2026 has really been unperforming when it comes to A-list rare birds around here. In the first two months of last year we hosted the state’s first ever Ferruginous Hawk and an uber rare Black-chinned Hummingbird and Spotted Towhee, among other exciting birds. But as I clicked listlessly though this week’s rare bird reports looking for inspiration, I stumbled upon a blockbuster bird. At last, the headline-worthy species I’ve been waiting for, one that’s sending shockwaves through the community where it was found. This history-making discovery is…a Tufted Titmouse!
Stay with me. Yes, you probably have 6 or 10 Tufted Titmice that come to your feeder every day. Unless you live on Nantucket, that is. You see, Tufted Titmice don’t really migrate, and they absolutely hate to cross water, thus there has never been a record of a Tufted Titmouse on Nantucket. Until last Friday. What titan of ornithology laid claim to this historic sighting? It looks like it was someone known only as “Al”. Oh wait, I read that wrong – it was discovered by AI. One of those new birdfeeders with a camera and an AI identification program. Score one more for our eventual robot overlords.
The video of this bird at a Madaket feeder eventually made it to multiple bird experts, and is now in the official ornithological record. But how did this feathered pioneer get there? The story of how this one titmouse got to Nantucket began back in the 1950s, when titmice first started to colonize Massachusetts. Historically they were a bird of the southeast, but the combination or our gradually warming winters and an increase in bird feeding allowed titmice to steadily expand northwards, mostly saturating the state by the 1970s. Following closely in the slipstream of their range expansion were Carolina Wrens and Red-bellied Woodpeckers, two other southern birds that colonized the state during my lifetime.
But that pesky hydrophobia kept Tufted Titmice off the islands for decades after they had conquered the mainland. Finally, some got up the courage to presumably hop the three and a half miles across Vineyard Sound in the 90s, but only in the last 20 years have they been established there. Their calls still sound strange to some long-time Vineyard birders. I suspect the Nantucket bird island-hopped from that recently, but now firmly established Vineyard population. But who knows, it could have hopped a ferry – we’ll never know.
Speaking of their calls, I once, during a bird song quiz I was administrating at a CAI pub night on Nantucket, completely forgot they didn’t have any titmice there. I played the titmouse call and was met with silence. “You all have these in your yard”, I said cluelessly, to which someone responded with a curt “no, we don’t”. I felt like an aging rock star that just said “hello Cleveland” to my audience in Chicago.
But in hopes of more titmice to come on Nantucket, here’s a few examples for you island folk of their simple, yet somehow infinitely variable song. Here’s the classic “peter peter”. Next is the even simpler “here, here”. But titmice are like jazz musicians endlessly able to improvise on a simple theme. Of all the mystery bird sounds people have sent me over the years, I’d say most of them were titmice. Check this variation out.
While the fanciest bird on Nantucket right now may actually be the island’s first Barnacle Goose, a handsome winter visitor from Greenland present since March 5, I still think the long-awaited first record of Tufted Titmouse, the little backyard charmer us mainlanders take for granted, is the real story for long-time islanders. Long may the “peters” ring out on Nantucket!
