Bearded Tit Bonanza

The grit tray season is well under way with a total of 62 sightings recorded,mainly from Keith Kellet and Brian Howson, over the past five days. We have also caught a further 30 birds at three different sites around the Moss, To date we have ringed 82 juveniles and 38 Adult males and 21 Adult females. So the imbalance between the sexes continues.

Perhaps the most interesting finding was the catching of a female which had been ringed as a nestling in one of our wigwam nest boxes on 20/5/04 making it six years and 129 days old. Certainly our oldest female to date, and probably a British record. The Oldest male this period was five years and 59 days. Although our oldest Bearded Tit of all was a male at 7 year and 42 days a British Record it was still alive in October 2009.

Another interesting observation was the catching of three birds (2 males and a female) with consecutive ring numbers, they had all been ringed as nestling's in the same brood in May 2009. This shows excellent survival but it is most unusual for siblings to be found together after such a period.

The 62 grit tray sightings involved 33 birds, of these only 8 were birds hatched this year. This preponderance of adults early in the gritting season has been recorded in all previous years studied - the young birds only appearing in numbers by mid October.


John