Blue Tit

Cyanistes caeruleus

The European population, of this bird, is regarded as Secure by BirdLife International.

Sometimes confused with its cousin the Great Tit, the Blue Tit has a small rounded head and short stocky neck, with a distinctive black eye stripe and small blue skullcap. It has bright yellow underparts with a narrow grey/black stripe on the centre of the belly.

The female is much the same as the male but juveniles have a much duller colour with a yellowy-green replacing the usual blue areas.

Size: 10.5cm - 12cm

Weight: 8 - 10gms

Habitat: Woodland, gardens, parks and busy cities.

Nesting: nest lined with moss, grass and feathers. To encourage Blue Tits to nest in your garden, offer a 28mm or 32mm hole nest box

Eggs: 7-16 white eggs with a few spots.

Food: Their main diet of insects, grubs, caterpillars, fruit and nectar. Supplement their diet with energy-rich seed mixes, peanuts and peanut cakes.

Call: Fine, clear calls and song.

Characteristics: The Blue Tit is many people's idea of the most common garden bird. Nine out of ten gardens have a Blue Tit. A small, active, acrobatic bird, in winter they move around in roving flocks and flit around gardens and woodland constantly appearing hard at work. They are a cautious bird but not afraid of human contact and as a result adapt easily to garden feeding.The classic image of a Blue Tit is of them dipping their heads into the cream on the top of a milk bottle, although this image is dying out due to the increase in popularity of lower fat milks.

They have adapted well to garden feeding and are particularly prominent in the winter. Blue Tits are real woodland specialists, and excel at feeding in the upper branches of trees and shrubs, often hanging upside down.