European Crested Tit

Lophophanes cristatus

Order: Passeriformes
Family: Paridae
Presence in the Strait: Resident
Abundance: common
Protection in Spain: Special protection (List)
In Spanish: Herrerillo capuchino

Photograph: Ken Billington, CC BY-SA, vía iNaturalist

Length: 12 cm
Weight: 11 g

Presence in the Strait

Common resident in pine forests with higher affinity to cork oak woods. Numbers have been falling since the end of the ‘80s.

Identification

Uniform dirty-white underparts and brownish upperparts. Dark and white-scaled crest and a black throat and collar, giving a hooded appearance.

Bioestrecho editorial text. Last revised: 8 September 2026.

Photographs from iNaturalist observations with the licence checked file by file. Those marked “Strait” were taken within the area; place and date are those of each observation.

Calendar in the Strait

14 %

Peak in September. Observations under CC0 or CC BY licences. The distribution also reflects observation effort.

Where it is seen

Open records from the atlas database, in cells of about 3.6 km. Opacity follows the square root of the count, and also reflects where people observe most.

See on the map

First open record: 30 March 1973
Latest record: 29 December 2024

The oldest and the most recent open observation in the extended area. A recent first observation does not mean the species is new: it means nobody had published it openly before.

Conservation

The catalogues, Andalusian and Spanish, are what binds; the Red Book assesses the Spanish population with IUCN criteria, and the global Red List is the context.

LCNTVUENCR

Andalusian Catalogue: Special protection (List)
Spanish Catalogue: Special protection (List)
Red Book of the Birds of Spain 2021: LC · Least concern · breeding
Global Red List (IUCN): LC · Least concern

Andalusian Catalogue: Junta de Andalucía, list of 24 April 2025. Spanish Catalogue: MITECO, table of 30 June 2025. Red Book: SEO/BirdLife, 2021 (Annex I). IUCN: via GBIF, 6 September 2026. Red Book and IUCN categories are assessments; catalogue categories are legal obligations.

Phenology compared

Monthly distribution in proportion, by decade. It shows whether the passage is getting earlier or later.

2000–2009

2010–2026

Proportions, not totals: observation effort grew faster than any population.

Classification

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Paridae
GBIF taxon key: 2487883

Sources

Distribution and calendar: Bioestrecho's own database, ingested from GBIF and OBIS
Photograph: Ken Billington, CC BY-SA, vía iNaturalist
Taxonomy: GBIF backbone, pending WoRMS for marine taxa
Editorial text: written by Bioestrecho
Last revised: 8 September 2026

European Crested Tit

Presence in the Strait

Identification

Gallery