One of the most the colourful of all the Peak District garden birds, the blue tit is a mix of yellows, blues, white and greens making it one of our most recognisable garden visitors. It is also one of our most loved and one of the most attractive additions to our flowers and plants. The next time you see four or five happily munching away on your bird feeder; have a look around, because they could be feeding up to 20 or more babies somewhere roundabouts.
They are bright, inquisitive little birds and are very clean too. They are great homemakers who have been known to use aromatic leaves from lavender, curry plants and mint to disinfect their nests. They are also opportunists, infamous for following milkmen around all day and pecking at the foil tops, taking sneaky slips from milk. They are cheerful and happily sing up in the trees after a good munch from the bird feeder in autumn and winter contrasting against the drab colours and birds in the autumn. In the spring and summer they dine out on invertebrates and the yellowness of the male bird tit’s breast is an indication of the number of yellow or green caterpillars it has eaten! Also, the brighter the breast, the more attractive the females so it pays to get stocked up. They also like pollen, nectar and sap and in the autumn they eat berries.
In the garden they search among the plants and crevices for insects such as aphids, beetles and spiders, but they also take sunflower hearts or high energy seed from bird feeders or peck at a suet food bar or peanuts. They are not so fussy!
Blue Tits are certainly one of the most agile birds we have and will entertain the hours by hanging upside down from feeders, or branches like a gymnast. They sometimes peck putty from around windows, usually in winter time and some may be simply hungry and attracted to the linseed oil in the putty, although it is thought more likely they are simply searching for food, such as insects stuck fast there.
There are six species of tits but the blue tit is the most common, being one of the most persistent and successful visitors to our garden feeders. They all have the same colourful plumage, are small birds with stout legs and strong feet and all have short, triangular bills.
Small, energetic, cute and fluffy, blue tits endear themselves to the nation. A tiny little bird they have a wingspan of between 17 to 20 cm and are only 11 cm in height. They have mostly blue upper parts with yellow below parts and at first glance, the acrobatic and cheeky blue tit is seemingly just a blue and yellow bird. On closer inspection, though, it has bright blue wings, a bright blue tail and crown and yellow under parts with a greenish back and mantle. It has white cheeks and a black eye strip and a black beard and collar and they also have a black streak down the middle of their bellies and a white wing bar. The black carries on into the bill and the legs are a bluey grey so you see they are a multitude of colours. The sexes are similar, although the female is slightly paler and the juvenile birds are duller than the adults and have a green crown, wings and tail and very yellow cheeks.
Blue tits are common in woodland, parks, gardens and hedgerows throughout the Peak District but they are very widespread little birds and can be found across the whole of the UK, with the exception of some of the Scottish islands. They feed anywhere where they can find insects and caterpillars but they love seeds and nuts which is why they are so common in our gardens.
The blue tit song can be heard all year round and when it is alarmed, it makes a strange cheering sound. In winter, family flocks join up with other types of tits as they search for food, figuring that safety in numbers is always best.
They will nest in any hole in the tree, a nest box or in the wall and they are well known for nesting in more unusual places such as pipes and inside letterboxes. The nest is a cup shaped made by the female from moss, wool, dead leaves, and spider’s webs and lined with any down they can find. They have a huge clutch size laying typically 10 to 12 eggs and the eggs are laid at such time that the green caterpillars will be abundant when the chicks hatch. Second clutches a season are rare but not unheard of. The eggs are smooth and glossy, and white with purplish red or reddish brown spots. They are 16 to 12 mm in length and the female incubates the eggs by herself but after the young hatch, they are fed by both parents. Breeding usually starts mid April and takes 12 to 16 days to incubate with 15 to 23 days being the fledge times.
Once a blue tit has hatched, it is a resident and doesn’t usually wander more than a few kilometres far from its birthplace. Blue tit populations often decrease during the harsh winters or after poor breeding seasons where the weather is cold and wet, particularly if this coincides with the emergence of the caterpillars on which the nesting are fed. This is why it is so important for all of us to try and keep the blue tit numbers high as a harsh winter could literally wipe them out in this area. If you can try and provide a little nest box for them, but having a bird feeder in your garden is money well spent and will become priceless to you, especially if you are privileged in the Peak District to have the blue tits come and visit and watch them put on their circus act for your entertainment .
