Cyanistes caeruleus
A colourful mix of blue, yellow, white and green makes the blue tit one of our most attractive and most recognisable garden visitors. In winter, family flocks join up with other tits as they search for food. A garden with four or five blue tits at a feeder at any one time may be feeding 20 or more.
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Blue tits are easy to recognise, with a blue cap and yellow breast. Young blue tits have yellow instead of white cheeks.
Daily Life
Breeding
Legal Status
Territory
Overview
Blue tits breed wherever there are areas of trees with suitable nest holes. They start looking for nesting sites about February, preferring small holes or narrow cracks in trees about 1 - 15 metres from the ground. Nest-boxes in gardens are readily used, especially if there is a shortage of natural sites in an area.
Both males and females search for nest holes, but when the male finds somewhere suitable, he displays by fluttering his wings and calling to his mate; he will then go into the hole, calling the female and hoping she will follow and approve the site. She doesn't always approve it and may reject several before deciding on the one she wants! She builds the nest alone, collecting moss, dried grass, dead leaves and wool to fill the bottom of the nest hole; she forms a cup-shaped structure with this material and finally lines it with soft feathers or hair.
A clutch of 7 - 13 eggs is laid from mid-April to early May. The eggs are white with reddish-brown speckling and are laid at the rate of one a day. Incubation begins only when the clutch is almost complete - the female usually covers the eggs with some nest lining if she has to leave them for a while.
Incubation lasts almost two weeks and whilst the female is sitting on the eggs, the male defends the area around the nest site from other blue tits, so protecting the available food needed for both adults and, later, the young. He also brings food to his mate. The young hatch at a time when food is at its most abundant. They are fed by both parents, mainly on small caterpillars, and stay in the nest for two or three weeks. The adults also remove the droppings regularly, to keep the nest clean.
Blue tits and their nests are fully protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which makes it an offence to intentionally kill, injure or take any wild bird. It is an offence to intentionally take, damage or destroy eggs, young or nest of any tit whilst it is being built or in use. Nestboxes can be cleared out only between August and January (any infertile eggs remaining must be destroyed). It is also essential to ensure nests are not destroyed when hedge trimming or tree felling in the breeding season.
The total breeding population of blue tits has probably declined in the last 40 years because of the loss of many woodlands. However, they are still quite common and there are over 4 million breeding pairs in the British Isles.
Blue tits in the garden are helpful as they feed their young with thousands of caterpillars during the spring and summer, so helping to keep down the numbers of plant-eating pests.
We can help blue tits by feeding them with peanuts and fat, especially during the winter. Whole peanuts should only be offered in a mesh container, enabling birds to peck off little bits of nut. If a misguided parent bird were to feed a whole nut to its baby, it may cause it to choke and die. Nesting boxes with small entrance holes may be put up in suitable places in the garden to provide extra nest sites.
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Territorial activity starts in earnest at the end of the winter, on mild fine days as early as February. Adult males tend to hold on to the territory from the previous year, though boundaries can change. Young males breeding for the first time establish themselves in the gaps between these territories. Territory boundaries are firmly determined by end of March. Breeding densities of blue tits tend to be 2-3 times greater than of great tits. Broad-leaved woodland is the best habitat, and breeding densities there can be several times higher than in the marginal habitat of suburban gardens. In an average year, nest building starts around mid- to late March in the south and mid-April or later in the north of the UK. Mild winters, and changes in weather, including abnormally cold or warm spells, can alter the timing considerably. The female is likely to have roosted in the nest chamber for days or weeks prior to nest building.
Blue tits are noisy, sociable and inquisitive birds. They use their strong legs and claws to hang at any angle and investigate clusters of buds or pick off a caterpillar from a leaf. During the summer the blue tits live mainly on insects found in the tops of trees. In autumn, food from the hedgerow is important, including hawthorn and elderberries. The blue tits' strong stubby beaks can break into tough tree seeds such as beech-mast. The main winter food is seeds; blue tits are often seen feeding in gardens where they readily accept nuts, fat etc. They follow a routine feeding patrol and in a single day, over 200 may feed at a nut bag.
Latin name
Cyanistes caeruleus
Family
Tits (Paridae)
Distribution
Widespread throughout the British Isles and Europe from southern Scandinavia, east to Moscow and south to North Africa.
Habitat
Mainly broad-leaved woodland; less common in conifer forests. Also parks, farmland and gardens.
When to see them
All year round.
Average size
12cm (4.5in)
Life-span
Average - 1.5 years
Oldest known - 15 years
Food
Mainly insects and their larvae, spiders, seeds, fruit, grain, nuts and buds.
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