ON THE WILD SIDE The cream of the flock
For most, a description isn’t necessary. They are the only British tit to have blue in their feathers, are about 12cm long and weigh as much as a £2 coin. The male and female are difficult to tell apart, but the male has slightly brighter feathers. Their colours also get brighter with every moult, so older males are the most colourful of all.
They have many nicknames, the funniest of which is “Billy biter”. They can be very nippy, very aggressive little birds.
There are around 15million on our shores now, starting to break up from their winter flocks to find mates.
Blue tits are a very European bird, not being found very far from the continent. Some 99% of British blue tits will never move from the area they are born in. Living 100th with humans has its drawbacks, as nearly half of the birds are killed by house cats.
Blue tits are adaptable and have their own tricks for living alongside people. They started pecking through milk bottle tops to drink the cream in the 1920s and were still pilfering from pintas until recently. At one time, flocks were known to follow milk floats down roads.
Milk wasn’t the only thing blue tits stole. There are reports of tits stealing and ripping up paper, even sometimes flying in through people’s windows to grab their newspapers, wallpaper, calendars, you name it. It’s easy to bring tits to your garden, just offer peanuts in a feeder and they will come. They will readily nest in anything with a 2.5cm hole, just big enough for them but too small for other birds. They have been found nesting in letter boxes, lamp posts, even cracks in houses.