Bird Table News

I haven’t seen many blue tits at my feeders lately.  These birds are truly British Birds as they are resident and don’t migrate. 

Thanks to the British Trust for Ornithology and their Volunteers Bird Ringers I’ve just found out how bad it is.

 Every year trained BTO volunteers put up nets in the same sites.  They do this 12 times during the summer.  They can then compare numbers from past years.

 This year the volunteers found that  numbers were down -

• 48% for young blue tits 
• 33% for young great tits

 Three cheers for the Volunteer Bird Ringers.  What a good job they are doing finding out this information.

But what sad news that Blue Tit numbers are down by nearly half.

Millions of birds may have drowned or starved during the storms and floods earlier in the year.

 

A warm early spring and a cold summer made it hard for them to find food.  This is because blue tit chicks that are newly hatched stay in the nest and are fed caterpillars and only caterpillars.  The warm weather in early spring brought out the caterpillars too early.

How lucky we are to be removed from the daily grind of finding food.  In the dim and distant past before farming began we were hunter gatherers.  As hunter gatherers we spent hours and days hunting for food.  When people began to sow seed and grow crops  and so start farming it made their lives much easier .  It let people live a more settled and secure life.

My November resolution is to find out exactly what the best food would be to feed Blue Tits and make sure there is some out all winter.

Here is a healthy, happy Blue Tit.  Hope their numbers increase in  2008.

Have a good day.  Trisha

 

 

Tags: blue-tits, caterpillars, great-tits