so there may be a cost of helping. This may be due to helpers having relatively poorer body conditions at the end of the breeding season, similar to pied kingfisher and white-winged chough. Successful breeders have a survivability rate around the survivability of failed breeders who became helpers. Status and conservation Globally, the species is common throughout its range, only becoming scarce at the edge of the distribution. The IUCN, BirdLife International and The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) all list the long-tailed tit as a ‘species of least concern’, currently under little or no threat and reasonably abundant. Due to their small size they are vulnerable to extreme cold weather, with population losses of up to 80% being recorded in times of prolonged cold. It is thought that populations rapidly return to previous levels due to high breeding potential. Gallery References Sources External links Xeno-canto: audio recordings of the long-tailed tit Long-tailed tit videos, photos & sounds on the Internet Bird Collection Calls of several long-tailed tits—a British Library sound recording. "Ageing and sexing" (PDF; 1.48 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze long-tailed tit long-tailed tit Birds of Europe Birds of Japan Birds of Korea Birds of Russia Birds of Western Asia Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus