Most of us tend to think of the Blue Tits visiting the feeders in our garden as 'our' Blue Tits. Thinking that we have the same birds resident throughout the winter. A quick trawl through our ringing returns give an insight into what is happening in our local Blue Tit population.
The first thing our ringing reveals is that many of the birds visiting our gardens in winter breed in the upland oak woods of Bowland and the upper Lune valley. We have at least 13 reports in just the last four years of birds ringed as nestlings in our nest boxes in these upland woods moving five to 15 kms to feeders within our villages or towns. There is also some evidence of birds moving from further afield to take advantage of our hospitality with recoveries of birds breeding in Grizedale Forest Cumbria and Catterick Camp in North Yorkshire.
How many Blue Tits are visiting a garden is also revealed by our ringing. In a very small garden in the village of Over Kellet Andrew Cadman caught over the course of the last autumn/winter a total of 148 Blue Tits but the most he ever saw on his feeders rarely
exceeded five. Many of course are doing the rounds of other garden feeding stations.
Two recent reports of birds ringed at a feeding station at Heysham Nature Reserve this autumn and winter and found two and 32 days later 8 and 15 km inland shows that these birds can be quite mobile at this time of year.
John
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