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Pine Mires Stood Out as Early-Spring Habitat for Willow Tits in Managed Finnish Forests

Willow tit perched on a birch trunk in Finland
Research · Ecology

Pine mires stood out as important early-spring habitat for willow tits (Poecile montanus) in a large acoustic survey of managed boreal forest in southwestern Finland. The study, published online on 29 April 2026, examined the period when birds are establishing territories before breeding.

Researchers placed autonomous sound recorders at 285 forest sites and surveyed them from 16 March to 25 April 2020. Willow tit presence was then compared with forest structure and landscape features within buffers with radii of 100 and 400 metres around each recorder.

Pine Mires and Deadwood Estimates

At both spatial scales, willow tits were more likely to occur where a larger area of pine mire was present. These peatland forests are dominated by Scots pine and retain moist conditions that can support decaying wood and spring food resources. The acoustic detections indicate the presence of singing, presumably territorial birds around the recorders, but do not identify actual nest locations within the habitat. At the 100-metre scale, willow tit presence was also positively associated with Eurasian Pygmy Owl (Glaucidium passerinum) detections; this association was not clear at 400 metres.

The researchers did not find a positive association with the amount of forest older than 80 years. Modelled deadwood potential also failed to show the expected positive relationship and had a weak negative association at the broader scale. The authors stress that these landscape-level estimates do not describe the fine qualities of decaying wood that willow tits actually need, such as soft standing snags suitable for excavating nest cavities.

Spring Food Resources

The study focused specifically on the pre-breeding period. The authors suggest that pine mires may be valuable at this time not only because of their structure, but also because pine-dominated habitats can provide seeds when winter food stores are running low. This may help explain why the early-spring pattern differs from habitat relationships found during breeding.

Detection probability declined as spring progressed, which the researchers attribute to seasonal changes in vocal activity as territory establishment gives way to breeding.

Modelled probability of willow tit presence in relation to habitat variables and survey date
Modelled willow tit presence: (A, C) pine mire area within 100 and 400 m, (B) Eurasian Pygmy Owl presence, (D) survey date and (E) deadwood potential. Shading and error bars show uncertainty ranges. Continuous predictors are standardized, so their axes show relative values rather than hectares or calendar dates. Figure 3 from Hamedani Raja et al. (2026), CC BY 4.0.

The authors recommend that pine mires and other peatland features be incorporated explicitly into forestry planning for the species.

Sources and image credit

  1. Hamedani Raja, P., Baroni, D., Laaksonen, T., & Brommer, J. E. (2026). Pine mires as key early-season habitat selection sites for Willow Tits in managed boreal forests. Forest Ecology and Management, 615, 123833.

Image: Ron Knight / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/). Willow tit on a birch trunk in Finland, 6 April 2014. Representative species photograph, not from the 2020 study. Cropped to 16:9. · CC BY 2.0 · Source

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