Blue Tit – Acrobatic, Aggressive, Adorable

This week of summer storms has left me desperate to see some colour. I’m lucky enough to be visited by this brilliant little bird every day at our bird feeders, and I think this bout of grey weather is the perfect time to share its bright colours with you! It’s a bird who’s utterly striking, in both its vibrant feathers and its saucy attitude! This month’s bird is the Eurasian blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus), known in Irish as meantán gorm.

Did you catch all the shades of blue in the blue tit’s Latin name? Or get thrown back to primary school Irish class when you saw the word gorm? Because if there’s one thing this bird is known for, it’s being the bluest. Their vibrant and unusual colours really set them apart from our other native birds. With that bright yellow breast, iconic blue nape, crown, and wings, and fierce black eyeliner, the blue tit is one of our most striking and recognisable birds. The first time I ever saw a trio of them hanging out in the trees in Stephen’s Green, I thought they must have been someone’s escaped tropical birds! And unlike many other bird species, the males and females look exactly alike, so it’s blue time all the time.

Blue tits are so acrobatic. I’ve seen them perform some real gymnastic feats on everything from tree branches to blades of grass. These little thrill-seekers can often be seen hanging upside-down on fragile twigs, pecking at leaf buds to try and get at any insects nestled between the folds. And speaking of, if you’re someone who enjoys gardening, you will want to befriend some of these birds; they work far better than any pesticide ever could. Don’t believe me? Here’s a snippet from an old nature book written by naturalist Oliver G. Pike:

“I have watched the Blue Tit and its mate busy on one of my apple trees in the month of April; they were carefully searching the branches for buds which contained insects, and these were quickly destroyed – that is, both bud and insect. They seemed to be doing a lot of harm, but I allowed them to continue, and later on in the year that same tree had a fine crop of excellent apples. So many gardeners see a bird destroying buds and immediately jump to the conclusion that it is a pest and ought to be destroyed … One pair of Blue Tits which succeed in bringing up their family of, say ten young, will during the period of feeding them account for not less than 10,000 insects, the majority of which are very injurious to many garden crops and flowers, and every one of these will be captured within 100 yards of the nest.”

These birds are insect munching machines. In fact, young chicks depends almost entirely on the availability of green-coloured caterpillars in the area, and parents will feed these chicks as often as every 90 seconds during peak growth time. Each chick can put away a hundred caterpillars a day! While I haven’t been lucky enough to have any blue tits nesting near me, I have seen them pecking at my strawberries and climbing plants, and noticed a huge reduction in the amount of aphids on my balcony. So shout out to my regular blue tit visitors!

Blue tits are beautiful, beloved, and a third B word: bullies. During their nesting period in spring and summer these birds become fiercely territorial. They will not hesitate to take on birds that are twice their size. I’ve actually witnessed this firsthand: a blue tit once successfully managed to chase a jackdaw away from our feeder with an impressive barrage of swoops and dives. I could hear the blue tit’s distinct call over and over while it was happening, like it was taunting and laughing at the poor crow.

That particular blue tit always seems to have its crest raised when I see it. If you’ll cast your mind back to the last article, you might remember that we mentioned birds will raise their crests to appear larger and more intimidating. I’ve yet to work out if that one is trying to frighten away the other birds, our cat, or me.

In winter, when these birds are a bit calmer without nests to defend, they’ll often form gangs with other tit species’, treecreepers, and goldcrests to form roving bird bands. I can only imagine what sort of bird extortion and misdeeds they get up to (maybe they’re the reason so many birds fly south for the winter?)

These birds have been a little nefarious for as long as they’ve been around. Here’s one delightful excerpt from a piece written by Joe Kennedy for the Independent:

Once upon a time, milk arrived in bottles on doorsteps with the covers capped with waxed card and, later, tinfoil. Then, in 1921 in Southampton, a tit was sighted prizing open a bottle top to get at the thick cream settled on the milk. Other tits followed suit, and then blackbirds, sparrows and magpies copied them. This practice then crossed the Irish Sea and continued until the digestible cream was stopped and lighter milk became the norm.

Blue tits are doing well in Ireland. They’re one of the country’s top 20 most widespread garden birds, and their conservation status is currently green. However, research has shown that blue tits have been slowly losing their vibrant colour due to climate change:

“Our work suggests that environmental changes, and specifically climate change, could be the main reason why birds such as the blue tit are undergoing a change in their physical features, more specifically in the brightness and intensity of their colouration,” said David López-Idiáquez of the University of the Basque Country, “In these birds, traits such as colouring function as signals to indicate to other individuals the quality of the specimen, which are decisive, for example, when it comes to breeding,”

No doubt this colour degradation will lead to issues with breeding, and a decline in population as a result. If you want to keep our bright blue tits looking their best, consider planting some plants that attract native insects to your garden, as a food source for the birds. If you can’t do that, blue tits are not picky eaters, and will happily munch on some seeds or nuts if you leave them out for them!