Long-Tailed Tits

As I mentioned in my post last Thursday, LTT's now visit very regularly - in fact they appear several times each day, starting quite early in the morning, and almost always exclusively using our feeder for "fat balls" rather than the seed or nut feeders.  During the winter they visit mob-handed;  the previous year's brood often stay with the parents through the winter.  To see - as on one occasion not long ago - twelve or so of these remarkably agile little birds flitting about together is a real delight.

Now, however, our visitors are a pair, arriving together and very much operating as a couple. Along with our pair of robins, a real sign of spring. Not that today is all that spring-like, with high winds and cloudy skies - but, thankfully, so far not the flood of rain the weatherman was predicting a day or two back. We could certainly do with the comparatively dry spell continuing for a while longer, though I doubt it'll happen.

I hope the daily presence of LTT's is a sign that they'll be nesting somewhere close by. It would be really nice to have their company through the spring and summer. The nest is one of the most finely fashioned of our bird's nests, and they will raise a family of between eight and twelve.