Great Tits, fat balls, and soggy nuts
By Charlie • December 13, 2009 • 8 commentsA much wiser man than me once said that if Great Tits Parus major were vagrants to the UK instead of common garden visitors they’d be one of the most sought-after species on the British List. He said it, if I remember correctly, while we were looking at a vagrant Yellow-rumped Warbler which a long line of Brit twitchers were cooing over, while completely ignoring the primrose-yellow bundle of energy in the next bush - a Great Tit.
I’m as guilty as anyone of course. Spending twenty years zipping around the world has meant that I’ve hardly looked at my own native birds (as the occasional email has chided me). An enforced stay at home here in Great Chalfield has - [warning: excuses for poor photographs coming up!] despite the constant rain and poor light conditions - allowed me the time to actually look at the local birds, and one of the most striking has to be the Great Tit.
A little smaller than a House Sparrow the Great Tit is hardly ‘Great’ anywhere but in the world of tits and chickadees, but it is nevertheless a real force of nature at the feeders I have surrounding my house. Flying directly in like little carb-seeking missiles, a group of Great Tits can dismantle a fat ball in minutes, and the contents of a nut bag soon disappears in a blizzard of peanut dust (it’s expensive feeding half of Wiltshire’s tits I can tell you). And where you get Great Tits you’ll almost invariably find the smaller Blue Tit too…and in combination they’re a sight to warm any winter’s day aren’t they?
With its glossy black head and white cheek-patches, yellow underparts marked by a striking somewhat ragged ribbon of black (which looks to me almost like an ink spill and is thicker in males than females), mossy-green back, greyish-blue wings with a white bar, and white tail sides Great Tits are surely as beautiful as many of the American wood-warblers that we Europeans rate so highly.
I almost hate to admit this but I’d never really thought about why Great Tits should have white tail-sides. There may well be other reasons, but now that I’ve actually bothered to watch them for any length of time it’s very obvious that they use them in threat displays, flashing the tail wide and spreading the wings open. I’m going to have to get a better photo (and if there’s ever enough light to really ramp the shutter speed up I’ll get one) but the two images below just about show how Great Tits sometimes suddenly react to each other, even if there are enough soggy nuts to go around! The silvery underwing presumably enforces the display.
I’m sure that this info is widely available, but I have to say I’d not come across it before (presumably because my head was stuck firmly in a field-guide to a location I might just possibly visit one day). Just goes to show that no matter how experienced or knowledgeable you think you are there’s always something to learn right on your own doorstep…
All photographs copyright Charlie Moores 2009
A heroic effort to show the world that not ALL of Europe’s birds are small, brown and drab.
Your problem, Charlie, was that you flew around the world for 20 years but you have hardly ever been away continuously for a long, long time.
When I got back from 6 months in Namibia or 11 months in Michigan, I really drooled over those tits of Europe - so to speak. And Chaffinches?
Royalties!
In related news, 10,000 Birds has been banned from view in 12 countries after apparently violating decency laws.
@Corey: I have no idea what you are talking about…
My, what Great Tits you have, Charlie. (A phrase I never imagined writing.) Thanks for the photos, even if not gallery quality in your opinion. Thanks for the post.
I enjoy seeing someone appreciate their cool backyard birds. Maybe because I enjoy my backyard birds so much. Staying close to home and appreciating our own patch brings its own rewards on many levels [urge to climb upon soapbox barely, but successfully resisted.]
[...] breeds contempt, and it’s hard to get excited about even the most attractive of birds when you see them for the 20,000th time. But there are a few birds which are dirt common but which [...]
I hardly think I’d call these photos bad in any way, Charlie. They’re marvelous! Both birds are exceptionally handsome.
And you hit the mail on the head: One thing I try never to do is take for granted what’s lurking about in my own neck of the woods. It’s amazing what kind of magic often hides right under our noses.
Kudos to Bosque Bill! Your never imagined statement sent me into hysterics. Of course there’s a lot of mileage in a name like ‘Great Tit’…
You could not just settle with the trite tit jokes! Glad to read it
I think I have more luck than Charlie. Last year I found a young, just hatched Great tit in the street, brought it home and somehow managed to feed it. I have a large garden, so the bird grew up free, but it stayed with me. I believed it was a male bird. It flew free around the garden, followed me and answered my calls. It took seeds from my mouth and hands, used to clean my nails and hair. It liked when I was telling it that it was pretty, and bathed and cleaned its feathers in front of the mirror. I bought a ready-made nest which I kept in my room, and he came to sleep in it every evening at the same time. In a word, he was an adored pet. Suddenly, it dissapeared for a month, but later returned and continued living in my house. Other great tits appeared and several times even flew in. The bird, named Kiki, turned out to be a female. She built a nest in my bathroom, and now is incubating. But it seems to me that the incubation lasts too long, and it’s not the breeding period. If anything hatches, I’ll let you know.