows, birch,
    Stumps can be a product of other management alder and pine.
    (i.e. when thinning). Stumps are left at 1-2 Nest stumps are more likely to be used if they
    metres from the ground. Rotting can be are surrounded by dense protective vegetation.
    encouraged by adding some cross-cuts on the Bramble is often favoured. Bramble can be
    top of the stump to increase water penetration encouraged to grow tall if brash is piled onto
    and rot from the inside. bramble patches, forcing the growth up and
    Artificial nest sites can be created where logs over the brash.
    are cut to a 1-2 metre length and tied to a living
    tree to mimic standing deadwood.
    Veteranisation of trees can encourage rotting
    through methods such as ring barking.

    Creating nest stumps in birch

    Nest boxes
    There has been a fair amount of research on
    Willow Tits and nest boxes. Generally, due to
    the nature of their breeding habitats, Willow
    Ring barking Tits will not use traditional nest boxes. There are
    some tailored designs which are being trialled,
    Willow Tits are able to nest successfully in such as pre-excavated logs which are refilled
    stumps as small as 5cm diameter. Optimum with bark chippings; traditional nest boxes filled
    diameter is 8-20cm. with deadwood, chippings or polystyrene, with
    the hole replaced with an opening to encourage
    Willow Tits to excavate the material
    themselves.
    It is possible that increasing the number of
    artificial nest boxes does not necessarily aid
    Willow Tits. Instead, some of these designs have
    continued to attract tradition box-using birds
    and competitors (Blue Tit and Great Tit in
    particular). Increasing breeding density of
    competitive species is likely to have detrimental
    impact on Willow Tit populations.
    Management preferences should focus on more
    natural nest sites by encouraging deadwood
    availability and rotting of standing logs. This
    does, however, take longer to reach the
    optimum stage for excavation. An immediate
    solution could be to install a number of rotting
    logs by attaching to living trees, and then
    developing natural nest sites over a longer term
    to ensure continuity of nest opportunities.

    Nest box design – rotting wood within the box


    and birch front to give a natural impression

    Rotting birch log cable tied to living birch with


    beginning of Willow Tit excavation

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