Fire-capped Tit

The fire-capped tit is a small bird, 10 cm long and about 7 g, assigned to the tit family, that breeds in the temperate forest bordering the Himalaya to the south, and in mountains on the Myanmar–China border and northern Sichuan. It winters downhill and further south, and populations of the eastern Himalaya spend November to May in southern Sikkim between 300 and 1,400 m. In Kashmir and Ladakh it nests in shrubs at high altitude (Wikipedia, general species account).

In breeding plumage, February to July, the male has a slight orange-scarlet crest. Outside the breeding season, September to January, the crown is dark olive-brown with a yellowish olive-green border, the upperparts yellowish to olive-green and the rump yellowish to olive-golden. Eggs are usually four, dull blue-green, and the incubation period is unknown. Calls include a high-pitched, jerky tsit-tsit-tsit-tsit. SoIB 2023 lists it as a local migrant forest bird that eats invertebrates, without a priority category (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).