Long-Tailed Tits near Aberdeen?

Hello April and welcome to the community.   We get long tailed tits in our garden (Cheshire) and at this time of year they will go for fat products;   fat-cake, suet balls and sometimes they take sunflower hearts.    A lot of us on the forum make homemade pastry using supermarket own brands of plain flour, lard into which you can mix in a few suet pellets or seed and bind together with just enough water to pull the pastry together but so it is not too sticky.   Just don't add any salt to the pastry but you can grate a little mild cheddar cheese into the mix if you want.    The long tailed tits love raw pastry and you can put little bits on the twigs or shrubs in your garden or place the raw pastry into fat cake or fat ball feeders.  After making the pastry remember to rest it in the fridge for a few hours to give the gluten time to "relax" or leave the pastry in the fridge overnight before giving it to the birds.    You can also freeze the pastry if you make a larger batch;   I roll my pastry into logs and put them in freezer bags before placing in the freezer and get them out the night before I need to use them.    Good luck and hope you the LTT's find you !  

Hello, April, yes I have seen a whole flock of them yesterday, they a quite adorable, you can try attracting them by leaving suet or unroasted sunflower hearts ( easier to swallow than whole) outside ( you can try flutterbutter, peanut butter for birds, no salt!). Also, well done on the Goldcrest!

Thank you Hazey!! I learned about bird pastry from this forum and have been making my own for a few months now! I think mine are turning more into fat balls though, I use flour and lard, then add handfuls of cheese, chopped peanuts and sunflower hearts and mealworms, and there's enough sticky stuff that it comes together without water. My garden birds LOVE it, especially the robins who never went near my storebought fat balls and suet cakes. Do you think it'll matter if it's more suet cakey than pastry-y? I'll try leaving bits on twigs in case that will attract them more than feeders!

Really Julia?? Whereabouts did you see them? I've heard they hang out near Castle Fraser, which is about a mile from my house!

Unknown said:

Do you think it'll matter if it's more suet cakey than pastry-y?

   not at all April,   the Long tailed tits like all sorts of fat and suet products especially during winter months.    Sounds like your birds are getting some nice treats with what you offer them.     We had a group of half a dozen Long tailed Tits in the garden this lunchtime and afternoon and they raided the pastry which I had placed on the twigs  !!    I also put a block of mild cheddar cheese into the fat ball feeder and they were taking a fancy to that too !    

Cheese in the fatball feeder!! Genius!!

I don't put cheese out too often as it contains salt which is bad for birds but a little bit now and again is ok as the Long tailed tits tend to take only a little cheese at a time and then move to the fat cake and the fat balls or pastry so enjoy a mixed diet !    

They found me!!! I had three in my garden at once yesterday!! They only stayed a few minutes, so obviously I'm now DYING for them to come back. TOTALLY made my week :) Wish I could figure out how to add a picture... Just keeps telling me its too big...