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Big news from the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch survey results just out: the long-tailed tit has made it, for the first time in the survey's 30-year history, into the top 10. I hardly ever saw these gregarious little birds until I moved to East Dulwich

. It was with a big gang of long-tailed tits that darted one by one between the shrubs with a little “deet deet deet”. I love long-tailed tits, and stood watching them for a while, when these tiny mouse-sized birds appeared. Their behaviour, shape and size were so

increasing year on year: great spotted woodpecker up 141 per cent since 1995, blue tit up 7 per cent, great tit 46 per cent, coal tit 17 per cent, long-tailed tit 27 per cent, nuthatch 80 per cent, song thrush 13 per cent, and blackbird 23 per cent. But it

of them in the trees (this MUST be the correct collective noun for such a noisy congregation). Unlike starlings and sparrows, which stick to their own kind when they want to hang out together, this was a mixed bunch. Blue, great, and long-tailed tits were

’ve been writing this, a long-tailed tit just bobbed into that same apple tree, and a fox just popped through the gap in the fence and trotted up the muddy lawn. I’ve seen the first insect too — a harlequin ladybird. Normal service has been resumed.

humans, so spend most of the day feeding just to survive the night. Last winter was particularly hard on our birds - long tailed tits declined by a quarter and numbers of our third smallest bird - the wren - fell by 22 per cent.The best supplementary

flitting through the branches of a cherry laurel tree I looked twice. It was a goldcrest.I've never seen one hereabouts before. Apparently the recent spate of mild winters has helped their numbers increase. Who knows, maybe they'll be vying with the long-tailed

down. There are three of four long-tailed tits in next-door-but-one's pear tree. A female blackbird is scavenging for bits of left-over windfall under our apple tree. The squirrels seem thoroughly fed up with it all, and chatter angrily at each other

couple of thrushes look curiously at the small gaggle of blue/ great/ long-tailed tits in the apple tree. Four wood pigeons hunch, bored, in the big sycamore tree. I think there’s even a robin perched way off in the distance. I only give it five minutes