Well today's post covers a garden favourite. I covered this bird a little in an earlier post but I have got better at blogging and I want to do him again with better pictures and more information. I have also got a new camera recently and managed to get a nice video which you can see below:
Anyway here are some more facts:
- They are resident in all of the UK except for in the Isle of Harris in Scotland where they do not live at any time of the year.
- They are Eurasia's (Eurasia = Europe and Asia) most common tit hence their full name: Eurasian Blue Tit (also known as a Tom Tit!)
- Adding to this, they are a very common bird in the UK with 20-44 million pairs, 3,600,000 breeding territories and in the winter we have around 15 million blue tits over here. This makes them a Green Status Bird.
- They are 11.5cm long with a 19cm wingspan. Both male and female birds weigh around 11g (about the same as a pound coin!). The oldest recorded blue tit was nearly 10 years old!
- Blue Tits are very house-proud and will use aromatic flowers like lavender to disinfect their nests. Sounds a bit like my Mum. If they need to leave the nest at all when there are eggs in it, they cover them over with moss and leaves to keep them warm, like we would use a duvet!
- They are known for nesting in unusual places such as letter boxes, pipes, etc and we saw a family nesting at the top of an old fashioned lamp-post in North Norfolk!
- Like I mentioned in my previous Blue Tit post they are very agile birds and are very well known for following milkmen around, breaking the foil lids and drinking the contents (but only the cream as the milk would give them diarrhoea!) For a BBC Video about this click here.
- Blue Tits are most common in woodlands, hedgerows, gardens and parks.
- Blue Tit breeding starts around mid-April and each pair will have up to 2 clutches of eggs which can consist of up to 16 eggs. We've had broods of baby blue tits on our bird table - they are incredibly fluffy and have the cutest blue fluffy heads!
- Males are brighter blue than females and it is said that the brighter the blue, the more healthy he is. And the brighter the yellow on their fronts indicates how many yellow-green caterpillars they eat!
Anyway here are some links to some more information:
I hope you enjoyed the better pictures and videos this time,
Z.
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