Chatroom for those who want to talk to me but for me to take longer before I reply- I actually don't know why I shared this
Credit to the birdies that were brave enough to let me take photos of them (or didn't even notice me-) The birds in these photos are Tufted Titmice, by the way. (The one in the photo in the top-left corner is a fledgling, which usually look a little fluffier.) They're my favorite birds. They're native to forests in the Eastern US (though in the western US you'd have Oak Titmice and Juniper Titmice instead), and they're among the most common bird in my yard. They're very cute, small, (though almost twice the size of the Black-capped Chickadees they often associate with) intelligent birds with excellent memory. They're in the taxonomical family Paridae, a group that also includes the chickadees of America, the bluetits of Europe, and other small, small-beaked, intelligent, omnivorous songbirds. They have a wide variety of calls and songs, having over 10 separate calls of different meanings, and a completely different set of songs varying between regions as small as towns or neighborhoods. They're common at feeders in their range, often being one of the first to discover a new feeder. In my case they were the first. They're known for having a preference for Black-oil Sunflower seeds, though their tastes vary a lot. In my yard they seem to like Safflower even a little better than sunflower, their favorite food is peanuts (unsalted, out of the shell), and they'll also eat mealworms, black soldier fly larvae, papaya, and pumpkin seeds, although those aren't their preferred foods. They'll usually take a seed and fly off to shelter to eat it, unlike the finches, sparrows, and cardinals which sit on the feeder for long periods of time munching away the seeds, but if they feel safe enough on the feeder they might eat their seed there without flying off. They're adaptable, acrobatic, birds, and almost any kind of feeder will work for them, though from my experience they don't really like tube feeders, and prefer tray feeders (top-left photo and middle photo) and hopper feeders (top-right photo). They're also bold birds that will soon start to associate you as the food provider if you regularly refill their feeder, and may learn to trust you and become less skittish around you if you never seem to be a threat. As cute as they are, if you want them to trust you I recommend not looking straight at them for more than two seconds straight, as that will scare them. You can glance at them often, especially if you hear them call (not their high-pitched alarm call though), which means they're comfortable revealing their presence. If you hear them make a very high-pitched "SEE" call, stand up with their feathers held close to their body, or just fly away before getting any food, that means they're scared.
