BLUE-TIT: water pistol drives off marauding predators

SMALLER, but more cocksure and adventurous, perhaps it isn't surprising that the blue-tit was recently found to have overtaken the sparrow as the commonest of our garden birds.

This perky little character, with his jaunty blue 'cap' and tubby shape, is now believed to be the most frequent visitor to the nut net or bird table in countless gardens nationwide.

I can still remember being a child when the sudden arrival of that distinctive blue and yellow plumage in the bushes outside the window was a major event.

By then, the usual hordes of plainer, drabber sparrows or much larger, noiser starlings had normally finished off any titbits provided.

Today, the tables have turned and numbers of sparrows, at least, seem to be in decline, although no-one seems certain as to why this might be.

Not that this would concern your average blue-tit which just goes about its daily hunt for food with its usual frenetic pecking and dazzling acrobatics. It's interesting to observe blue-tits looking for caterpillars in the same bushes as the bigger, more aggressive great tits.

Although a blue-tit, if it has any sense, always gives way to the great tit, its lighter frame and nimbler perching skills allow it to venture right to the edge of the tiniest twigs where a juicy insect or caterpillar might be hiding. So it is seldom without a meal.

Nesting blue-tits produce a single brood of up to 13 chicks each year.

This seems quite a high number but needs to be since so few will survive those first dangerous days out in the big wide world where many predators are lurking.

For two years, a blue-tit - I'm sure it was the same one - nested in a bird box I put up above the kitchen window at a house where we used to live.

I often watched the mother or its partner return to the box with caterpillars when the chicks hatched, darting in and out of the hole so as to attract the least attention from prowling cats or magpies.

One day I even disturbed a magpie, squatting on top of the box like an evil ghoul, trying unsuccessfully to reach the cowering chicks inside with its beak.

Outraged, I metamorphosed immediately from neutral observer to vigilante and from then on even kept a loaded water pistol handy.

Any magpies or drooling cats I discovered anywhere near the box were duly squirted.

I remember my daughter, aged about two back then, coming to me urgently one Saturday morning with a strange look in her eyes.

'What's the matter ?,' I asked.

She said nothing but led me out of the kitchen door into the back garden where one of the blue-tit chicks lay motionless, its neck broken after falling seven feet onto concrete.

Poor thing...it had obviously slipped, the victim of its own curiosity.

I picked up the soft, still-warm bundle with its lolling head and tight-closed eyes.

I think I had already launched into a comforting speech to spare my daughter's feelings before I realised she was actually back in the house playing with a toy.

Each year, I managed to miss the dramatic moment when the fully fledged chicks finally burst out of the nest and scattered into surrounding bushes. But I think I was probably only a few minutes late the second time around when one nervous juvenile actually stayed put for a while.

As you can imagine, the mother became quite frantic to eject it and tried everything, bar dragging it out by the scruff of its neck.

Eventually, junior took the plunge and shot into the nearest bush to hide.

I have no idea how many chicks survived but later in the day saw a neighbour's stealthy ginger cat lying drowsily in the grass next door.

He was licking his chops and paws with the satisfaction of one who has just enjoyed a gourmet meal.