A little yellow-vested, unfortunately, now very rare songbird with an unmistakable triangular signature-like crest.

Meet the Taiwan Yellow Tit

Photo Courtesy of Robert tdc / CC BY-SA 2.0

The Taiwan yellow tit (Machlolophus holsti) is a species of bird in the family Paridae. This bird was formerly one of the many species in the genus Parus but was moved to Machlolophus after a molecular phylogenetic analysis published in 2013 showed that the members of the new genus formed a distinct clade. The Yellow Tit is a small, mostly black-and-yellow bird (13 cm) with a long crest.  The male is strikingly colored with forehead, cheek patch, and underparts rich yellow.  The cap, crest, back, wing coverts, and vent are black.  The rear of the crest is white.

The wings are light blue with white outer edges.

The female can be differentiated from the male by a slighter smaller crest, and being duller with an olive-green back; lacking the ventral spot.

“Yellow Tit – Taiwan_S4E8306” by fveronesi1 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

This bird can be found in and is endemic to central Taiwan.

Taiwan yellow tits are rare to locally common in the central mountain ranges from 700–2,500 m, in the temperate broadleaf and conifer forests.

These birds can be found in ones, twos, or small flocks foraging for insects in the mid-story forest canopy.

In Taiwan, these birds breed in April.  They tend to nest in the cavity of a tall tree, laying a clutch of 3–4 small eggs.

The Taiwan yellow tit has a restricted range and small population, which appears to be declining due to large-scale capture for export by the wild bird trade, so it is classed as Near Threatened by the IUCN.

“File:Parus holsti.jpg” by Flickr user ‘Wagtail’ Lai . Photo uploaded to commons by user ltshears is (cropped) licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

You can watch and listen to this bird right here in the video below: