Day 20 - Coal tits

Day 20

Hey everyone, thanks for all the wonderful comments about Bird Club. Lots of people still talking about it today so I hope it will just get better and better.

Coal Tit (Periparus ater)

Today's focus is a little bird we didn't see yesterday at school but I do see in my garden. They were also around a lot at Fairburn Ings where I took these shots.

I'm always fascinated by the stories and facts I find out about the things I post and this is no different, so here's todays facts:

• They were first described and recorded in 1758 by the "father of taxonomy" (describing, identifying and naming species) Carl Linnaeus who was a Swedish botanist and zoologist. He called it a "parus capite nigro, vertice albo, dorso inereo, pectore albo ater" which translated as black headed tit with white nape, ash grey back and white breast - which wasn't very catchy and as the German name was kohlmeiB it later became coal tit.

• Smallest of the tit family being only 10-11.5 cm long, and only weigh about 8g which is the same as 8 paper clips or a 50p piece!

• You can tell them apart from marsh and willow tits because they have a white spot at the back of their heads whereas the others don't.

• They like living in the country near to farms, woods etc and their favourite place to make their nests are low down to the ground in rotting tree stumps or in mice or rabbit burrows, even squirrel dreys!  

• They also like to crawl up and down trees like a treecreeper.

• They like nuts, seeds, peanuts and fatballs, which they cache and save for later.

• They tend to have one brood of chicks usually in May, and lay between 7-11 eggs per brood. 

• As there are around 760,000 breeding pairs in the UK they have green status - which is great because it's lovely to watch such cute little birds in the garden.

Finally, as always, I have some links for more information:

RSPB - Coal Tit

BTO - Coal Tit

Garden Birds - Coal Tit

Hope you enjoyed reading about these lovely birds, have a great nature hunting weekend,

Z.