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Peculiar ‘playing dead’ blue tit behaviour

Emma N
27/12/2019 20:19

Can anyone shed light on the reason for the behaviour of two blue tits observed today?

They flew out of a hedge together and tussled around in the air, spinning and swirling for a minute before flying into the grass at speed to land together in a motionless heap. We watched through binoculars but could see no movement at all.

After about 10 minutes we stepped outside to take a closer look. They were still to the spot on the grass, one bird was on top of the other, the uppermost bird appeared to be limp and lifeless, and yet seemed to have the other bird pinned down.

After watching for a minute, a noise disturbed them and in an instant they flew up and off at speed together, 

It was all most peculiar, but what would be the reason? 

  • 28/12/2019 12:00
    Hi Emma, Sounded like a serious scrap which is not unusual between birds, even of same species. I once witnessed two blue tits right in front of me in a "wrestling type" lock, one pinning the other down rolling over and over as they fought; this dispute could be for various reasons, either over food, territory, etc., Robins are one of the species where you see this "locked in battle" behaviour when they become very territorial trying to oust the other bird from their chosen area. Some fights can be so serious it results in injury (occasionally death) to the other bird. Best idea when you see claws locked together, battling on the ground or air for a prolonged period of time is to make a loud sound or clap of the hands to break them up before more serious injury occurs although generally speaking with wildlife it is best the human lets nature takes its course ! I would only intervene if I thought serious injury or death was likely to happen as many scraps are minor squabbles and break up naturally. In your case it sounded quite intense.
  • 28/12/2019 19:01
    Thank you Hazel, that’s so interesting. What you’ve described sounds exactly like what we saw - I’d heard that Robins can be very territorial and aggressive, but not realised other small bird species could be. It was quite tussle to start! If we’d not disturbed them I wonder how long they’d have stayed pinned to the ground, so I’m glad they broke up when they did - seemingly none the worse.