(This is a story about cute little birds that are called ‘koolmeesjes’ in Dutch, but ‘great tits’ in English. Which might lead to confusion… I can assure you they are not big and do not resemble human breasts!)
Our garden is frequently visited by all kinds of birds, including small ones such as great tits (koolmeesjes) and robins. Even in winter, when we hang balls of fat with seeds for them. We and our tomcat Leo find this very enjoyable for different reasons. To the right of our large kitchen window, a wooden fence starts as a property boundary, which further on passes into a beech hedge that runs all the way to the back of our deep garden. To the left of the center is our detached garage, which unfortunately hides a large part of our garden from view, and is so inconveniently placed in relation to our driveway that we only use it as storage space. On the wall of the garage hangs a nesting box made from a piece of birch trunk. Its opening apparently has a size that is especially suitable for great tits. They have been busy flying in and out since the beginning of December! They actually do this quite spectacularly: they fly straight in from the beech hedge or the fence, without first stopping at the entrance. They often fly in pairs and the second one lands on the roof of the house. It’s nice that they keep flying in, but I looked it up: great tits usually nest from late April to early May. So these seem quite confused. Fortunately, they are not yet building a nest during this period of night frost, since they never have anything in their beaks. And they don’t hide there from the cold either, because they aren’t inside long enough for that. Just to be sure, we checked the inside once and it turned out to be empty. Could it be that they are already laying claim to the nest box in this way? Like: this one here is ours, once it’s nesting time? Maybe they leave their scent there, although I don’t really know how well great tits can smell. Or maybe they just keep flying in and out to send the message: this here is ours! But then I do assume that they are always the same great tits, because to be honest I don’t know them apart. Perhaps there is a big competition going on, long before the breeding season, and each time a different great tit flies into the nest box so spectacularly. Anyway, when I see them going like that, bridging a distance of about six meters from the hedge or the fence and then flying straight inside, I imagine them flying – pok! – against the back wall every time and then sit dazed on the bottom for a while before leaving again. Maybe they do it for fun. Maybe great tits just have a very strange sense of humor.