The Great Tit Birds Of Askham Bog

Our nature photographer, Jessica Moses, has been to Askham Bryan College Wildlife & Conservation Park to photograph the Great Tits.

The great tit is the largest in the tit species family and is a colourful bird with greenish-yellow plumage. It has a black head with striking white cheeks and is roughly the same size as a robin. Great tits are found across the UK in woodland, farmland, parks and gardens.

Great tits thrive on seeds in the winter. They use their feet to hold large food items such as beech mast and acorns and then hammer them open with their bills.

During the breeding season, great tits can switch to eating invertebrates such as caterpillars. When feeding on caterpillars, the bills become longer and less deep and when they start to feed on seeds, the bills become shorter and deeper.

According to Garden BirdWatch data, which has been collected since 1995, great tits are most frequently seen in around 80% of gardens in December.

The great tit is not of conservation concern and numbers have grown significantly since the 1970s. However, the species can suffer from habitat loss when trees and vegetation are destroyed.

Information sourced from the woodlands trust.org and discover wildlife.com

Jessica Moses Instagram address is _geese_flying_