Coal Tit

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The good news is that I braved the cold & cleaned my study window! I'm so glad I did, as my bird photos through the window suddenly became clearer! Well of course they did!

Coal tit is a bird you usually find in great numbers in conifer woodland, but due to the large amount of favourable food put out by us humans, they, like so many other wild birds now frequent our gardens, esp in cold weather when food in their natural habitats are scarce.

Being so tiny like blue tits, goldcrests & wrens they had a harsh winter last year & great numbers were lost to the cold, they expend so much energy flying from tree to tree they constantly have to be feeding.

This little chap or chapess visited the sunflower heart feeder once every one minute & 15 seconds on average - I timed him coming in & out for an hour & my weak mathematical brain (& calculator) worked it out! They're the only tit that doesn't stay very long at the feeders so to get a clear shot wasn't very easy! Plus they're the only member of their family that has learned to make a larder. Individual birds will visit feeders frequently but rarely eat the food immediately instead they take it away to a store so that when times get hard they have something in reserve.

If anyone knows why they were named 'coal' then please let me know, thank you :)