Caspian Tit

How to recognise it

• Dark brown cap and bib contrasting with white cheeks and ear coverts
• Brown upperparts and underparts, pinkish beige when fresh, paler and greyer when worn
• Strong grey bill and short legs, grey to dark grey
• Sexes alike, young birds show a dull sooty black cap and greyer upperparts

Call and song

The Caspian Tit is fairly quiet but gives a thin "zsit" or a nasal "chev chev". When alarmed it repeats an abrupt, nasal "chev-chev". The song is a clear "tiu-tiu-tiu-tiu-tiu" or a "ziuw-ziuw-ziuw-su".

Where and when

The Caspian Tit does not occur in Sweden and has not been reported in Artportalen from 2016 to 2025. It is found only in northern Iran and neighbouring Azerbaijan.

Food and behaviour

It eats caterpillars, other insects and seeds, and searches trees for larvae and aphids. Both sexes excavate the nest, usually in a rotten stump or a rotten tree. Most nests are lined with fur, hair and wood chips, sometimes feathers, and the female lays five to seven white eggs with faint red spots.