Our Wild Things columnist Eric Brown reports on the tiny feathered bundle which bounced back into the latest RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch chart and reveals identities of other species that fared less well in the annual citizen science survey.
Everyone enjoys watching long-tailed tits. These busy little bundles of grey-white feathers would be classified as Britain's smallest bird but for the elongated tail which gives an inflated size measurement.
Long-tailed tits construct complicated dome-shaped nests mostly in bramble or gorse consisting of moss bound with cobwebs and lined with feathers. Just days before writing this I saw a long-tailed tit carrying feathers in its bill.
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Advancing DNA techniques revealed that long-tailed tits are not closely related to the other tits as previously thought. However they enjoy foraging in woodland tit flocks. Like their companions they visit gardens too. In the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch they bounced back into the national top 10 most frequently reported birds at 10 from 15th last year.
More than half a million people spotted over nine million birds in the annual RSPB survey which reveals changes in population trends possibly caused by nature and climate crises.
Volunteers submitted bird sightings from gardens, school playing fields or a nominated area over three January days.
In the southeast region house sparrows topped the chart for the 20th successive year despite 10 million UK pairs disappearing since the late 1960s.
The chattering, chirping sparrows suffered decline with urban hedgerow destruction creating space for car parking but seem to be recovering.
The second most seen southeast garden bird was the blue tit while starlings came third. There is such concern about falling starling numbers that this spotty garden lawn dweller is now red-listed. Numbers are estimated to have fallen to 1,650,000. If you still have starlings examining your lawn for leather jackets and grubs you are lucky.
My own garden always seems to be full of greedy wood pigeons which snaffle all the food. I'm surprised they are as low as fourth on the Garden Birdwatch list while robin, a year-round daily visitor to my garden, is only sixth.
The biggest rises in the southeast region concerned feral pigeon (reports up 16.1 per cent), great tit (up 7.6 per cent) and goldfinch (up 6.3 per cent). The greatest fallers were blackbird (reports down 16.7 per cent) and wood pigeon (down 11.3 per cent).
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If you haven't yet taken part in the UK's biggest citizen science survey look out for next year's dates at the end of January. You can do it all from your cosy living room looking through the patio doors with coffee in hand.
One bird unlikely ever to be found on January BGB lists is the swift which returned to my neighbourhood on May 5 and thrills each day with spectacular flying displays.
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