The blue tit is a well-known garden bird and one of the few species that readily uses nest boxes. Renowned for its agility and ability to learn from others of its kind, it quickly takes advantage of new food sources. A frequent visitor to bird feeders, it often showcases its acrobatic skills while feeding on nuts and seeds. During winter, blue tits commonly form mixed flocks with great tits.
Although blue tits can become infested with feather mites, which may make their plumage appear untidy, these mites only feed on dead feather tissue and have no noticeable effect on the bird’s health or wellbeing.
Breeding birds: 3,600,000 pairs
Wintering birds: 15 million
Family: Tits, Chickadees, And Titmice
The adult male blue tit has a yellow-green back and rump, with a blue tail. Its wings are blue with a prominent white wing bar and white-edged flight feathers. The underparts are pale yellow, with a narrow black line down the centre of the breast, brighter yellow flanks, and a whitish belly. The undertail coverts are creamy-yellow, and the underwings are also yellow.
The head has a bright blue crown bordered by a white stripe encircling the forehead and lores. The cheeks and ear-coverts are white, highlighted by a bold black eye stripe. The nape is blue with a distinctive white triangle, while the chin is black, extending into a collar around the neck. The conical bill is black, the eyes and black, and the legs and feet are blue-grey.
Males and females look similar, though females are slightly duller in appearance.
Juvenile blue tits are paler and less vibrant than adults, with greenish upperparts, dull yellow faces and underparts, and more yellow on the head instead of white.
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The blue tit breeds from mid-April to late June, typically producing two broods per season. It is monogamous and breeds in a variety of habitats, including forests, woodland, parks, gardens, and urban areas. Nests are usually built in small holes or cracks in trees or walls, and blue tits are frequent users of nest boxes. They have also been known to nest in unconventional places, such as post boxes.
The female constructs the nest, which is a cup-shaped structure made from dried grasses, leaves, and bark strips. It is lined with soft, downy materials such as wool, moss, and spider webs.
Blue tits lay clutches of 7–13 smooth, glossy white eggs, speckled with reddish-purple or brown spots. The eggs are incubated solely by the female for 13–15 days, during which time the male feeds her. After hatching, the chicks are fed caterpillars by both parents. They fledge approximately 16–22 days later and reach sexual maturity at one year old.
Blue tits primarily feed on invertebrates such as caterpillars, spiders, and insects. During autumn and winter, they supplement their diet with fruit, nuts, berries, and seeds, as well as nectar and sap from certain trees. They are frequent visitors to bird feeders, often displaying their agility by hanging upside down to feed.
Outside the breeding season, blue tits often forage in flocks alongside other tits and small birds.
Blue tits can be seen all year round in woodland, hedgerows, parks and gardens. They are widespread throughout the whole of the UK except some remote Scottish Islands.
A pair of blue tits will feed up to 15,000 flies or caterpillars to their fledglings over just three weeks.
