Bearded Reedling

The bearded reedling is a small, long-tailed passerine of dense reed beds beside water. It is strongly sexually dimorphic, and paired birds remain together for life. Its familiar alternative names, bearded tit and bearded parrotbill, reflect older classifications, but molecular work places it alone in the family Panuridae rather than among tits or parrotbills. The metallic, bell-like contact call often reveals birds concealed while climbing through reeds or moving low above the marsh. (Wikipedia, bearded reedling account)

Its diet changes sharply with the seasons. In summer, adults and nestlings eat insects, larvae, pupae, spiders, springtails, snails and other small invertebrates. From late autumn through winter, seeds of reed, rush, nettle, willowherb and similar plants dominate; birds swallow coarse grit and develop a strengthened stomach lining to process them. The pale eastern subspecies russicus ranges from eastern Europe through southern Russia and Central Asia to Mongolia and northern China. (Wikipedia, bearded reedling account)