The Common Firecrest (Regulus ignicapilla) is the rarer, even more colourful relative of the Goldcrest, sharing the title of one of Europe's smallest birds — just 9–10 cm long, with a wingspan of 13–16 cm and a weight of only 5–7 g. The upperparts are olive-green and the underparts pale whitish. The surest mark against the Goldcrest is the face pattern: a clear white supercilium above a contrasting black eye-stripe, giving the bird an alert expression. The crown patch is fiery orange in the male and a purer yellow in the female, always bordered in black, and a bronze tone across the shoulder is another feature the Goldcrest lacks.
The song is a fast, accelerating series of thin, sharp notes — "zi-zi-zi-zi" — that, unlike the Goldcrest's song, lacks a final rolling flourish and stays at a more even pitch, with calls pitched slightly lower than the Goldcrest's. The species occurs almost exclusively in Europe and northwestern Africa and has expanded its range northward in recent decades, becoming an established breeding bird in southern Sweden, concentrated in Skåne and on Öland and Gotland; the Swedish population is estimated at around 1,000–3,000 pairs and is increasing with the warming climate. It favours spruce forest, mixed woodland and shrubby areas with beech and juniper. As a short-distance migrant, most birds leave the region in autumn. The diet consists of very small insects, spiders, aphids and insect eggs gleaned from needles, leaves and twigs, and like the Goldcrest the bird is constantly on the move, sometimes hovering in front of a twig to reach prey. The nest is a small, intricately woven hanging basket of moss and spider silk suspended beneath a branch, often in a conifer; the female lays a large clutch, typically 7–11 tiny eggs, and can manage two broods in a favourable summer. The species is classified as Least Concern (LC).
Read about this species in Swedish →