Sharon Boardman - Wildlife - 13 December, 2008 (From Worcester News)

Sharon Boardman - Wildlife - 13 December, 2008

10:05am Monday 15th December 2008 in

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THE next time you fill up that old peanut feeder and sit back in your chair to watch the birds descend, watch how they interact with each other. These birds have a social order that puts us humans to shame!

You will quickly notice that each bird has a particular skill that allows it to do exactly what it needs to do to avoid any real confrontation. This is what allows the bird to feed and therefore survive and breed.

Look at the blue tit for instance.

Though much smaller than the bulky great tit and prone to being chased off whenever the larger bird fancies a snack, they are able to survive in the same garden because they are quick, slender and skilful, enabling them to balance carefully on the feeder, take a nut, and fly off before the great tit returns.

After some more careful watching, you may be lucky enough to notice another small bird visit your feeder. With a striking black cap and white cheeks, this will be a coal tit.

These birds are even smaller than both blue tits and great tits, so you may well ask how on earth will this bird be able to feed and survive if it is competing with these two larger relatives?

Two things give this bird an advantage. One is that the coal tit is even more agile and patient than the blue tit. It will wait in the fringes of your garden, away from the main action at the feeders, while the other birds get their fill.

Then, when all is silent, they will fly in, grab a nut with great precision and quickly vacate the area before trouble arrives. They also store a lot of the food to eat later, resulting in them spending less time actually on the feeders.

The second reason for the coal tit’s ability to survive comfortably is that these three species are not directly competing.

Both great tits and blue tits spend most of their lives in deciduous trees, but while the great tit prefers feeding in the large inner branches, the blue tit is able to take insects from thinner branches higher up in the trees, because it is a smaller, more acrobatic bird. Therefore, it has regained its advantage that it lost to the great tit at the feeders because it can take food from areas that the great tit cannot.

You may well ask where in the tree the coal tit can live, considering the inner and outer branches are already taken? The answer is that this bird prefers conifer trees. Being more nimble than the other two birds, the coal tit is able to take insects from small cracks among pine needles by delicately balancing on them, and so finds a home in these trees instead. So next time you sit back to watch these birds, pay close attention to their unique behaviour.