Long-tailed tits

[trastevere]

During a recent enforced stay at home following surgery, I alieviated some of my boredom by hanging out fat balls in my back garden to enjoy watching the visiting birds. I was most surprised by the variety of birds which came to feed. Forty / fifty years ago as a child I can recall how plentiful blue tits were. Until now I can't remember ever having seen a long-tailed tit though I must have seen almost every British wild bird specie at some time or another. Well, apart from sparrows the most frequent feeders have been long tailed tits. Never singly, but sometimes a pair but usually a group of 12+. Of course there have been blue and great tits but only in small numbers. Can anyone please tell me if there has been a recent significant increase in the long-tailed tit population and a decrease in the number of blue tits.

[burnhal]

what area are you in? In my garden in Luton blue tits are as numerous as ever. And on the reserve I warden on near Oxford. Long-tailed tits are occasional visitors to the garden- usually in pairs. On the reserve they are groups of up to 20 during the autumn and winter but are seen in pairs now during the breeding season

[trastevere]

I live in a semi-rural area on the eastern outskirts of Manchester. My observations were made end Feb/beginning of March. I'll hang out some fat balls this weekend to see if long-tailed tit sightings are now predominantly pairs and not the larger numbers previously encountered.

[WendyS]

We're a couple of miles from a large woodland area in Bucks where they are quite common and some of them migrate out to our garden where we enjoy seeing them although they seem much shyer than blue tits and great tits which visit us regularly. But I'm hanging out more fat balls now it's hatching time as well as Atora suet pellets and soft fatty oats as all the birds seem to prefer these to peanuts and grain which are probably easier for their nestlings to digest, as well as their usual diet of insects.

[stevie"stan"]

I've come across some Great Tits in my time, ALWAYS in pairs.

I'd agree that encounters of this nature are very few and far between these days, but this could be down to my age.

I'm not sure that my neighbours would appreciate me hanging my fat balls out of the window though, so I'll give that one a miss.

[thecoach]

I hang my fat balls out the window most evenings, as long as the weathers right. I once hung them out in the winter, disaster, they took days to thaw out, no tits went anywear near my balls for ages. One did, but it just went all hard at the end, must have had something to do with the cold.

Ive come to the conclusion that its best to let them hang out in the summer, there are alot more tits about.