Great Tit

Description:

Some more shots from my backyard this winter, where we increased our feeding capacity and are enjoying observing some of less usual winter visitors. The great tit is one of the usual ones, present all year long. The great tit is the largest of European tits, about the size of sparrow and easy to recognize thanks to its black pattern - crown, bib, throat and neck are black while cheeks are white. Chest is yellow, with black central line splitting it to two. Back is olive green, while the wing covers are bluish.

Habitat:

Seen in the backyard of our residence building, at outskirts of a small urban center in Geneva lake valley. The backyard counts a number of deciduous trees and shrubs, most of them spontaneous and local, some planted. The backyard neighbours a meadow (used for producing hay) and a lowland deciduous (mainly oak and beech) forest, and some other agricultural fields.

Notes:

As mentioned above, this winter, expecting harsher winter this year, we increased number of feeders in our backyard to some twenty feeding spots. I abandoned some commercial bird feeding mixtures, and we are filling these feeders (almost every day) with sunflower seeds and/or home-made grease balls. We did observe some new, less usual visitors and some interesting interactions as well - for example, main players on our feeders were always tits (great tit and blue tit) and a large group of sparrows. However, Goldfinches, arriving in large groups (7 to 10 birds at the same time) and making a lot of noise (I call them pirates...), can take over most of feeders for some time (pic N° 4). Other 'bullies' are Greenfinches - they show up in very small groups (2 to 3 at the time), but clear the feeding spots very efficiently.