Another miserable day, weather-wise, was improved by three quarters of an hour in Hillers bird hide, watching the antics of a raft of small, and a few bigger, birds. I was going to feature the Goldfinch, whom I snapped waiting for a perch to come free on the nearby sunflower seed feeder, because he’s a handsome chap and at Hillers it’s unusual to catch one of these finches such a naturalistic setting… but….
Long-tailed Tit = irresistible.
Honestly – just look at it. It’s like a tiny pink, white and black lion – or something else I can’t quite come up with that’s tiny, pink, white, and black, with a very long tail and a very big attitude. King of the tiny long-tailed passerines, at any rate. Or queen, maybe – unlike the rule of thumb that says a Goldfinch is male if its red face mask extends back past the eye, I know of no trick that will help to sex a Long-tailed Tit, except asking one of its friends and relations, which is unreliable.
I’m indebted to Wikipedia (which, as we know, is always accurate) for the information that the Long-tailed Tit’s colloquial English name at one time was the Bum Towel. This Bird Watching article agrees, and adds some more old nicknames, including Mumruffin, Bum Barrel and Hedge Jug. This in turn reminds me that for some while I’ve been meaning, and forgetting, to post a link to an article by Weird Medieval Guys on Substack about the old English names of various birds. It’s a measure of how much I like WMG that I’m prepared to overlook their spelling of mediaeval.
R: L2, C4, D18.
