Blog de Puree

One of my missions this winter, in addition to the growing list of home renovation projects, is to attract the Tufted Titmouse to our yard.

(Photo courtesy of www.birds.cornell.edu)

Along with its fun name, the titmouse is a cute little bird with a tuft of feathers that sticks up from the top of its head.

After a little research, I discovered that the titmouse is often found near swampy areas and riversides—all we have near our house is a couple of streams, although the Merrimack River is just a little over a mile away. When growing up, there was a sizable swamp across the street from my parent’s house, so that would probably explain their presence there. But around our home now, getting this social little bird to visit may present a bit of a challenge.

So far, we’ve put out black oil sunflower seeds, cracked corn and the pine cone bird feeders with peanut butter and Crisco. We’re still only getting cardinals, junkos, blue jays and house sparrows, and some of the squirrels absconded with the pine cone feeders smeared with peanut butter.

The next step is to put out grapes, apple chunks, shelled peanuts and peanut butter suet in the hopes that this might work.

Cool facts about tufted titmice:

• They’re energetic flyers.
• They’re acrobatic as they forage in leaves, hop along tree trunks and flit through tree tops.
• They have perky tufted heads.
• They eat a large variety of berries found in suburban yards such as bayberries, mulberries, blueberries, crabapples, blackberries, grapes and serviceberries.
• They are non-migratory birds.