Five Garden Tits

One of the greatest joys of being outside in the garden or in nature is the sound of the wild birds. A flash of colour, a burst of birdsong or some movement in the undergrowth fires our spirit and inspires a little bird watching as our feathered friends get on with their lives.

We have dozens of different birds that visit our gardens. Many will feed at the bird feeders, while others scurry about in the borders foraging for food. Where the birds feed, what they eat and how they feed are all things to bear in mind when looking after these incredible creatures. 

There are several different types of tits that may visit your garden. Here are five to look out for. We’d love to see photos of these little birds feeding in your garden.

Long-tailed tit (Aegithalos caudatus)

These noisy little birds are often in an excitable gang. Strictly speaking they are not closely related to our other garden tits, like the blue tit. Sometimes they send a feeding scout out to look for food and then they all descend to feed. Long-tailed tits are chattery and as their name suggests they have long black tails. Look out for small flocks of twenty or more noisy little birds hopping about in the trees and shrubs. The tail is longer than the body and points down beyond the blush pink belly. They have a very cute rounded face, a black mask with a wide, pronounced white stripe from the head down the back.

These are mostly insect eating birds, so they will help keep your garden bugs in control, but in leaner times they will feed on seeds too. Smear some bird friendly peanut butter on your tree trunks. These little birds rarely feed on the floor. Long-tailed tits nest deep in the hedgerow, often making the nests before the leaves start to camouflage them. They create fascinating, almost cylindrical nests in the fork of two or more branches from lichen, moss and cobwebs. The nest is then lined with hundreds of feathers and actually stretches as the chicks grow to accommodate the growing family. The nests take a few weeks to make so these little birds start housebuilding early, often in a prickly thicket of brambles or hawthorn that will help to protect them from predators.

Blue tit (Parus caeruleus)

If you feed the birds (and you should) it’s a pretty dead cert that you’ve got blue tits feeding on the fat balls, suet, peanuts and peanut butter. These exotic looking beauties just love high energy food and will home-in on fatty treats in minutes. But when it comes to baby food, Blue tit chicks need caterpillars and other invertebrates. A nest of ten chicks needs one thousand caterpillars each day to sustain them, so remember that next time you reach for the ‘pest’ spray.

Blue tits are the cutest little birds, with unusual blue and yellow markings that set them apart from the other tit species you may have in your garden. They will nest in your bird boxes, but they also nest in odd places. I’ve had a nest inside an old-fashioned water pump in the garden. I could hear them inside and saw the parents entering and exiting, but I didn’t see the chicks until they fledged.

Usually, they have just one brood of chicks during the season, but it that fails they may attempt a second brood. Blue tits need a nest box hole of 25mm. 

Great tits (Parus major)

As the name suggests the Great tit is the largest UK tit. With a distinctive call that sounds a bit like a high pitched, tea-cher, tea-cher, tea-cher, tea’, though there are thought to be forty or more variations of the call, especially when the males are singing. This may be to confuse other male birds? These birds are more common in a woodland habit but have adapted to visit our gardens. It has a shiny black head with a black streak down to its legs and a pure white cheek that is often triangular. The wings are a pale blue grey and the breast a clear lemon yellow. The Great tit has greeny yellow feathers across its shoulders. When it comes to dominance, it’s all about the black belly stripe. First of all, the female’s stripe narrows and disappears towards her tummy and the male’s gets bolder and wider right down between his legs. And the wider and bolder the stripe the more dominant the male is in its community.

In the winter these birds feed on seeds and nuts and can break open acorns and beech nuts with their beaks. They are fond of peanuts and sunflower seeds and will use hanging feeders in the garden. As the spring takes hold and the insect populations start to grow the Great tit diet includes vast amounts of invertebrates especially caterpillars which they feed to their chicks. Weirdly their beaks change shape in different seasons, becoming shorter and stronger in the winter to deal with seeds and longer in the spring to gather insects.

Great tits tend to nest in tree cavities in woodlands, lining their nest with moss, feathers and fur. They will nest in garden bird boxes, if you want to encourage them, they need a nest box hole of at least 28mm and up to 40mm.

Coal tits (Periparus ater)

The Coal tit is a small woodland bird that is more commonly found in coniferous trees, which means you may see it in parks and gardens where conifers are planted. It will nest in tree cavities, often lower down or if available it will use garden nest boxes and needs a nest box hole of 25mm. It is often ousted by the blue tits and great tits that compete for a suitable nest box. The Coal tit can sometimes have a second brood of chicks in a season.

This is an insect eating species, feeding on insects and spiders within the woodland setting, but they will also feed from garden feeders and bird tables. They also feed on the oil rich seeds of pine cones. Unlike many birds, the Coal tit is a prepper, it finds and stores food to see it through the winter, and may stash seeds in cracks and crevices of tree bark. It’s ability to eat a variety of food types is one of the reasons this species survives.

The Coal tit is mostly grey with a black cap and a white patch on its cheek. It’s sort of grey on top and pinky buff below. It also has a small white patch on the back of its head. In winter these birds flock together in search of food. This enables them to locate a food source more quickly and you may see them searching through your garden for tasty morsels.

It’s our smallest tit in the UK and it’s very agile, even able to hang beneath a branch to eek-out an overwintering grub from a tight crevice.

Bearded tit (Panurus biarmicus)

If you’ve spotted a gang of feathered moustached hipsters flitting around the garden shrubs you may have bearded tits visiting your garden. These noisy little birds have long tails, but look quite different to the long-tailed tits (above) and are only distantly related to our garden tits. It’s the males that have the beard, though it’s not really a beard. The males have a sort of drooping Mexican-style moustache in black beneath a golden yellow pointy beak. They can fluff up to a plump, fluffy ball with a blue grey head and a buff pink body. Such a cute looking bird and one to look out for.

The Bearded tit is more likely to be seen in reed beds, but can be present in large gardens with freshwater pools and swaths of reeds and sedges. It feeds on the seeds of reeds and the Insects and grubs found there-in. They nest low down in the reedbeds, unusually this species may raise multiple broods in a season if conditions are good.

If you live in an urban setting and would like to see these birds, seek them out in wetlands and reed-beds where they are more likely to be active.