They are pretty little birds with gray suits and dark black eyes and a black face. They are tufted titmice, and we have a family in our yard each year.
The year-round residents visit our feeders regularly and they absolutely love peanuts. I don’t spread peanuts in my yard as much as I once did because that encourages the squirrels – destructive varmints that they are. Our squirrels actually gnawed off the red plastic on the arms of our outside Adirondack chairs – so no peanuts for them.
But the feed I am now using in my main feeder has a few nuts and berries mixed in, which the titmice devour. They also like sunflower hearts and seeds.
We once had a family that nested in a box on our patio, and we happened to be there when five little ones fledged. The adults didn’t pay us a bit of mind as they tweeted and chirped and cajoled the chicks to fly.
The friendly little birds have a cheerful “peta-peta-peta” call. They generally have two broods a year with 5 to as many as 7 eggs. In nature, titmice exhibit several behaviors that make them unique. They have, for example, an alarm call that seems to fade off into the distance, giving the impression that the bird is moving from one place to another.
An interesting name, the word “tit” comes from a Scandinavian word meaning “little.” The titmouse, a first cousin of the chickadee, is slightly larger than a sparrow but not quite as big as cardinal.
They are always welcomed guests in my yard – or maybe it’s the human family that’s welcomed in theirs?
