The Marsh Tit.

Hello 

No birds of note seen today so some images of one our scarcer birds to be found in the woodlands of Northamptonshire, the Marsh Tit. This is a species which nationally is on the decline, but not as much as the rapidly vanishing Willow Tit which it closely resembles. However in Northamptonshire the Marsh Tit appears to be holding its own and is still to be found in most mature woodlands and indeed in sub-optimal woodland habitat too. 

Strongly territorial, once birds establish themselves following post-breeding dispersal, these birds will stick to 'their' wood or part of a wood if a large woodland complex. However they regularly visit feeding stations in the winter and will venture away from their preferred habitat to do so (birds were regular visitors to the Summer Leys nature reserve feeding station last winter).

Visually these birds are easy to overlook but audibly they are rarely quiet and like most tits have a significant repertoire of calls and rather less variation in their songs. The biggest Marsh Tits overlap the smallest Blue Tits in size but are generally smaller than the Blue but bigger than the Coal Tit. Like all tits they will use holes in trees and sometimes will take to standard tit boxes to rear their young; they like to partly excavate or physically manipulate a nesting site but generally do not excavate or create a nest site to the extent of the industrious Willow Tit.

Sunflower seeds (with or without husks) are their favourite artificial food and birds quickly tame up where this food is offered. They will also consume bird fat, peanuts, niger seed, mealworms and other seeds too. It is likely that this species is present in all reasonable-sized woods in the county which offer at least some mature deciduous trees, hazel, thorn bushes (with berries) and standing rank vegetation with seed heads or similar.

Precocious, noisy, expeditious and full of bounce, these birds always make me smile when they come bounding along a woodland ride in the winter to see what I have for them, or later in the spring singing their rich if repetitive song from the cover of new buds and  leaves...

Regards

Neil M

Marsh Tits at
Scotland Wood,
Kelmarsh Estate.