Willow Tit

Dave and I have just got back from a weeks birding in the Cairngorm National Park and on the Moray and Nairn coast, but more on that in the next blog. This one is about our stopover on the way up at RSPB Fairburn Ings. We chose the site as it has resident Willow Tits. They are absent from Sussex and most of the South East and, if seen, would be a life tick for both of us.

I think we could probably have told the difference between the Willow Tit and its look alike the Marsh Tit but the beauty of Fairburn Ings is that it has no Marsh Tits. It is always good to have the odds working in your favour.

Fairburn Ings is a great site and just a few minutes from the A1. The wardens gave us some useful information and we found our first Willow Tit within a few minutes of arriving.

Willow Tit

They were very difficult to get onto in the trees and picture opportunities were limited, so in the end I resorted to photographing them on the feeders. There was no way I was going to leave without a definitive picture.

Identification of the Willow Tit is now done either by the call or by the absence of a white spot on the base of the upper mandible. However, the birds shown here do seem to show other characteristics that aid the separation from the Marsh Tit. That is, dull rather than glossy black cap, larger black bib, and thicker "bull" neck.

Willow Tit in the bag on the first day, a great start to the holiday.

The reserve also supported nesting Tree Sparrows, another species mostly absent from Sussex, a good number of Bullfinches, and gave close up views of some of the more common birds.

Tree Sparrows

Bullfinch

Greenfinch

Nuthatch

Reed Bunting

Goldfinch

It may be a case of the grass always being greener but it seems to us that the RSPB sites in the north of England are far better at getting birders close to the birds. Fairburn Ings was no exception and it is a place I will be visiting again.