Caged fat ball feeders = good, mesh bags and fatballs = bad!
I have had a good look at the photo, and have tried enhancing it. At first I thought it was two birds, the head of one bird? and again agreeing with a Great Tit body. This was based on the feather tracts, unfortunately the more you blow up the photo it becomes very distorted so makes it hard to see the feathers in detail!
I was then more inclined to go with a Leucism (or Leukism) bird.Leucism is a very unusual condition whereby the pigmentation cells in an animal or bird fail to develop properly. This mainly results in unusual white patches appearing on the animal, or, more rarely, completely white creatures. So that possibly ruled out that theory.
As Highland McHale mentioned earlier do you have anymore information? or better still a clearer picture!
If not, I would suggest the same as Highland McHale!!!
Regards Buzzard
Nature Is Amazing - Let Us Keep It That Way
Ermmmm. have just double clicked on the photograph and got the answer. Looks like Sparrow was right is that what you meant John when you said it kept flashing lol
Melanistic Great Tit, it is. Well done.
Hi Lloyd
I thought of it as a Great Tit, with a black head due to the size, the colours of the body feathers, and the size of the bird in comparison with the feeder area it is sitting on.
I had a feeder like that at one stage and it is not a bulky feeder at all.
Regards
Kathy and Dave
Hi guys,
I've seen these before :) Occasionally great tits occur with black heads.
One group of three I went to see were claimed to be Blue-Great tit hybrids !!
S
For advice about Birding, Identification,field guides, binoculars, scopes, tripods, etc - put 'Birding Tips' into the search box
Have had the time to do a bit more research, and I would definately agree that it is a Melanism Great Tit.
The following link will tell all they need to know in Identifying this bird.
It is an article published in 2005 by the British Trust For Ornithology.
http://www.bto.org/news/news2005/july-aug/spot_the_difference.htm
I think it's a great tit wearing a balaclava ☺☺☺
The necessity of bird-watching is a really good reason for avoiding all forms of housework.
The dust will still be there tomorrow - the birds may not be!
Susan said: Ermmmm. have just double clicked on the photograph and got the answer. Looks like Sparrow was right is that what you meant John when you said it kept flashing lol
I have tried double clicking and I don't get the answer that way, I'm on a Mac, when I double click it just gets bigger.
I looked at lots of different sites yesterday trying to get to the bottom of this picture. One of the first was Great Tit as thats what its body looked like, but then I moved on to finch and even looked at Jays as that was mentioned!
Eventually I wanted to look back at the first thought and instead of typing in and starting again what I do is go back using History (not sure if this is just a Mac thing) Anyway the history list was littered with Great Tit pages but with Melanistic also written on them! It took a minute for the penny to drop. LOL! I was actually looking at the link to the question, giving the answer in the title!! LOL
I hope I didn't spoil it for anyone. John :-)
For viewing or photography right place right time is everything. I'd rather be in the right place with poor kit than have the best kit and be in the wrong place.
"All weeds are flowers, once you get to know them" (Eeyore)
My photos on Flickr
I wonder what susan meant then! Well done again Marjus, but, Oops I forgot to let the morning shift have their go at it first. Soz to you and other members of the morning shift! Doh
Rockwolf said:That's amazing! Would never have guessed it being a great tit! BTW - I'm using windows John, and nothing happens when I doule click on it either (except that it gets bigger!)
Oh and Thanks to Buzzard another great link, not so sure about the Great Tit being called run of the mill in the article, these wee birds are brilliant!!