The Winter Blues Part One - Blue Tit

The Winter Blues Part One - Blue Tit

by

David Tipling

As part of our winter offering here at A Wild Read, our contributors have put together a series on the Winter Blues - or more accurately, a series on birds from across the world with blue in their plumage. David Tipling kicks us off with a bird everyone in the UK will be familiar with, the humble Blue Tit.

Above: The humble Blue Tit is a regular visitor to most UK gardens. ©Rob Read.

I am lucky enough to own a small piece of woodland where from October to April I feed the birds.  Around twenty species visit, either dining in by clinging to the feeders or enjoying a takeaway – a tactic favoured by the Nuthatches that arrive, cram as much into their bills as possible and depart.  The visitor that arrives in the biggest numbers is the Blue Tit, so called as it is the only member of the tribe of tits with blue in its plumage.  In mid-winter I have counted more than 60 at any one time, so there is probably far more than this visiting daily.

Most of us in the UK will be familiar with this species as some 98% of gardens in surveys in winter report them.  In early winter when there is still plenty of natural food available, they range through the trees in a fidgeting flock descending on the feeders for a few minutes before moving on again. But as winter tightens its grip, so they start to spend most of their time close to the food.  It is then that I can start to recognise individuals; one might have a displaced feather or a notch in its beak, and some like to use the same route and perch in the same places as they approach the food. You start to see them as individuals rather than just as a Blue Tit, though I stop short of giving them names.  

Although they look similar, males have a brighter blue head than females and as they get older it is thought their plumage gets brighter with every subsequent moult. The next time you see a brighter bird in the garden, he or she may be quite elderly.  Studies have shown only around 2% of the Blue Tit population ever move more than 20 km from where they were born, so next time you look out the window and see a Blue Tit clinging to your feeder, the chances are he or she has grown up and lived its whole life in your neighbourhood.

David Tipling.