Feathering The Nest

Feathering The Nest

I often see Long-Tailed Tits feeding on the suet feeder at the back of my studio and last April I enjoyed watching a pair building their nest just a few feet from my window within the woody stems of a Spirea Shrub.

Their amazing construction consists of interwoven mosses and lichens bound together with spiders webs and the nest is then lined with up to 2000 feathers.

They successfully reared a brood of 5 young which emerge from the nest as stubby tailed balls of fluff around two weeks after hatching. The parent birds continued feeding the fledglings in nearby branches for a few days.