Where have all my Tits gone ?

amerden

Mod's: Sorry about the title, delete adjust if necessary.

Had a fairly normal nesting year in my garden this year, with Great & Blue Tits:- 1 @ Great Tits & 2 @ Blue Tits.
Fledging time frame, Great Tits fledged 30/05, Blue Tits (a) 03/06 & Blue Tits (b) on 20/06 (late starter).
Now whilst all were sitting and feeding young etc. the adults were all regular visitors to my bird table, but when each family fledged they seem to totally abandoned my garden.
In past years they always stayed around the garden, feeding the young for a while and then I would see the young being brought to the bird table, but this year nothing, have not seen any of the them since they fledged.
My garden is the same as previous years as is the surrounding area, all other birds are feeding as usual, so am at a loss to know why I have been abandoned.
Anybody got any ideas !!!!!!!!!!!!!

stevensi

The only answer that i can think of is that at this time of the year there are more insects available for the birds to feed on so the need the for bird feeders isn't as great at this time of the year. I have house sparrows who even though are visting the feeders aren't doing so as frequently as they did earlier this year and in the winter...

Of course you might also have a very productive sparrowhawk in the area?!

amerden

It just seemed odd that I haven't seen any since fledging, but it could be the menu, I have had a resident Sparrowhawk for about 5 years, but never put off the Tits before, he seems to like Greenfinches as they are the slowest off the mark when he visits, or young Sparrows this time of year.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

It's actually the norm for young Blue & Great Tits to disperse into the wider countryside, with the adults, after fledging. There is more variety of food and shelter out there at the moment than in most gardens. They'll come back when the weather get colder and food gets scarce!:)

Rainbowsend

I noticed that also this year, the only birds that have been in the garden recently are finches and great tits, the blue tits, gold finches, robins, wrens, siskins etc all disappeared. They are gradually returning but very slowly, I have never noticed this before, especially the robins I always have at least two in the garden.

Run_to_da_hills

amerden wrote: »

Mod's: Sorry about the title, delete adjust if necessary.

Just don't let anyone in AH know about it.

I have noticed a huge drop in songbirds including tits, finches and robins since my childhood.

I blame the change in diet of foxes, modern bin styling, increase in cat population, urban sprawl, ruthless "celtic tiger" landscape contractors that use noisy two stroke "blowers" and other destructive gardening implements and of course pesticide's that have killed off the insects that most of these birds feed on.

Funkyzeit

I've had my great/blue/long tailed/coal tits, gold finches. chaffinches, sparrows, thrushes, blackbirds and robins replaced this summer by......crows...