Tag Archives: Blue tit

The sun is back

I noticed this morning sun shadows on the wall behind my back in the living room! YES, the sun is back. A whole week of cloudy weather after the sun was due to rise again above the southern horizon, so it wasn¨’t until today we could finally be sure that the sun was back, but there was only a small break in the clouds and it was soon gone again. However, spring is definitely in the air and two great tits (kjøttmeis) have been singing in the garden the last two days and a blue tit (blåmeis) joined them a couple of times! Good times!

There’s always one: blue tit taking a shower!

It was close to 30C and I was working outside this afternoon and decided that my saskatoons (Amelanchier) could do with a bit of water. The hose was on at the base of the trees and one of this year’s blue tits (blåmeis), which had fledged a couple of weeks ago, decided it would be great to cool off with a cold shower, probably it’s first!


 

Biological control

I registered 3 great tit (kjøttmeis) territories and 1 blue tit (blåmeis) pair in the garden this year and both have raised young. One of the young great tits has been picking off diamond back moth (kålmøll) larvae on flowering radish plants on the balcony as you can see in the video:

A tour of the lower parts

I thought I’d take you for a tour of the lower parts of the garden including the forest garden. No commentary, let’s just listen to the birds and observe. In the first video, I unexpectedly stumble on a willow warbler (løvsanger), my first in the garden this year, foraging on the ground in the cold weather….you can otherwise hear singing redwing (rødvingetrost), great tit (kjøttmeis), fieldfare (gråtrost), meadow pipit (heipiplerke), house sparrow (gråspurv) and blue tit (blåmeis) in one of the two videos.

Narcotits 2018

My narcotits* are hard at it in the garden :)
*Narcotit (narkomeis): Both great and blue tits (kjøtt- og blåmeis) systematically open the ripe seed pods of poppies (Papaver somniferum) in my garden for the seeds (I first observed this behaviour some 10 years ago)….they are so keen on this novel food supply that one can speculate that they become addicted (there are low levels of opiates in the seed, maybe enough for a tit!)

Spring song

Spring can’t be stopped and this woodpigeon (ringdue) could be heard singing from the house today and I was woken at 6am (was 5am) by a robin (rødstrupe) singing in the garden (no complaints, always a beautiful moment to hear a returning Robin) ;) A black-headed gull (hettemåke) was also my first of the year and 4 pairs of Oystercatcher (tjeld) were feeding in the bay!!
I also heard singing siskin, great tit, blue tit, greenfinch and coal tit today!
Reports are also coming in of starlings (stær) arriving!

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Birds sharing Amelanchier alnifolia “Thiessen”

I always thought that thrushes like fieldfares / gråtrost and starlings / stær “shared” the most saskatoon berries (Amelanchier spp.) in my garden, but now I have to rethink as I noticed and filmed both blue tits / blåmeis and greenfinches / grønnfink eating the berries today, the blue tits taking the fruit whilst the greenfinches were eating the seed…
I love the taste of saskatoons both fresh and in particular dried, tasty but not too sweet! However, I think I’ll leave the rest to the birds (not too good a crop this year anyway)…

Birds in the garden

It was difficult to concentrate at the weekend as there was so much happening outside the living room window…here’s a selection of still pictures and videos of birds eating wild food and at and under the bird feeder!