To me it certainly seemed that these tits ate the elm-buds. At any rate, I have broken a spray off a low bough where I had seen one feeding, and taken it home. On examining it I found many a little bare stalk where buds had been, which suggests that they had been eaten and not merely pecked at. I tried several of these little buds (it was in February) myself, and found them very nice and delicate. Later, in April, I have noted down:
"The buds being now larger, I can see the birds pecking and tugging at them more plainly, and now and then a minute bud-leaf flutters to the ground. I certainly think it is the buds themselves they are attacking, for their own sake." As blue-tits feed at the stacks—certainly not on insects—and eat cocoa-nuts, Brazil-nuts, horse-chestnuts (I believe), meat, and, in fact, almost everything, it would be strange indeed if they neglected such a rich pasture-ground as the buds of trees would yield them, or if they did not care about them. On such a day as I have described, one can understand them feeding hour after hour, and making themselves rotund on the tiny little buds themselves, but hardly on insects contained in them.
The bullfinch, at any rate, is known to be a bud-eater, and he may often be seen feeding on the elms, in company with the blue-tit, and, to all appearance in just the same way. It is marvellous what slender little twigs this bird will perch on, without their giving way beneath his round burly form. Sometimes they do give way, and then he swings about on them like a ball at the end of a piece of string, nor does he get off on to another one without a good deal of turmoil, and some climbing, which cannot be called quite fairy-like. In fact, he is awkward—but in the most graceful manner imaginable. Harpagon, as we know, "avait grace a tousser," and when a bird like the bullfinch condescends, for a moment, to be awkward, his charm is merely enhanced. Yet I cannot call him deft in the procurement of buds, as the blue-tit is, with whom he comes into competition, and whom he will drive away. He does not hang nibbling at them head downwards, as though to the manner born, and then swing up again on a twig-trapeze. These things, if not beyond him, are, at least, alien to his disposition, which is straightforward, and to his deportment, which has a certain sobriety. His plan, therefore, is to advance along the twig as far as it seems to him advisable to go, and then, stretching forward and elongating his neck, take a sharp bite at the bud, which, with his powerful bill, secures it at once—unless he fails. In the same way, he will stretch out from the twig he is on, to secure the bud on another, but this he does still more cautiously. At the blue-tit, when feeding on the same tree, he will sometimes make little dashes, driving him away. He has, in fact, just done so (only in this instance it was the hen bird) three times in succession. And now a fourth time has this hen bullfinch made a dash at the blue-tit. The tit, each time, flutters away easily, and without making any fuss about it. He is insulted, but he does not wish to make a scene. Besides, he is smaller.
The catkins, too, are now hanging on the alders, and on these also, or—if any one prefers it—on the insects in them, the blue-tits feed. They, I think, prefer the catkins, but I will not be sure.
Whenever practicable they grasp a catkin with one claw, and the twig from which it hangs, and which is their main support, with the other. Often, however, they grasp catkin and twig together with both claws, and, standing thus, peck down upon them like ("parva si magnis licet comparare") a crow or hawk upon some dead or living creature. Or, again, they will hang head downwards from, and pecking at, a bunch of the catkins, without any more substantial support, or, with one claw grasping one twig, will, with the other, hold a catkin belonging to another twig up to the beak, like a parrot. The claws of tits are evidently of high value as seizers and holders, if not quite as "pickers and stealers." They are much more than mere rivets for fixing themselves on a perch. To see one of these little birds, whilst straddled in this way, pull the catkin towards it, is most interesting and very pretty. The little legs are so thin and delicate that one must be very close or get a very steady look through the glasses, both to see, and, at the same time, distinguish them from the twigs.
The coal-tit is even more parrot or, rather, squirrel-like, and one can make out his actions better, for he sits upright—one may almost say—on the ground beneath a fir-tree, supporting himself with his tail and one claw, whilst the other grasps a fir-cone at which he pecks. At least I think it was a fir-cone, and I afterwards picked up several which were marked with little pits round the base, where it had joined the stalk, difficult to attribute to squirrels, and suggesting that the birds had severed them in this way, and not yet proceeded farther.
If the coal-tit does this, then it seems likely that the great-tit does so also, in which case his extracting the seeds from the larger cones of exotic firs would be only what one might expect. The coal-tit, too, ascends the trunks of trees—Scotch fir-trees especially—in the same fluttering way as does the blue-tit, but perhaps still more deftly, in search of insects, and often, as one watches him, a flake of the bark that he has detached comes fluttering down. The golden-crested wren may do the same, but I have been more struck by the way in which this little bird flies about amidst the pine-trees, from one needle-bunch to another. He hangs from them head downwards, but often, before clinging amongst them, flutters just above or, sometimes, just below them. In the latter case it seems as though the needles were flowers, and that he was probing them with his bill, whilst hanging in the air like a humming-bird; and this, amidst the dark pines and, especially, on a gloomy winter's day, is odd to see. Often he flits down from his pine-needles into the coarse, tufty grass just bounding the plantation, bustles and fairy-fusses there for a little, then is up again amongst his needles, pecking the frost from them. For this is what it looks like, that seems to be the meal he is making, though, surely, it must really be something more substantial—if "meal" and "substantial" are words that can be properly used in respect of a being so tiny and delicate. However, he seems busily examining the pine-needles, and this may be either for minute insects upon them, or for the very small buds which they bear. It is pleasant to watch these little birds, and to hear their little needley note of "tzee, tzee, tzee." Sometimes, however—but this is more as spring comes on—they will fly excitedly about amidst the trees and bushes, uttering quite a loud, chattering note—far louder than one could have expected from the size of the bird.
Returning to our blue-tits on their alder-tree; they have all flown into it—being a band of about twenty—from a small hawthorn-tree a few paces off. Excepting for some lichen here and there on its branches, this hawthorn-tree is bare, and the birds seem far more occupied in preening themselves, and in giving every now and again the little birdy wipe of the bill first on one side and then another of a twig or bough, than in any serious "guttling." For this they fly to the alder, where, at once, they are feeding busily. But I notice that every now and again some few of them fly back into the hawthorn, where they sit, a little, preening themselves as before, before returning. In fact, they use the hawthorn-tree as their tiring-room, whilst the alder is the great banqueting-hall. Once or twice—I think it was twice—I saw one dart at another and drive it from its particular catkin. As they had a whole large tree to themselves, this, I think, was pretty good.
Fairy Artillery: Willow-Warbler Pecking Catkins in Flight.