The tiny Colourful Blue Tit, in a natural woodland habitat. SCO7094
The azure blue crown and dark blue line passing through the eye and encircling the white cheeks to the chin give the Blue Tit a very distinctive appearance. The forehead and a bar on the wing are white. The nape, wings and tail are blue; the back is yellowish green; the under parts mostly sulphur-yellow with a dark line down the abdomen. The bill is black, the legs bluish grey, and the irides dark brown. Young Blue Tits are noticeably more yellow. This is a common and popular European garden bird, due to its perky acrobatic performances when feeding on nuts or suet. It swings beneath the holder, calling tee, tee, tee or a scolding churr. The song period lasts almost all the year round, but is most often heard during February to June. Blue and Great Tits form mixed winter flocks, and the former are perhaps the better gymnasts in the slender twigs. A Blue Tit will often ascend a trunk in short jerky hops, imitating a Treecreeper. As a rule the bird roosts in ivy or evergreens, but in hard weather will shelter in a hole. Blue tits are very agile and can hang from almost anywhere. The Blue Tit has an average life expectancy of years Eating peanuts from a garden bird feederThe Blue Tit is a valuable destroyer of pests, though it has not an entirely clean sheet as a beneficial species. It is fond of young buds of various trees, and may pull them to bits in the hope of finding insects. No species, however, destroys more coccids and aphids, the worst foes of many plants. It takes leaf miner grubs and green tortrix moths (Tortricidae). Seeds are eaten, as with all this family.
Size: 5140px × 4078px
Location: Scottish Abernethy Forests, Strathspey, Highland, Scotland. UK
Photo credit: © David Gowans / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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