Tufted Titmouse Nesting: Nests, Eggs, Young and Boxes

Where Tufted Titmice nest, how the female builds a hair-lined nest inside a tree hole or nest box, what the eggs look like, and how the young grow up, with the right nest box for them. For the bird itself, see Tufted Titmouse identification, song and facts.

In spring, from March to June. Pairs look over nest holes from late winter or early spring, the female starts building from mid-March into April, and most eggs are laid in April and May.¹ Timing follows latitude: museum clutches from Georgia and Florida date from March 11, while in the northeastern states the full clutches dated from May 4-19. In Oklahoma, nest starts peaked around April 1.

Most pairs raise one brood a year and a few raise two; late nests in Oklahoma were probably replacements for failed ones.

Titmice nest in holes in trees, but unlike chickadees they apparently do not dig their own. They use natural cavities and holes made by woodpeckers, from Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers to Red-bellied, Red-headed, Red-cockaded and Pileated Woodpeckers and Northern Flickers, and they take readily to nest boxes.¹ Now and then they nest in a fence post or a metal pipe.²

Nest holes can be anywhere from about 3 to 90 feet (1-28 m) up; in Michigan they averaged about 40 feet (12 m). Many kinds of trees are used, among them elms, maples, beeches, oaks, pines, sycamores and dogwoods. In Michigan pairs never reused an old hole, but elsewhere a pair may keep an undisturbed hole for more than one year.

Inside the hole the female makes a cup of damp leaves, moss, grass and strips of bark, and lines it with soft hair, fur, wool or cotton.³ She builds alone, in 4 to 11 days (All About Birds gives 6 to 11), and sometimes adds a piece of snakeskin. While laying, she covers the eggs with nest material when she leaves.

Hair found in old titmouse nests has come from raccoons, opossums, dogs, fox squirrels, red squirrels, rabbits, horses, cows, cats, mice, woodchucks and people, and titmice pull it from living animals as well as collecting it.

A 2021 study collected online videos of the behavior. Of 99 videos of tits and chickadees plucking hair from mammals, 96 showed Tufted Titmice: 45 taking hair from people, 45 from dogs, and a few from raccoons, cats and even a porcupine. In the Birds of the World accounts of 63 species of tits and chickadees, the Tufted Titmouse's was the only one to describe hair plucking.⁴

Small and white to creamy white, finely speckled with chestnut-red, purple, brown or lilac, often more thickly at the larger end. They average about 0.7 by 0.6 inches (18.4 x 14.1 mm), with a smooth surface and little or no gloss.

A clutch is 3 to 9 eggs, usually 5 or 6: museum clutches averaged 5.7, with no difference from north to south. The female lays one egg a day; one Maryland female laid hers between about 5:20 and 5:40 in the morning.

Only the female incubates, for 12 to 14 days, most often 13. Two Maryland females sat for 70% and 78% of daylight hours, average sitting spells were about 25 to 40 minutes in three studies, and the male feeds her both on and off the nest. A female disturbed in the nest hole defends it with a hissing call.

The chicks hatch almost naked, pink and blind, with six small tufts of gray down. Their eyes are fully open by day 8, and by day 14 they are covered in feathers and look like small adults, though their wing and tail feathers are still growing.

At first the female broods the chicks for much of the time and the male brings food about twice as often as she does. By day 12 the pair share the feeding equally.

Sometimes helpers join in, young birds from an earlier year: in the two cases described, one was the pair's own and another the female's young by a previous mate. At one Maryland nest the male made 36.6% of the feeding visits, the female 36% and two helpers 20.4% and 7%.⁵ Birds of the World notes that helping like this is unusual among tits and chickadees: besides the Tufted Titmouse it had been reported only in the Bridled Titmouse and the Black Tit, Parus niger.

The young leave the nest at 15 to 16 days old; the oldest recorded was 17 to 18 days. For a day or two they sit quietly in thick cover, start feeding themselves about 5 days after leaving, and are independent at about 6 weeks. Many stay with their parents through the following winter.

Success varies between studies. In an Oklahoma nest-box study an estimated 73.5% of 34 nests succeeded, and 17 of 22 Arkansas nests and 10 of 15 Louisiana nests fledged young, but in Tennessee only 18 young fledged from 43 eggs in 7 nests. Cowbirds have been reported laying in titmouse nests, but probably rarely, as with other cavity nesters. A Red-bellied Woodpecker was seen killing the nestlings in one Florida box.

NestWatch recommends a box with a 1 1/4-inch (32 mm) entrance hole, a floor 5 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches (14 x 14 cm), 8 inches (20 cm) deep inside, mounted on a pole 5 to 15 feet (1.5-4.6 m) up near large deciduous trees, facing away from the prevailing wind, with boxes about 580 feet (175 m) apart.⁶ All About Birds advises putting it up well before the breeding season, with a predator guard.

In the United States the Tufted Titmouse is protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act,⁷ which makes it unlawful to take or possess any protected bird, or any part, nest or egg of one, unless regulations allow it.⁸ In Canada, titmice are covered by the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994.⁹ If titmice are nesting in a box or tree in your yard, leave the nest alone until the young have gone.

1. Ritchison, G., Grubb Jr., T. C., Pravosudov, V. V. (2020). Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor), version 1.0. Birds of the World (P. G. Rodewald, editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.tuftit.01
2. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Tufted Titmouse: Overview, Identification and Life History. All About Birds. Accessed October 23, 2026. Source
3. NestWatch (Cornell Lab of Ornithology). Tufted Titmouse. NestWatch. Accessed October 23, 2026. Source
4. Pollock, H. S., MacDonald, S. E., Vizentin-Bugoni, J., Brawn, J. D., Sutton, Z. S., Hauber, M. E. (2021). What the pluck? The theft of mammal hair by birds is an overlooked but common behavior with fitness implications. Ecology 102(12): e03501. doi:10.1002/ecy.3501
5. Brackbill, H. (1970). Tufted Titmouse breeding behavior. The Auk 87(3): 522-536. doi:10.2307/4083795
6. NestWatch (Cornell Lab of Ornithology). Right Bird, Right House: Tufted Titmouse. NestWatch. Accessed October 23, 2026. Source
7. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (2024). 50 CFR 10.13: List of Birds Protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Code of Federal Regulations (govinfo, revised as of 1 Oct 2024). Accessed October 23, 2026. Source
8. United States Congress (1918). Migratory Bird Treaty Act, 16 U.S.C. 703. United States Code, Title 16, section 703 (Legal Information Institute). Accessed October 23, 2026. Source
9. Parliament of Canada (1994). Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994 (S.C. 1994, c. 22), Schedule: Convention and Protocol, Article I. Justice Laws Website. Accessed October 23, 2026. Source
10. National Audubon Society (text: Kaufman, Lives of North American Birds). Tufted Titmouse. Audubon Guide to North American Birds. Accessed October 23, 2026. Source