Appearance:

Smallest bird of Western Palearctic. Crown stripe yellow in female, orange in male. Since bird is often viewed from below, the crown stripe is often not visible. The dark eye with the large, pale grey eye-ring is a better character. Pale wingbars and pale tips of tertials. No supercilium. Behaviour essentially tit-like. Restlessly moving among branches in treetops, with frequent hovering to get at insects.

Sound:

Contact call a very high pitched "zit zit zit", only similar to Firecrest and treecreepers. Treecreepers usually calls with longer "zzzziiiiit" repeated at regular intervals, while Goldcrest calls in phrases with two to four calls in series in an uneven rhythm. Firecrest contact calls lower pitched than Goldcrest, and in a softer tone (but quite similar). Song: a very high-pitched, undulating series of arpeggiated notes moving down and up again, repeated 4-5 times ending with a marked "conclusion" (like "trying to start a tiny motor and failing"). Timbre of song similar to contact call.

Song:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC

Appearance:

Elegant and very long-tailed wagtail. Vent always bright yellow in all plumages. Legs pinkish flesh-coloured, not black. Wings with single white bar, visible both from below and above. Male with black throat in summer. Constantly wags tail, often in a more horizontal posture than congeners. Flight more attenuated and more bounding than in other wagtails. Attached to water and streams.

Sound:

Contact call short, metallic and with a clipped ending. Often disyllabic, "tzeet-tzeet", with each syllable more separated than in White Wagtail, and timbre more "dirty". Song simple but variable. Often starts with the contact call, followed by short melodic phrases. Sometimes with more elaborate song-flight like White Wagtail.

Contact call, flight call:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC