A little scruff ......

To me, Coal Tits always look as if they need a bit of a wash and brush up, they certainly don't have the clean lines of their cousins like Great and Blue Tits.

Still ...... I recently saw one looking in a mirror next to my garden feeders so there is hope yet. 

Old King Coal .......

As hyper active birds Coal Tits are restless and never stay in one place for long giving rise to a lot of blurred images in my experience.

Unlike their dapper relation the Marsh Tit ( a favourite of mine to be featured on Friday ), the plumage of Coal Tits always seems to me to be a bit scruffy and ill defined perhaps with the exception of the white stripe on the back of its black head.

Maybe I am being a bit hard on the species !.

Coal Tit, Grafton Underwood, Northamptonshire.

Lovely little hyperactive birds Coal Tits.

I have started feeding up a small area at Grafton Park with mixed seeds and peanuts again as I did last year, lets see how it develops over the coming weeks as temperatures fall.

...... and Coal Tits from Grafton Underwood as well.

Following on from yesterday's post about feeding up an area of woodland near to Grafton Underwood I am now uploading a few digipics of the Coal Tits taken at the same site.

As one of Europe's smallest birds ( 115mm from beak to tail ) they really are incredibly feisty and can certainly punch well above their weight ( 8-10 grams ) against most members of the Tit and Finch family.

They really are attractive little characters.

All shots taken through the car window at a range of around 15 feet.