This little blue tit has been coming around the last several days and picking bugs off our hogweed. It's hilarious to watch it dangle upside down from the umbrella-shaped flowers as it industriously goes after those aphids. (At first I thought it was eating the seeds, but when I took a closer look myself I saw all the bugs on the seed heads. A mini-ecosystem!)
It checks them out from every angle.
And it also keeps an eye on me!
He's cute and helpful too, eating the aphids.
ReplyDeleteReally good close up - I have 'photos in close-up of birds' envy!
ReplyDeleteAre there aphids all over your head Steve? Maybe you picked them up in South America.
ReplyDeleteThe blue tit is super cute. Playful as it gets
ReplyDeleteOh! What a beautiful little bird! The pest control is an added bonus.
ReplyDeleteBless those blue tits! Great photos. I’m always fascinated by how little those birds weigh. They flit from flower to flower and barely move the stems.
ReplyDeleteI don't think those birds are in my part of North America. I would remember the name "blue tits" I think!
ReplyDeleteNature's population growth is in balance and being checked, as will happen to humans one day if we don't change our ways. That is probably happening already.
ReplyDeleteLovely visitor. I like the acrobatics
ReplyDeleteWhat an industrious little tit ... a sentence I never thought I'd say.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could hang like that for long periods of time!
ReplyDeleteI should be so flexible!
ReplyDeleteLittle birds are so fascinating and lovely. Yesterday as I folded clothes, I watched a tiny sparrow having a bath in the bird bath through the window and it gave me a quiet and yet profound joy.
ReplyDeleteThe little blue bird is meticulous and he is doing a good service for your garden. Males are the more colorful in the bird world and the blue is quite beautiful.
ReplyDeleteSweet little bird!
ReplyDeleteI thought hogweed is poisonous, no?
ReplyDeleteWhat a cute little bird! I've never been good at getting bird photos, so I'm impressed with these. Such a busy, useful little thing!
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't want you to interfere. It's found a bounty of food and it was to indulge.
ReplyDeleteThat's a very helpful bird!
ReplyDeleteWhat a helpful bird!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely garden friends..they saw off the first generation of gooseberry sawfly caterpillars here...
ReplyDeleteRiver: Always happy to have birds help control the bugs!
ReplyDeleteSue: It helps to have a big zoom lens. :) (And mine isn't nearly as big as the ones some bird photographers use.)
YP: The bird wasn't attacking me! LOL
Roentare: They do look playful, hanging upside down like that.
Jennifer: They're great birds and we have lots of them!
Mitchell: Yeah, they must just weigh a few ounces!
Michael: No, they're European birds. I don't remember ever seeing them in the states.
Andrew: There are always checks and balances. I once read somewhere that people must learn to control their own population "or nature will do it for us, and it won't be pretty."
Boud: Me too!
Bob: Ha!
Ed: Gymnastics!
Pixie: Maybe someone needs to develop the "blue tit workout"!
Ms Moon: I think appreciating nature is built into our psyches and our emotions. I guess it's partly survival, but it's more than that, too.
Susan: Yeah, I don't know much about the differences between the male and female tits. (Now THERE's a sentence!)
Ellen D: It is, isn't it?
Colette: Hogweed, which is native here, can burn the skin if you touch the sap. But the birds don't seem to come to any harm from it. Both hogweed and blue tits are very common! (This is not GIANT hogweed, which is non-native and invasive and also causes burns.)
Kelly: This is one area of photography where the big camera with zoom definitely has an advantage.
Sharon: And I didn't interfere, believe me!
Margaret: Right?! This is how nature is supposed to work.
GZ: I wish they'd eat the Solomon's seal sawfly too. But nothing seems to like those larvae.
Steve:
ReplyDeleteThe average blue tit weighs less than half an ounce (10 grams). Light as a feather.
What a lovely sweet bird -- and an acrobat, too!
ReplyDelete