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At this time of year, our gardens can sound a little on the empty side at times, but one call I’ve continued to notice is the peeping of Long-tailed Tit flocks. In fact, it seems to be louder than ever as the newly fledged young join the family group to forage through the hedgerow. They are often identified through sound before sight in the field, as while in a flock, they utter constant contact calls, meaning they are often heard before they are seen. These social birds form family flocks of up to around 20 birds, sometimes many more in the winter months when they aggregate with others and form tight roosts to keep warm overnight.

The Long-tailed Tit (Aegithalos caudatus) is a distinctive small bird with a tail longer than its body, and pretty black and white plumage with a rosy pink blush. Their scientific name has an etymology harking back to ancient times; Aegithalos was a term used by writers like Aristotle to describe small woodland birds, or tits. Meanwhile, caudatus means “tailed”, making the entire name equate to “tailed tit” – not unlike their common name today. Indeed, they were previously considered to be part of the same genus as other tits, Parus, but have since been reclassified.

Like other Tits, they are insectivorous, although in tough winter months, they will supplement their diet with foraged seeds or high-fat garden foods like suet or peanuts. In the spring and summer, they show a preference for the eggs and larvae of moths and butterflies.

The nest of a Long-tailed Tit is a truly beautiful thing, tucked into dense, often spiny vegetation like brambles or gorse, it is an engineering marvel. Essentially a flexible dome-shaped pouch with a small spherical hole at the top to serve as entrance and exit, the structure is made of spider silk holding together a mesh of moss and lichens, wool and feathers. It may take 6,000 pieces to make up the whole nest, with hundreds of flakes of lichen and moss carefully placed on the outside to camouflage it and more than 1,500 feathers providing insulation for the cosy interior. With such flexibility, the nest can stretch like elastic to fit the brood as they grow inside and with a large brood size of 6-8 or even 12 chicks, this is essential!

Sadly, nesting success is poor with a high failure rate due to predation, but because they are highly social birds, if the failed breeders don’t have time to attempt a second brood, they will become helpers at the nest of another pair, who are normally related. Around half of nests have one or more helpers, and this not only increases the chance of that nest surviving, but may also give the helper themselves greater access to territories and mates in the future, along with giving them additional experience raising offspring so that their own stand a better chance of survival in the future.

Their strong social bond has made them a symbol of friendship and unity in modern symbolic lore, and the local subspecies in Japan are known as Snow Fairies. Some of their older colloquial names in Britain, though, must be among the most amusing and charming of our garden birds: bumbarrel, jack-in-a-bottle, pudding bag, bottle tom and hedge jug for their domed nests, and feather poke, mumruffin, or fuffit for their quirky appearance. Whatever you call them, they are among our favourite garden birds and always bring a smile at whatever time of year