Blue tit

How to recognise it

Small blue-and-yellow bird working restlessly along twigs, hanging upside down to search leaf undersides.

Mistaken for

Sometimes blamed for pecking fruit buds, when in fact it is taking the insects in them.

What it eats

Cabbage white caterpillar, Aphids, Codling moth, Box tree moth

How to attract it

A nest box facing north or east away from afternoon sun, water year-round, and no insecticide. Native shrubs and undisturbed hedges.

Plants that help

Apple, Pear, Olive

Lifecycle

One brood a year, and a single brood of chicks is fed roughly 10,000 caterpillars over three weeks.

Months: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

The thing people get wrong

A nest box in an apple tree is a pest-control device. A blue tit family clears something like 10,000 caterpillars in the three weeks of chick-rearing - which in a garden orchard is a bigger dent in codling moth and cabbage whites than anything you can spray.