Long-Tailed Tits (gouache style)

Long-tailed tits are tiny, round birds with tails longer than their bodies, and despite the name they aren't true tits but belong to a separate family. Their plumage is a soft mix of pink, black and white. Outside the breeding season they travel in family flocks, keeping in touch with thin, high calls as they move along hedges. On cold nights they huddle side by side on a branch to save heat.

Their nest is a domed ball of moss and lichen bound with spider silk, which lets it stretch as the chicks grow, and it's lined with a great many feathers. Building starts early, often by March, usually in thorny scrub such as gorse, bramble or blackthorn. Pairs whose own nests fail often help feed a relative's brood. In winter, fat balls and suet blocks draw small flocks into gardens, and a hedge left uncut from March to August gives them cover to breed.

A small flock of long-tailed tits lines a bare twig in this picture. Bare wood means the leaves are down, the time of year when these family flocks wander widely through hedges and gardens. It's their sociable side that the moment shows: a whole group travelling and resting together, never far from one another.