For the last couple of years, I’ve grown a clump of sunflowers in my back garden. This year, they flowered late (along with most other flowers), just in time to be decimated by the autumn bursts of rain and wind that are commonplace in Galway. This year, a pair of Blue Tits (parus caeruleus) successfully raised a brood that have survived (there are 3 or 4 juveniles), and the pair of Great Tits (parus major) that live in a neighbour’s garden are still going strong. The tits love sunflower seeds, and have spent most of October picking the seeds from the sunflower heads as they ripen. Tits tend to land in a nearby tree and have a look about, before flying to their intended destination. The sunflowers are nearly two metres tall, so the birds treat them as if they were their own little forest (and the height of the flowers means that the birds are safe from the neighbourhood cats). In the video above, both the adult Blue Tits and adult Great Tits can be seen eating the seeds – the juvenile Blue Tits were a bit timid near the adult Great Tits and kept their distance.