Northern Long-tailed Tits

After the appalling weather of the last few days (wet, windy and cold), today dawned dry and very still so I decided to go out for a couple of hours. A walk around Sydvestpynten produced a few Mealy Redpolls, several Brambling, a handful of Siskin and a few Goldcrests with a notable number of Blackbirds new in since my last visit. A flyover Black-throated Diver was nice, as was a flock of 30+ Crossbills that made at least 3 attempts to migrate south before getting scared and noisily making their way back inland. Given it was so still, I decided to walk to Vestamager to look for passerines in Pinseskov. On the way I heard some Bearded Tits high above me and, eventually, I found them in my bins very high up indeed (almost into the low cloud!) - it must have taken them ages to get to that height with those tiny wings..

In the wood I stumbled across the odd group of Goldcrests before, a few hundred metres further on, a very large mixed flock of tits and crests suddenly appeared. About 15 Long-tailed Tits included some of the northern caudatus subspecies, some of the familiar europaeus ssp and a few intermediate. They gave a great show, as they always do, calling and feeding acrobatically in the branches. They were accompanied by a few Great and Blue Tits, around 20 Goldcrests and a single Treecreeper. They hung around for at least 20 minutes allowing me to get some reasonable photos before they disappeared into the wood as fast as they appeared.

Photos: 'intermediate' Long-tailed Tit; 'caudatus' Long-tailed Tits; Goldcrest; and Common Treecreeper (note white flanks, relatively long hind-claw, buff tips to the wings and 'wedge' on wing-bar)