Long Tailed Tit Raid!

Edster · #1 (**permalink**) 13-01-2010, 12:48 PM

Well, second new bird within a week for me (the other one was a Fieldfare)! Moved to my new house in a Derby village on Monday and have seen more birds here in 3 days than I did in 7 months at the old house in Staffordshire!

It's mainly Great Tits with a few Blue Tits, Blackbirds, Robins etc (and a Pheasant yesterday!) but today I was looking out of the window and saw a raid! Five of them turned up on the nut feeder (one of them not on the picture). They were there for a few minutes and then disappeared again! Luckily I've got my camera handy at this new house.

Pigeon feather · #2 (**permalink**) 13-01-2010, 01:21 PM

Very nice shot, well done on getting the long tailed tits to eat from your feeder, out of interest where abouts is the feeder located in the garden and how high is it? I often get a flock of long tailed tits in the trees at the back of my garden but none are brave enough to venture onto my feeders, would it be peanuts that attract them? I only ever put black sunflower seeds and wild bird mix in my feeders as the peanuts are ignored and get blue tits, great tits, sparrows and green finches feeding from them.

bikermel76 · #3 (**permalink**) 13-01-2010, 01:23 PM

Us too! Never had LTTs in our garden, only to see a flock of SEVEN suddenly charge into a feeder, feed for 30 seconds and dash off again! Thank goodness I was looking out of the window! Assume news has got round that our garden is a good source of food in the snow, or then again at that rate they're probably here every day, I'm just not looking during the appropriate few seconds!

Edster · #4 (**permalink**) 13-01-2010, 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pigeon feather

Very nice shot, well done on getting the long tailed tits to eat from your feeder, out of interest where abouts is the feeder located in the garden and how high is it?

Thanks very much. They just re-appeared so got a few more shots.

The feeder is about 5-7 metres from the house. My garden is raised up a couple of metres and slopes upwards from there (!) and there are small trees either side of the lawn that it's on. I have to go up to the bedroom to get decent pics of the feeder.

bikermel76 · #5 (**permalink**) 13-01-2010, 02:05 PM

I've just encountered my first fieldfare too! Must be the weather! Keep your eyes peeled for a redwing, that was my 2nd new garden visitor earlier in the week, and yo';ve had 2 of my 3 so far!

thebeard · #6 (**permalink**) 13-01-2010, 02:33 PM

great shot edster and welcome to WAB. LTTs have to be one of my top british birds, so full of character and mischief, i love the way they rove about and are so noisy!

Paul mabbott · #7 (**permalink**) 13-01-2010, 02:34 PM

Long-tailed tits have changed their feeding habits over the last decade, at least in this area. They would formally take soft, semi-solids - dhall, cheese sauce and the like - from gardens but over the past five (or so) years they have taken to peanuts, amongst other things. They cannot break the nuts but can nibble away at them in hoppers. Our peanuts are in an enclosed hopper (to keep off the grey squirrels) and it's quite an amusing sight to see six or seven l-t.ts inside it with their tails sticking out!

With regards to wariness of humans, I think they are one of the least shy birds in gardens. Here, their habit is to fly up and down the woodland hedgerow, occasionally diverting along garden hedges - where most of the food is! They stay feeding for five minutes, more or less, and then fly back to the woods. It tends to be one out all out. Except at breeding time we seldom see them more than once a day or even every day but once they've found a suitable feeder they'll certainly return regularly.

Paul mabbott · #8 (**permalink**) 13-01-2010, 03:13 PM

Having dispatched that mail, I looked out into the gloaming and saw a lot of tails sticking out of the hopper: the first I've seen for several weeks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

........., their habit is to fly up and down the woodland hedgerow, occasionally diverting along garden hedges - where most of the food is! They stay feeding for five minutes, more or less, and then fly back to the woods. It tends to be one out all out. Except at breeding time we seldom see them more than once a day or even every day but once they've found a suitable feeder they'll certainly return regularly.