The Humble Blue Tit
Tits – you’ve got to love them. With such a variety of colours, sizes and characters to admire, you’re sure to find a favourite.
I am, of course, referring to the six species of small passerines that inhabit the UK. I have a deep fondness for these plucky little birds; as a child, they were the first avian family I became familiar with. Blue tits in particular were among the very first birds I was able to identify and I’m sure that’s the case for many children interested in nature. And how could you not be enthralled by them? Flashes of royal blue, lemon yellow and a tinge of green brightening up the bird feeders – my dad once described them as ‘flying tennis balls’. Among the slate grey doves and pigeons, crowds of squabbling starlings and even the robin’s red breast, blue tits were exotic and I thought they were lovely.
They’re not. During my teenage years I volunteered as a trainee bird ringer at Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory, collecting data for the BTO and loving every moment of it. Spending quiet early mornings in sparkling dewy fields, hanging mist nets while enjoying the company of experienced birders. The best part, though, was returning to the ringing area and seeing a colourful collection of birds suspended in the crisp air. Greater-spotted woodpeckers beside tiny goldcrests, meadow pipits above siskins and whitethroats below blackbirds. We even caught a sparrowhawk once. But one bird filled me with dread when I saw it glaring through the pockets of the net.
After extracting the birds carefully, we placed them in cotton pull-string bags, designed to keep them calm and safe as we brought them to the ringing room. Then came the game of feathered Russian roulette. Pick a bag, hand in… hurrah, a blackbird. Hand in the second, if it feels like there’s nothing in there, a goldcrest huddles in the smallest corner. But the third bag – I can only imagine it’s a similar feeling to a postman meeting the bared teeth of a ratty dog through the post box. Without looking in the bag, I could confidently tell my data scribe what it contained by the sharp pain emanating through my fingers. Even now, my hands remember the sensation of the blue tit’s beak attempting to rip the flesh from my knuckles. At no point during the ringing process would the blue tit let up its attack. And this was not an isolated incident, every single blue tit contains the fury of an army.
Perhaps it’s some kind of generational attitude; blue tits are communicative birds. An example of their sociability was notably exemplified in the 20th century. In 1921, residents of Swaythling, Southampton noticed that the foil caps of their milk bottles were pierced. The culprits were blue tits, who discovered that the layer of cream floating on the milk was a valuable source of energy. This intelligence was passed through flocks by demonstration, and by the 1950s seemingly every blue tit in the country exhibited the behaviour – followed by great tits and robins too. By the 1960s, birds would follow milk floats ready to swoop once the delivery had been made. Of course, now the milk man is virtually redundant, the birds have lost their creamy treat and since forgotten their tricks. As the tradition of having milk bottles delivered died out, so did the blue tits. Blue tits are short-lived birds, surviving on average for three years, so once the last generation to pierce bottles passed away, the behaviour also vanished.
While I may hold a small grudge against the blue tits that put up a fight during my ringing years, I am fascinated by their intelligence – they render the insult ‘bird brained’ rather redundant. Feisty, smart and colourful, if the blue tit wasn’t common, they’d be one hell of a twitch. Which is why we ought to appreciate that these charismatic birds are a common sight in our gardens and hedgerows, and greet them with the same childlike wonder.