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Printed From Acorn-Online.com Redding Pilot
by Rachel Kirkpatrick
Ah, spring is here. Outside the trees and grounds are alive with the hustle and bustle of little birds actively collecting materials for their nests. Some may use tufts of pod fluffs, others soft grasses, but for one tufted titmouse on Mountain Laurel Lane, human hair is preferred — straight from homeowner Mia Rossiter’s head. For three years in a row now, presumably the same little tufted titmouse has become fixated on Ms. Rossiter’s long, wavy locks, her “thatch” as she describes it, during nest-building season. “He just hangs on, sometimes he’s just dangling down my back upside down,” she said. “He plants his feet and he’s pulling, and pulling; he’s not content with one or two hairs, he needs a bunch!” As on other days, last Sunday evening Ms. Rossiter was in her back yard pulling weeds, when, within 10 seconds, she said, there it was. The little titmouse, she said, flew in circles around her head, like it was thinking, “Should I take some from the front, or should I take some from the back?”
She was able to notify her husband, Bill, who grabbed a camera and snapped a few pictures. “We’ve always been lovers of the outdoors, of hiking, and lovers of birds,” she said. “I didn’t ever think I’d get a payback like this!” The bird’s nest, she said, “should be a bloody high-rise by now!” The tufted titmouse is a common forest and feeder bird, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Web site. The bird commonly builds its nest using leaves, moss, dried grass, and sometimes feathers, in the holes of trees. The nests are usually lined with hair, or a similar material, according to the lab’s site. To satisfy the little bird’s fetish, Ms. Rossiter said, she has even combed out her hair and left it on the stone wall, but “he doesn’t seem to like that,” she said. The bird seems to prefer to gather its materials straight from the source. “Not only that, but when our dogs, our shepherd and golden retriever, lie down, the bird comes down to their tails and starts plucking the hair out of their tails!” Ms. Rossiter said. Her shepherd, she said, will jump up when the bird lands, as if saying, “What was that! Did you do that?” “And then the laid-back golden retriever,” she continued, “will raise his head, look at his tail and say, ‘That’s fine, plenty of hair there,’” and go back to sleep.” Jack Sanders, editor of The Ridgefield Press and writer of the Bird Notes column, said the little gray bird is named for the crest on the back of its neck. “They are famous for grabbing fur from sleeping dogs, but I never saw a case of one going for a live human — awake!” Mr. Sanders wrote to The Pilot this week. Titmice, like chickadees, are bold little birds, said Jenny Dickson, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Environmental Protection. Asked if she had ever heard of such behavior, she said, “Not on a regular basis, that’s for sure.” “Most of the time they’re going to gather things like bits of animal fur they find in the woods,” she said. “That’s a titmouse that is pretty comfortable around people for any number of reasons.” Ms. Dickson recalled a gentleman in the neighborhood where she grew up who would put seed on the brim of his hat, and birds would come and eat out of it. “If it’s birds that are well established in a territory around that house, and really accustomed to the movement patterns of the humans that live there, they might behave in that way,” Ms. Dickson said. Chickadees and titmice, she added, do get comfortable enough with people where they will come and take seed out of your hand. Like the chickadee, tufted titmouse pairs do not join larger flocks outside of the breeding season, according to the lab. Instead, most remain in the territory as a pair. “Frequently,” a profile on the lab’s Web site says, “one of their young from that year remains with them and occasionally other juveniles from other places will join them.” This may explain why this particular bird on the Rossiters’ property has been consistent in his quest for human hair the past three years. In fact, Ms. Dickson said, this type of bird would be one to take hairs from a horse’s mane. It may not quite know the difference between a larger animal and a human. He’s probably been watching her for a while, she said. Depending on the stage of the nest building, she said, both male and female titmice will often collect materials. But as male and female titmice look exactly alike, it is often hard to tell for sure which is collecting materials. “Occasionally we’ll hear of them being bold,” she said, with a laugh, “but this is definitely a little unusual.” Ms. Rossiter said she and her husband think it is either the same bird or that “it’s a family tradition.” For now, Ms. Rossiter jokes that she may get a hard hat. Though she said many have not believed it when the couple has told the story, they now, at least, have the pictures to prove it. © Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers |
