Le « côté sombre » de la Mésange charbonnière

Great Tit is a charming bird that we love seeing in Winter eating the seeds we offer it or nesting in boxes specially installed for it. But when times are tough, it can be « brutal », steeling food in caches created by other passerines, be aggressive to defend its territory, become a scavenger (there are historical records where the birds were seen feeding on the bodies of executed people !) or even attack, kill and eat small passerines (predation on Pied flycatcher and Goldcrest have for example been reported) or mammals : over two winters, researchers saw Hungarian Great Tits attacking on bats hibernating in caves : they specifically and systematically searched for and killed them for food.