A New Visitor (read info text for story)

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THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO:

Let me introduce you to my latest visitor: the crested tit (Lophophanes cristatus).

 

This is a species I'd never seen in my garden - nor in the region - before, and I was extremely happy I was able to capture the photo above, particularly because the fella didn't exactly make it easy for me to get it (but I guess that's just my lot when it comes to photographing my feathered friends 😄)

 

As so often happens with birds - particularly if you live near a forest like I do - the photogenic little guy just showed up in my garden one day, seemingly out of the blue. This is what makes observing the wildlife around my house so exciting: I never know who will stop by for a visit.

 

It's also part of the thrill - as well as the excruciating frustration - of nature photography (at least with mine, which for weird, personal reasons I chose to focus exclusively on my tiny garden and its immediate surroundings), because so many of my visitors never grant me a photo. They might show up only for a few seconds, never to appear again.

 

This happened to me only recently with a beautiful long-tailed tit, which jumped right into my view-finder: but I was so surprised that I messed up the photo, and the elegant beauty never returned.

 

So every time a new species arrives in my garden, it is the same story: the nature nerd in me greets it with pure joy and excitement, while the photographer part of my brain already gets anxious that I will miss my single chance of getting a good shot.

 

And this is precisely the mix of emotions I went through, when in February 2026 the fella you see in the photo above arrived in my garden. I was in the shed - which serves as my blind - when I suddenly heard an unfamiliar call. By now I know the sounds my usual avian guests make very well, so the excitement (and the anxiety) immediately kicked in.

 

Who was this unknown caller - and would the new visitor even show up in my field of view? I photograph the birds in my garden through a small hole in the shed, so the radius of what I'm able to see is very limited. The camera is usually focused on a tree trunk which serves as my "bird buffet", but many species have very little interest in the sunflower seeds I put there, so there's never any guarantee they will show up in my view-finder at all.

 

To my great joy, the new arrival DID make an appearance on the tree trunk, and my surprise couldn't have been greater, because this was a species I never expected to see in my garden. Crested tits prefer to live in pinewood forests - of which there are absolutely none for miles around my little village (the woods in our region consist mainly of chestnut trees) - so I had no idea these beautiful birds were even present in the area surrounding my house.

 

Unfortunately, my joy and excitement were a little TOO great and my hands were everything but steady. Plus the crested fella didn't exactly seem to know what was expected of him - namely to pose for a nice, prolonged period of time, preferably with eye contact - and so I messed up the shot. The little guy was mighty quick at picking up a seed and fleeing the scene, and even though he came back two more times, I didn't manage to get a single decent photo.

 

You can imagine my frustration when I went through the images on my computer that evening, because I knew there was a big chance this beautiful species would never visit my garden again. The next morning I was in the shed early, nervous with anticipation, but as I had feared, the rare new bird was a no-show. I waited for at least two hours in the freezing cold - there was no sign of the eagerly awaited Lophophanes cristatus.

 

But no other visitors had come to the tree trunk either, so eventually I left the shed in order to check if perhaps any of my neighbors' cats were near the buffet, scaring away the guests (who, understandably, usually tried to avoid becoming the buffet themselves 😉).

 

And you won't believe it: just as I had passed the trunk and arrived in the lower part of my garden, not one but TWO crested tits showed up in the trumpet vine in front of me, not even two meters from where I was standing. I remained stock still, cursing myself for not having been just a wee bit more patient (my camera, of course, was still mounted on the tripod in the shed 😂)

 

I was sure my presence would sour the couple - probably a male and a female - on my garden instantaneously and that they would disappear at once. But the pair just looked at me for a moment with a somewhat quizzical expression, then they cheekily flew right over my head to the tree trunk. They each picked up a sunflower seed - and took off to the forest.

 

I immediately went back into the shed; these two hadn't shown any sign of fear, so I was convinced they would come back within minutes. But nope, to my befuddlement and enormous disappointment they didn't return, and after another hour without so much as a tweet from Mr. or Mrs. Crested Tit, I went back into the house to wallow in my misery.

 

I kept looking out of the window all day; the usual suspects came and went: great tit, blue tit, marsh tit all visited the tree trunk, but no tit of the crested variety had the decency to present itself. The next day was even worse; I spent hours near my living room window as well as in the cold shed, but I didn't catch a glance of the desired birds.

 

Then, towards the evening, when there was hardly any light left (let alone for a usable photo), I finally saw a tiny crested silhouette near the bird buffet. So I had missed my chance that day, but the sighting made me hopeful, because it meant my exciting new visitors kept returning. And perhaps they had been coming all day: it was impossible to keep the tree trunk under non-stop surveillance, and there was a likely chance that my timing had just been off.

 

Suddenly I had an idea how to increase my chances not to miss them. A quick search on the internet led me to a video on how to identify the call of Lophophanes cristatus, which I had so far only heard once. I listened to the video several times, until I was sure I had memorized the sounds and songs of the species (which wasn't that hard: crested tits have a very distinct call).

 

The next morning, instead of going into the shed right away and freezing my bum off for hours, I just lay on the sofa near the living room window, which I opened only a bit. I edited some old photos on my laptop with a nice cup of coffee (which is something I can do for hours, particularly in winter), convinced I would recognize the right moment when it was time to move into the shed.

 

And sure enough, sometime around noon I heard the call. I quickly grabbed my gear and went into my blind; unlike with the Eurasian jay (who had put me through a photographer's hell), I didn't mind the crested fellas seeing me leave the house and enter the shed, because I knew they weren't shy. And this time I didn't have to wait for long: almost as soon as I had set up my camera, the object of my photographic desire appeared on the tree trunk. And of course, I failed again at capturing it in focus!

 

It actually took me several more days until I finally had two photos of my new feathered friends that I was satisfied with, but opening the window a little - an idea so simple I felt like a complete idiot for not thinking of it right away - proved to be a winning strategy. Just by listening to the sounds in my garden I got many more opportunities to photograph these gorgeous birds, and my failure to achieve more and better results was predominantly owed to my usual ineptitude 😄 ).

 

But I might be granted the time I need to improve: apparently couples of the species often stay together in the same territory for their entire lives, and so far, the pair keeps returning. And if they choose to move on, the nature nerd in me will say: no hard feelings, mates. I'm grateful for any visits - regardless how long the guests stay - because I always consider it a privilege to host wildlife in my garden.

 

But of course, there's also the photographer part of my personality, and I can't deny that if the visitors grant me a photo (or two) before they leave, I won't complain either 😊.

 

As always, many thanks for reading and commenting: have a great start into the new week everyone! ❤🙏😊

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