Blue Tits, Great Tits, and Coal Tits

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 These are by far the most common birds to visit our garden feeders. We see blue tits every day with up to a dozen at a time at peak periods. I like this photo of a young bluest from last summer. (Adult birds have a white rather than a yellow cheek)


Each year we put up nest boxes with web cams and it has always been blue tits that have chosen to occupy them.
The next most common in our garden is the great tit. These are much chunkier birds with a black stripe down their chests.It has a black head with big white cheek patches. You can tell the sexes apart as the males have a wider black chest stripe than the females.

The smallest and most timid of this trio of birds is the coal tit. It is a much smaller bird with a white nape at the back of its head and often shows a tiny crest of feathers at the back of the head.


Diary Notes.
It rained last night and the last remnants of snow have left the garden although there is still snow in the hills.  Last nights camera traps show an otter heading North at about 1830 hrs. Also tawny owl in flight which I accidentally deleted from the disk (aargh!)  Much more bird song in the lighter mornings these days. I came across these owl pellets from a Tawny owl (the regurgitated and indigestible bits of bank voles I think.) People with too much time on their hands put these pellets in water and then dissect out the various small bones so that they can accurately determine what the owl has been  eating.
Owl Pellets









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