My long tailed tits are back! They have been very few and far between for the last couple of years but this year they are back in abundance. Lovely to watch and hear.
Long-tailed tits - a garden bird which I never user to get, but which are now almost always around. They go for my home-made fat/peanut cake, which I put out all year. Wish they'd nest in the garden - I think they probably nest next door (some large conifers which they might like). I saw one of their nests close-up yesterday - from a fallen tree in the local park. I'd seen a nest before, but still a marvellous structure. I guess this was a nest from last year, but even if it was a fresh nest, then since the tree fell down, it's as well they build another.
I love them They are my favourites. We get a lot down the bottom of the garden (nesting next door, I think. Must be a trend! The bottoms of our gardens are not at all manicured and quite wildlife friendly.) They don't often come on my feeder near the house thouigh, and if they do never more than two at a time.
Once upon a time in another life far away I had a mangy crab apple permanently covered with wooly aphids quite close to our diningroom window ......... it attracted longtailed tits from miles around ..... silver linings
“I am not lost, for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.” Winnie the Pooh
I guess this was a nest from last year, but even if it was a fresh nest, then since the tree fell down, it's as well they build another.
I would imagine it was from last year. They need a thousand or more feathers to make a nest so they must time building it to coincide with the time when most birds are moulting their winter insulting feathers unless they can find a good source of dead birds. Apparently they do nest more than two weeks earlier than they did in the 1960s though.
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for the fag ends of the aristocracy.
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
for the fag ends of the aristocracy.
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border