Long-tailed tits | Aegithalos caudatus

Dwellers of hedgerows, elder, holly and hawthorn

Of all the birds, it’s the long-tailed tits that care least about my existence. They literally couldn’t give two flaps that I’m here in the garden as they dance around me, leap frogging one another from tree to tree. It’s as if I am not here at all.

Distinctive is the word I’d use for long-tailed tits, with that visibly long tail, black and grey markings and rounded fluff ball bodies with pookie eyes. They effortlessly straddle the art of cute and cool.

I often hear them coming before I spot them, their distinctive clicking noise as they prowl the garden hedges and fruit trees for aphids and other small insects to eat. What are they saying to one another? Are they talking to themselves? Telling each other what they’ve found? Having a gossip?

Yesterday I watched mesmerised as the same pair in front of me clicked around the front of our house clinging to the stone window frames and walls warmed in the sun. This is where red spider mites, spiders and other insects crawl catching some rays…