Poecile montanus
Silhouette: Andy Wilson · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~60%
The willow tit (Poecile montanus) is a passerine bird in the tit family, Paridae. It is a widespread and common resident breeder throughout temperate and subarctic Europe and across the Palearctic. The plumage is grey-brown and off-white with a black cap and bib. It is more of a conifer specialist than the closely related marsh tit, which explains its breeding much farther north. It is resident, and most birds do not migrate.
The willow tit was described in 1827 by the Swiss naturalist Thomas Conrad von Baldenstein under the trinomial name Parus cinereus montanus. The type locality is the mountain forests in the Canton of Grisons, Switzerland. The willow tit is now placed in the genus Poecile that was erected by the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup in 1829. The genus name, Poecile, is the Ancient Greek name for a now unidentifiable small bird, and the specific montanus is Latin for "of the mountains".
Poecile was at one time treated as a subgenus within the genus Parus but molecular taxonomic analysis, using both nuclear and mitochondrial genes, supports Poecile as a distinct clade. Within Poecile, most of the Old World species (including the willow tit) form a separate... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nikko National Park | 🇯🇵 Japan | |
| 2 | Hohe Tauern National Park | 🇦🇹 Austria | |
| 3 | Mercantour National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 4 | Tatra National Park | 🇸🇰 Slovakia | |
| 5 | Vanoise National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 6 | Triglav National Park | 🇸🇮 Slovenia | |
| 7 | Ecrins National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 8 | Biebrza National Park | 🇵🇱 Poland | |
| 9 | Białowieża National Park | 🇵🇱 Poland | |
| 10 | Bavarian Forest National Park | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 11 | Plitvice Lakes National Park | 🇭🇷 Croatia | |
| 12 | Gauja National Park | 🇱🇻 Latvia | |
| 13 | Snowdonia National Park | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 14 | Wadden Sea National Park | 🇩🇪 Germany |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yekaterinburg | 🇷🇺 Russia | |
| 2 | Ulaanbaatar | 🇲🇳 Mongolia | |
| 3 | Minsk | 🇧🇾 Belarus | |
| 4 | Xining | 🇨🇳 China | |
| 5 | Manchester | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 6 | Harbin | 🇨🇳 China | |
| 7 | Sapporo | 🇯🇵 Japan | |
| 8 | Saint Petersburg | 🇷🇺 Russia | |
| 9 | Moscow | 🇷🇺 Russia | |
| 10 | Kyiv | 🇺🇦 Ukraine |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Willow Tit sighting in Bavarian Forest National Park on a given day, based on 103 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 71st most-seen of the 170 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 60%, if each day is a fresh chance.
October
In that month about 40% of wildlife watchers report a Willow Tit in Bavarian Forest National Park on a given day, against under 5% in July and December–January, the lowest months.
Between 6 and 9 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Willow Tit sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
10th of 14
Of the 14 parks where we can rate Willow Tit sightings, Bavarian Forest National Park ranks 10th at about 10%. The best odds are in Nikko National Park (Japan, about 60%), Hohe Tauern National Park (Austria, about 30%) and Mercantour National Park (France, about 30%). All parks ranked.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Willow Tit is recorded against all the birds logged in Bavarian Forest National Park (103 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
