Tits

No, not what you think! Today’s post is about members of the family Paridae. This family is most famous for the bat- and bird-brain-eating Zombie Tits, usually known as Great Tits (Parus major). Great Tits are all over Europe, including Berlin, and on a normal day I guess I see between ten and over 100 of them. Unsurprisingly, I never bother to take any photos. Duh! Here’s one I recently took when I realized that I never photograph Great Tits.

OK, that’s Great Tits, the other perennial favorite of all people with a bird feeder in their garden is the Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus, formerly Parus caeruleus). But there are many more parids out there, some of them rarely seen in urban settings, some of them quite common. For example, the Long-tailed Tit (Aegithalos caudatus), which typically turns up in groups in winter. I regularly see the hectic little featherballs with the telling tail feathers in our garden, but somehow they never show up at the feeder in winter, but only flit around our neighbours willow tree in early spring. No photos, hence, as there simply is no place I can hide to photograph them from up close, and they never ever sit still.

Sometimes, however, everything just work together perfectly to allow even a total idiot the perfect shot. Or, speaking less generally, I happened to be in the Tierpark Berlin last weekend, with the sun out and behind me, lots of snow on the ground that reflected the light up (thus, no strong shadows, and short exposure times for things close to the ground), there was a bird fat ball hung low in a shrub, lots of parids were feeding on it (including Long-tailed Tits), I happened to have my camera ready, with the 300 mm Tamron on it, the sun happened to be behind me – in short, ideal conditions! The birds were really calm, too, seems they knew the zoo is a save place for them.