Azure Tit (Cyanistes cyaneus)

This powdery-white and delicate blue tit is a rare bird in our area. The only significant populations are in Belarus’. From time to time, though, nomadic wanderers turn up in Scandinavia and Central Europe from Russia, much to the delight of birdwatchers there. The local Blue Tits may be affected, too, because the two species quite often form mixed pairs, and a hybrid version, the so-called “Pleske’s Tit”, is well known.

On its home turf the Azure Tit is a bird of riverside broad-leaved woodland, damp thickets, marshy scrub and floodlands. It can be difficult to see, because birds have a habit of foraging from top to bottom and soon disappearing behind a screen of dense foliage. When foraging in a willow, for example, they begin with the small twigs and work their way down to the ground, and in reedbeds they methodically extract caterpillars from the stems, roof to ground floor. In common with most tits, they feed mainly on seeds in the winter.

The above birds may not be the best ever image of the species – but they are my first Azure Tits and my photo! Turov, Belarus, 2/5/2013.