Familiar friends, Tufted Titmice visit pretty much every day all year round.

Like chickadees, they are members of the Paridae (or Tit) family of perching birds.

Tits are active, noisy and social birds. They are territorial during the breeding season and often joining mixed-species feeding flocks during the non-breeding season. The tits are highly adaptable and, after the corvids (crows and jays) and parrots, amongst the most intelligent of all birds.

They eat a variety of our feeder foods – seeds, suet, suet dough and peanuts.

They will store food for later use. They tend to be curious about their human neighbors and can sometimes be spotted on window ledges peering into the windows to watch what’s going on inside.

Like chickadees, they can hold a seed with one foot while cracking it with their beaks – unusual in perching birds.

Chickadee and titmouse at the tube feeder.