Our recent postings have shown how abundant Coal tits have been this autumn. But what about the other tits, how are they faring?
I looked at the catches of Blue and Great Tits at four of our regularly manned sites- Teddy Heights, Leighton Moss, Over Kellet and Heysham. Effort between years has been similar.
The Great Tit catch this autumn has been 118 compared to 129 in 2011. So very similar between the years.
By contrast Blue Tits totaled 280 this year compared to 664 last year, a decline of 58% between years.
Why there should be such a contrast between the species is interesting. A quick look at our nest box results suggested that both species produced fledged young somewhat below average but certainly not catastrophic. It looks as though post breeding survival in blue tits must have been very poor.
Will be interesting to see what happens this winter and especially next spring to see what the occupation rate will be in our nest boxes.
John
1 comment:
Not too sure about this title with respect to Heysham or alternatively there has been even less movement of Great Tits through here than usual. There has also been comparatively little subsequent evidence of the record numbers of nestlings ringed this year at e.g. the feeders
Blue Tits did really badly in the nestboxes here this year with just 11 pulli ringed in comparison to 52 Great Tit (and several 'spare boxes' so probably not due to competition with Great Tit)
However, only 47 full-grown Great Tit have been ringed this year in comparison with a similarly relatively low 100 full-grown Blue Tit (only 36 during the autumnal time period producing 168 Coal Tit) contrasting with an average number of Long-tailed Tit (52) and record numbers of Coal Tit (180), all but 12 of the latter since September 25th
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