It’s been a bad year for blue tits ‘‘

The bird feeders dangling in our garden hedgerow are overflowing with a nutritious winter feast. So it is somewhat worrying that only the mischievous neighbourhood grey squirrels appear to be taking advantage of the abundant treats on offer.

After the first frosts of winter, you’d expect the seeds, nuts and fat balls we put out strictly for the birds to create scenes as frenetic as a high street coming out of lockdown.

Yet the expected melee of blue and great tits has been noticeable by its absence. Dunnocks, blackbirds, chaffinches and starlings also appear reluctant to invite themselves for a free meal that would give them a much-needed boost now temperatures are falling.

Magpies and woodpigeons, neither slow in gate-crashing backyard dinner parties, are also missing out because they have to rely on the bad bird table manners of other species to scatter food for them to forage on the ground.

Participants of the British Trust for Ornithology’s Garden BirdWatch have noted a similar dearth of blue tits these past few months. Since May, they’ve been seen in fewer gardens, a likely result of those unseasonably warm spring days when the country first went into lockdown.

The fifth warmest April over the past century encouraged insect larvae, particularly those of butterflies and moths, to develop earlier. In turn, this meant caterpillar supplies were effectively past their sell-by date before insect-eating birds could plunder this vital natural resource.

It is said that a pair of blue tits can catch up to 10,000 small green caterpillars during a nesting season to ensure their clutch of up to a dozen fledglings survive. Fewer caterpillars means fewer babies leave the nest.

Not only have blue tits been seen less frequently in gardens, great tits, wrens and pied wagtails are also thought to have struggled because of the paucity of insect food during the crucial nesting season.

Spring, however, did witness a large increase in the number of BTO Garden BirdWatch participants, with wildlife lovers locking on to the joys of nature at a time of lockdown. Why not become a volunteer?

For more information, please visit bto.org/gbw.

The very warm April reduced caterpillars for feeding fledglings