GARDEN BIRDS 3- GREAT, BLUE AND COAL TITS

 

Hi! Before we start, two things- one, I am changing the font of my blog because I realised the other one was quite hard to read. And secondly, sorry I haven't posted for a couple of days, I have been really busy with school and some of my Environmental campaigning. This post is about three garden birds to compensate!

These birds are from the tit family. There are others tits- crested, bearded, and long-tailed (which is a garden visitor but not so common so I haven't included it. Today, I am going to be talking about the Great, Blue and Coal tits!

Firstly, my favourite- the small but tame Blue Tit, or Cyanistes Careruleus. This is the smallest of the tits I will be talking about today. This bird is the first on the above picture. It has an adorable baby-blue crown, dark eye stripe and a yellow breast. They are pretty easy to identify if seen clearly. Blue tits are also noisy birds- their tsee-tsee-tsee is sometimes what wakes me up in the morning! They are skillful acrobats and will provide a performance by hanging upside down from bird feeders.

Now, the second in the picture- the shyer coal tit (Periparus Ater). I actually have never seen one where I live and they have never visited our garden; but I know that they are garden visitors so I have included them. It is a duller, smaller version of the great tit, with more muted colours and a distinctive white nape. It will visit gardens, but is a bird of conifer trees, where it forages on the thinnest of branches. You may see it in a flock with the other tits which band up to find food in winter. The Coal tit's song goes wi-choo wi-choo but it's alarm call is similar to that of the blue tit.

Last, but not least, the bold and sometimes agressive Parus Major: the Great tit! They are rambunctious birds that have a variety of songs so wide it is almost impossible to record them all. The most common is its' typical tea-cher tea-cher, in my garden this is sometimes followed by a hoarse chattering that sounds a bit like cha-ka cha-ka but really fast and repeated. Great tits are most easily identified by the broad stripe that runs down their belly.

U hope you have enjoyed reading about these three common birds, next time I will be talking about another favourite, whose scientific name is Turdus Merula. See you then!

PS: I am co-hosting an event with other young people for Fairtrade Fortnight, if you are between the ages of 12-18 please sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/we-are-the-future-tickets-140819245153