SCIENCE IN PICS: The Blue Tit’s Colorful Tale

The Blue Tit, Cyanistes caeruleus, is a common garden bird found throughout Europe and in many parts of Western Asia.
SCIENCE IN PICS: The Blue Tit’s Colorful Tale
A pair of Blue Tits, Cyanistes caeruleus, pecking at a garden birdfeeder. (Luc Viatour/www.Lucnix.be)
1/3/2012
Updated:
10/1/2015
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The Blue Tit, Cyanistes caeruleus, is a common garden bird found throughout Europe and in many parts of Western Asia.

The bird is famous for its attractive, bright blue “skull cap” head-feather pattern and lemon-yellow underside. The front of a male Blue Tit’s head glows under ultraviolet light, as, like many birds, they are able to see UV light. It is thought that this is how females choose their mates.

In summer they usually feed on insects and worms, but in winter—when their primary food is scarce—they switch to seeds and nuts. The birds are fun to watch while they flutter and perform lively acrobatics next to garden birdfeeders.

Blue Tits have one of the largest egg clutch sizes among all birds, consisting of up to 16 eggs. The female lays one egg a day, and before incubation, she plucks feathers from her abdomen to create a bare “brood patch,” which is enriched in blood vessels so she can transfer body heat to the eggs.

The young chicks hatch naked and blind, and are thereafter fed laboriously by their attentive parents. Adults might have to find as many as 1,000 caterpillars a day to feed a brood of 10 chicks, as each young chick can eat up to 100 caterpillars a day.