Long-tailed Tit

Aegithalos caudatus

The sound of the first cuckoo? Joyous. Listening to a nightingale on a warm evening in May? Sublime, obvs.

But let’s be clear - there’s nothing more warming than the see-see-see-see that preludes an encounter with long-tailed tits.

Long-tailed tits are invariably on the move, and constitutionally incapable of doing so without making a minor racket.

Amid anonymous tiny tweets and beeps, their insistent, mouse-like see-see-see-seeand their gossipy tsuuurrrppp calls are quite distinctive.

Once you’ve heard one or both of those noises, the next question is: how many long-tailed tits are you about to meet?

In the early spring, it’s likely to be a pair of birds. They may well be in the business of collecting lichen and spiderwebs for their cocoon-like nests.

It’s the nest’s shape that is thought to have inspired the long-tailed tit’s alternative name: ‘bumbarrel’. It’s a remarkable domed construction. Am I alone in wanting to shrink down to Borrower size, climb in and spend the night?

From early May the fluffy-headed youngsters emerge to form noisy travelling parties with their parents, and perhaps with other adult birds that may have helped to rear them.

It’s not unusual to encounter double figures of long-tailed tits hanging out together. Counting is best done as they cross a gap between bushes, in sporadic ones, twos and threes.

For the rest of the year it’s these sociable troupes that thread their way through woodlands, along hedges and across gardens, churring and whistling as they go.

And as the summer progresses these Roving Tit Flocks (TM) often draw in other species - blue, great and coal tits, goldcrests, treecreepers, chiffchaffs - to form kaleidoscopic, loosely-connected parties of many birds. Bumping into one of these groups can transform an otherwise quiet walk into an immersive, surround-sound experience.

Another good reason to tune into your bumbarrels.

Nest image by nottsexminer, reproduced under CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Long-tailed tit image by sdm2019 on Pixabay