Surprising Great Tit behaviour

kangarooz · #1 (**permalink**) 25-09-2010, 04:27 PM

I don't know if this is common to the rest of you or not but I was very surprised this morning, when I can only describe as being like a squiral.

I was watching it for a good 5 minutes going to and from the sunlower hearts I had put out, and it was going round the garden and placing the hearts in 'hiding places'. I saw it hiding some under some pebbles in a flower pot, under the handal of another pot and even in a gap in the plastic on our conservatory!

This might be common behaviour for all I know but I have never seen any bird do this before!

aeshna5 · #2 (**permalink**) 25-09-2010, 04:49 PM

Your tit is caching food- storing surplus food away in times of plenty for harder times. Coal tits also regularly do this as do other species including Nuthatch + corvids such as Jays + Magpies.

Jim Ford · #3 (**permalink**) 25-09-2010, 05:22 PM

Yeah - it jars me off to spend between £50-£100 a year on sunflower seeds for tits and particularly nuthatches, to cache and subsequently forget about them!

Jim