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Mystery bird: Blue tit, Cyanistes caeruleus

This British mystery bird once was a devoted "cream thief"

Blue tit, Cyanistes caeruleus (protonym, Parus caeruleus), Linnaeus, 1758, also known as the blue titmouse, Eurasian blue tit or as the European blue tit, photographed at Cheshire, northwest England, UK.

Image: Roy Hill, 11 September 2011 (with permission) [velociraptorize].
Canon 5D + 135 f/2L, F/4 @ 1/320, ISO 200

Here's a reminder of the image crop that I originally showed as the mystery bird:

Question: This British mystery bird is probably most famous for a particular behaviour that was first noticed in Southampton. What behaviour is that? Can you name this mystery bird's taxonomic family and species?

Response: This is an adult blue tit, Cyanistes caeruleus. This small passerine is a member of the tit family, Paridae. Its common name makes it a source of giggles and guffaws amongst 12-year-old boys. For this reason, the blue tit may be viewed as a "gateway bird" that inspires intense bird watching activity, particularly later in life (similar to marijuana being -- erroneously -- labeled as a "gateway drug"). We can also infer that, if the blue tit is such a "gateway bird", then it could be the reason for the preponderance of male bird watchers.

Frequent mystery bird commenter, Expecten, and the photographer are both impressed with this tiny bird (they're also both male bird watchers -- coincidence? I think not!). The photographer wrote this in email:

Quite amazing little things when you get up close. It can really drive home the origins of birds. Even the shape of the claws are quite 'frightening'. I suppose that we should be thankful that they only come in relatively miniature sizes nowadays :D

Not only are the claws impressive, but the bird is, too. Here's a close look at a blue tit feeding (rather voraciously) on suet in January 2011:

Visit styv53's YouTube channel [video link].

Aren't you glad you aren't that ball of suet?

Blue tits are quite famous amongst behavioural biologists for raiding milk bottles. Apparently, it was first noticed in Southampton in the late 1920s that the local blue tits had somehow learned to remove the caps of milk bottles that had been delivered each morning. The birds popped the lid off and drank the rich cream that had floated to the top. Even though blue tits rarely travel farther than a few kilometres from where they're born, they learned this behaviour from each other by watching their neighbors. Thus, by 1935, the blue tits living in London were regularly stealing cream, too.




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