The Blue Tit- A Guide To Ireland’s Garden Bird Species
The Blue Tit is one of Ireland’s most widespread birds. They can be found in wooded areas, farmlands, gardens, and parks. Known as ‘Meantán gorm’ in Irish, it has long been a favourite amongst Irish gardens, with a clever and active personality.
In this blog post, we’ll guide you through how to spot a blue tit in your garden, what to feed it, and the best way to care for this popular garden bird.
What Does a Blue Tit Look Like?
The blue tit is a small bird, approximately 12cm long with a wingspan of 18cm. They are a vibrant, colourful bird, with a mix of blue, yellow, white and green feathers. These colours make it one of Ireland’s most recognisable and attractive garden birds. Their cheeks are white, but have dark blue line around the eyes They have black beaks and blueish-grey legs. It’s head is blue, as are its wings and its tail.
Both males and females are similar in colour, but under ultraviolet light, males have a brighter blue crown. Juvenile blue tits have a more distinctive yellow colour.
What Do Blue Tits Like to Eat?
As with many other garden birds, blue tits love to feed on small insects such as mealworms. They will also enjoy seeds, especially during the winter time. They mostly feed caterpillars to their young as they are nesting. They are also frequent visitors to garden bird feeders, especially if there are peanuts, seeds, suet pellets and fat balls.
How to Feed Blue Tits
Blue Tits love to visit bird feeders and tables, and will readily use a peanut feeder. They can also be seen nibbling from nut-feeders if they find one hanging from a tree in your garden, or feed off any scraps that have been left behind on bird tables. They are very acrobatic birds, often being seen hanging upside-down on branches while pecking at buds and scavenging for insects.
In addition, make sure you put out a bowl of clean water. This will help keep any blue tits that visit your garden to stay hydrated and clean.
Where Do Blue Tits Nest?
These birds like small, unusual nesting sites like tree or wall cavities so smaller nesting boxes are perfect for them. Both males and females collect moss, grass, wool and sometimes hair to build the nest, but the female is generally in charge.
Once they have built a suitable nest, their eggs take about 14 days to hatch. After hatching, the adult Built Tits will visit around 400 daily times a day between them for the first couple of days. This often escalates to 1,000 or more visits per day prior to the young leaving the nest.
Blue Tits are also effective pest controllers due to the large number of caterpillars they consume in the garden.
What Do Blue Tits Sound Like?
The Blue Tits’ song is a high pitched, clear “tsee-hee-he-hee…”. Songs are generally used in late winter and spring to defend territory or to attract a mate. They also sing to notify other Blue Tits of their location. A begging-call is used by young Blue Tits to let their parents know they are hungry and looking for food.
