This titmouse was photographed in my yard at Lake Worth on December
15, 2002. Most of my titmice are intergrades that look like Tufted
but have dusky crests; a few birds have blackish crests and dark
ginger foreheads. This is the first one I've seen in my yard that
has a black crest and an off-white (very pale buff) forehead -
I've seen a couple of similar birds in the SW part of Tarrant
County. My yard in wooded lakeside bottomland, but next to a scrubby
limestone ridge that is semi-xeric, with lots of cactus and some
mesquite and cedar; west of my location this habitat starts to
dominate the landscape. Black-crested Titmice almost completely
replace hybrids/Tufteds just 15 - 20 miles west of here. Would
you call this a Black-crested Titmouse or a hybrid?:
