Coal Tit

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Coal Tit in the UK

The Coal Tit is a resident, found across the UK wherever there are trees, with about 660,000 territories. It is Green-listed. Numbers rose by 57% between 1967 and 2024, helped by the spread of conifer plantations, and have been fairly stable since the mid 1970s. It is most numerous in the forests of Scotland, Wales and Ireland. British birds belong to their own subspecies, with a second in Ireland, and both differ slightly from continental birds. A few continental Coal Tits arrive on the south and east coasts in some autumns.

Where and when to see a Coal Tit

Conifer woods and plantations hold the most, but it also lives in mixed and oak woodland, parks, churchyards with yews, and gardens. Look high in pines, spruces and larches, where it feeds at the tips of branches and hangs from cones. In autumn and winter it joins roaming flocks of other tits and Goldcrests, and visits feeders, most in years when the conifer seed crop is poor. At a feeder it grabs one seed and leaves at once. Present all year, at any time of day.

Habitat, diet and field notes

Habitat: Conifers, gardens.
Diet: Insects, seeds.
Field note: White nape-stripe; conifer specialist.

How to identify a Coal Tit

Smaller than a Blue Tit, with a big head and short tail. The head is glossy black with large white cheeks and a white rectangular patch running down the back of the neck, which no other British tit has. The back is olive-grey, the underparts buff, and there are two rows of white spots forming wingbars. There is no blue, green or yellow in the plumage. The bill is finer than other tits', for probing between conifer needles. It is quick and restless, and often hovers briefly at branch tips.

Call and song

Song is a bright, fast two-note phrase, "see-too, see-too, see-too" or "pit-chew, pit-chew", like a Great Tit's "teacher" sped up and pitched higher. Calls are thin, high "tsee" notes, close to a Goldcrest's. Heard something you cannot place? Bird Hear identifies UK birds from a 10 second recording, free in your browser.

Confusion species

• Great Tit: Great Tit is much bigger with yellow underparts split by a black stripe, and a green back.
• Marsh Tit: Marsh Tit has a black cap but a plain brown back, no wingbars and no white nape patch.
• Willow Tit: Willow Tit is plain brown above with a dull black cap and a pale wing panel, but no white nape patch or wingbars.

Related guide UK garden birds.

Conservation status and Birdedex points

In the Birdedex the Coal Tit is a Common tier bird, worth +1 point when you log one. It is not on the Red or Amber lists in Birds of Conservation Concern 5.

Recent UK sightings

Similar birds

• Continental Coal TitRare · Pine forest
• Great TitCommon · Woodland
• BlackbirdCommon · Gardens
• Blue TitCommon · Woodland
• ChaffinchCommon · Woods
• Collared DoveCommon · Gardens

Coal Tit: quick answers

What does a Coal Tit eat?

Insects, spiders and their eggs in spring and summer, picked from conifer needles and bark. In autumn and winter it switches to seeds, mainly spruce and pine, plus beech mast. At feeders it goes for sunflower hearts, peanuts and suet.

Why do Coal Tits take food and fly off?

They are hiding it. Coal Tits cache seeds one at a time in bark crevices, moss and among needles to eat later. Being the smallest tit, they also lose out to Blue and Great Tits at a feeder, so a quick raid is the safer way to feed.

What habitat does a Coal Tit live in?

Its first choice is coniferous woodland, and it is the commonest tit in many spruce and pine plantations. It nests low down, often in a hole in a tree stump, among roots, in a wall or even an old mouse hole. It will use nest boxes placed near the ground.

Kit that helps

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