Coal fired up first for spring
Love or loathe, towering conifers, so often the cause of neighbourly disharmony, are helping one of our most unassuming birds to become a garden favourite.
Nothing heralds the impending arrival of spring with such glee as the frenzied song of the coal tit as it rings out from the uppermost sprigs of a majestic evergreen.
Long before the first snowdrops have unfurled their frosty flowers or song thrushes have perfected their seasonal declarations, coal tits are staking claims on territories with a far-carrying reveille.
Listening to the high-pitched rolling ditty, which sounds like a great tit on fizzy sweets, it is hard to believe it comes from a tiny bird weighing little more than a 50p piece.
Coal tits get their name from the charcoal tones of their head markings, a feature that made them stand out from roaming winter bird flocks in ancient times.
Early Anglo-saxon settlers called them “colemase” and one wonders if they realised the British birds they encountered after arriving from Germany were a distinct subspecies of their continental coal tits.
Our birds have dingier, olive-buff tones, contrasting with dark head markings and white nape flashes.
What coal tits lack in bright plumage compared to blue and great tits is compensated by being more agile and performing remarkable acrobatics to wheedle tiny insects from cones and spiky pine needles.
Massive efforts to increase the national timber reserves after the First World War witnessed large-scale afforestation in areas with poor agricultural soil, such as the New Forest and Cannock Chase in Staffordshire. And this work also saw coal tits expanding their reach.
Although numbers are stable today with 660,000 nesting pairs, their range across the UK continues to increase modestly, largely because of the popularity of ornamental conifers in gardens.
This is borne out by the findings of last year’s RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, which reported a 204.2% increased in coal tit sightings since the survey began in 1979.
Nearly a third of participants reported at least one bird in their garden or local park.
They also perform remarkable acrobatics to wheedle tiny insects