Richard Prior
Halfway up an Alp
I'm fortunate enough to have Coal, Great, Blue, Marsh, Willow and Crested Tits visiting our feeders (species listed from most numerous visitors to least). Willow Tits tend to dash in to the garden, grab a seed from the feeder (or just as often from the ground beneath) and scoot off to store elsewhere, rather than consuming the food item in the vicinity of the feeder as the other tits tend to do. I read in British Birds September issue a letter about Willow Tits' caching behaviour so nothing strange there. The letter mentioned that the species appeared subdominant to Coal, Great and Blue Tits, so I was taken aback this morning to see a Willow Tit successfully steal sunflower seeds from Great, Blue and Coal Tits as they were opening them while perched in the branches of our plum tree. On around 10 occasions in 5 minutes the Willow Tit would arrive in the tree, locate a bird in the process of cracking open a seed between its toes, fly towards it (usually from below), grab the seed and fly off. The Great Tits seemed particularly targeted and offered no resistance to this 'smash and grab' raiding. I'm wondering whether the passivity of the birds originally in posession of the food item is linked to the fact that there's plenty of food provided and the weather is very mild, perhaps when the hard weather arrives such behaviour will provoke an agressive reaction towards this little criminal! Has anyone else seen Willow Tits do this so systematically?