These are among the tiniest songbirds with a large, rounded head, a long tail, short, stubby black bill and a chubby or fluffy body. They are plain brown and gray overall, lighter gray below. Males have dark eyes, females have pale yellow eyes.

Bushtits twitter and move continuously in small flocks, foraging for insects through shrubs, thickets, open pine and oak woodlands and chaparral in the western United States. They make pouch-like nests of moss, lichen, spider webs and grasses which hang suspended beneath a branch. 

Bushtits eat mostly small insects, but are becoming more and more common at backyard feeders.

They can be found in the Pacific Northwest, Western states and Southwestern part of the United States.