Helpston's wildlife
Blue, great, coal, marsh and long-tailed tits
Helpston's woods and gardens provide homes for five species of tit, all of which come readily to bird tables and feeders during the winter and all, bar the long-tailed tit, frequently use the nest boxes in Royce Wood.
The long-tailed tit was know to Clare as the 'bumarrel and in Yorkshire [it is called] the pudding bag'. He wrote
'The oddling bush close shelterd - hedge new plashd
Of which springs early likeing makes a guest
First with a shade of green though winter dashed
There full as soon bumbarrels make a nest
Of mosses grey with cobwebs closely tyed
And warm and rich as feather bed within
With little hole on its contrary side'
The marsh tit was a bird that Clare noted but didn't recognise, ' a little nameless bird with a black head and olvie green back and wings - not known - it seems to peck the Ivy berries for its food... I fancy it is of the tribe of the Tit mice.
Another species of tit, the willow tit, used to breed in Royce Wood, but has not been seen for some time, part of a catastrophic decline in numbers across England.
All five species of tit have distinctive calls. [click below to listen]