Bearded Tit is a gymnast
Female Bearded Tit showing off her skills
for British Wildlife Photographer Lea Roberts
Lea Roberts lives in Essex, southeastern England. He specializes in nature and wildlife photography. Essex is home to wetlands and marshes and it appears that Lea took this fabulous shot of a female Bearded Tit stretching her legs in the Essex Marshes.
According to a picture site Lea used a Canon EOS 40D; Focal Length420 mm; Shutter Speed1/250 sec; Aperture8; ISO/Film400. Great stuff Mr. Roberts. Lea’s blog here.
The Essex Marshes
The rector of East Mersea in 1880 wrote “A more desolate region can scarce be conceived and yet it is not without beauty”.
The Essex Marshes are to be found all along the Essex coast from the River Thames in the south, at the border with Greater London, to the River Stour and Harwich in the north on the border with Suffolk.
Essex has the longest coastline of any English county. A straight line drawn parallel to the coast from the Thames in the south to the Stour in the north is about 50 miles in length but follow the convolutions of the coastline and you will cover nearer 400 miles.
The Bearded Tit
The Bearded Reedling, Panurus biarmicus, is a peculiar small passerine bird. It is also frequently known as the Bearded Tit due to some similarities to Long-tailed Tits, or Bearded Parrotbill since it was later placed with these after it was removed from the true tits in the family Paridae. But according to more recent research, it is actually a unique songbird – no other living species seems to be particularly closely related to it.
The Bearded Reedling is a species of temperate Europe and Asia. It is resident, and most birds do not migrate other than eruptive or cold weather movements. It is vulnerable to hard winters, which may kill many birds.
This is a small orange-brown bird with a long tail and an undulating flight. The male has a grey head and black moustaches (not a beard). Flocks often betray their presence in a reedbed by their characteristic “ping” call.
This species is a wetland specialist, breeding colonially in large reedbeds by lakes or swamps. It eats reed aphids in summer, and reed seeds in winter, its digestive system actually changing to cope with the very different seasonal diets.