For one or another reason, humans are particularly fond of animals with a blackish facial mark. These features seem to make them either cute or rascal-like. I couldn’t find an obvious explanation for this. A possible reason could eventually be found by building further on the theory that people are often attracted to people with big eyes and a large mouth, which are the so-called ‘baby features’. The blackish facial mask-pattern of the Giant Panda, can be seen from a distance as enlarged eyes. But anyway, we all like the Giant Panda and the Garden Dormouse with their dinky rascal-like appearance.

The Penduline Tit with his cute little Zorro-mask is a rather unusual visitor in Belgium. It is an irregular breeding bird and every winter a few places with cattail marshes are visited by small parties of Penduline Tits. In our country these errant parties don’t stay often more than a few days in a marsh area.

The common name of the Penduline Tit reflects its nesting behaviour, as the birds elaborate pear-shaped nests. These nests are woven from spiderweb, wool, animal hair and soft plant materials and is suspended from twigs and branches in trees.

During the winter of 2015, I was lucky that my home area was visited by a large group of Penduline tits of up to 13 birds. They spent almost 3 months in a small marshy area in a highly urbanised area. They soon became used to people and were particularly tame. I spent an entire afternoon in February in their presence, and they allowed me easily to take plenty of pictures. I could easily experiment with different types of light and settings, while they were feeding imperturbable on the Cattails.

Under here a female and a male. The male has a more pronounced and contrasting facial mask.

The birds are often associated with Cattail, Typhacea. They mainly feed on tiny larvae which are found within the compact seed mass. As the bird were very close I could several times observe this behaviour. Here's a vertical image showing their typical foraging behaviour.

Under here two crops from my pictures, where one can notice the tiny larvae on which the birds were feeding.

Under here, some images of feeding birds photographed in backlight.

Under here an image from a Penduline Tit with another background.

And finally, an image of a Penduline Tit in the last rays of sun, just before the party went down to sleep low in the Cattails.