Blue Tit in the Blossom (gouache style)

Blue tits raise one large brood a year, timed to match the spring flush of caterpillars on oaks and fruit trees. A pair may need thousands of caterpillars to rear a single brood, so they spend spring searching buds, leaves and blossom. The adult is easy to pick out, with a blue cap and wings, yellow front and a white face crossed by a dark line. Young birds are paler and greener, with yellowish cheeks.

Put up a nest box with a 25mm entrance hole by late winter, two to four metres up, facing between north and east so it's out of strong sun. Blue tits usually start building in March or April. Avoid insecticides on fruit trees, since the caterpillars and aphids they'd kill are the birds' food. Apple trees flower in April and May, and the blossom feeds early bees as well. Prune apples in winter, between November and early March, while they're dormant and before birds nest.

A blue tit sits among pink and white apple blossom on a branch. Apple flowers open from pink buds and pale as they age, so both colours appear on the same spray. The picture catches spring at its busiest, when the blossom is out and the birds are hunting through it for food.