They are frequent diners at my safflower seed feeder.

Around here they love the homemade suet and the mealworms. I don't mind them sharing the mealworms with the Bluebirds because they are very delicate eaters. They will take one mealworm at a time, head up into a tree and eat it.

I get a lot of these birds when the house sparrows aren't around - when they area, the titmice seem to be intimidated and I don't see many of them at the feeders.

They love the peanut feeder, it's the one place they stay long enough for me to snap a photo.

They do love the black oil sunflower seed also; they take that quickly and bring it to a tree limb to eat it.

Maybe it would help if your feeder was not far from a tree where they could bring their seed - just a thought, in case your feeders aren't near a tree. I believe they go to the tree for safety so they won't be in the open.

Hi eddie,

We're blessed with many Titmice here. Ours eat safflower regularly...
But they choose shelled peanuts first:

When the shelled ones are gone, they open the in-the-shell ones:

They eat some of the mealworms we put out for the Bluebirds:

And they also like BOSS:

I think the key to their visiting regularly may be just to assure that any or all of these are always available to them.

hth,

Kenn

Here is a link that might be useful: Titmouse Gallery

Good lord, that titmouse with the peanut in the shell looks like a python! I was waiting for the next photo showing a huge bump in its neck. Great photos!

The titmice here also like the heated birdbath, so water is important in the winter.

Claire

When I lived in Georgia, the titmice gobbled up the peanut butter. Here in central Florida they won't touch it but love the sunflower seed. They are my only regular visitors right now but give way to the goldfinches in the spring.

The Tufted Titmice I see at my feeder love the sunflower hearts. They also like shelled peanuts, and fruit.

I have a cardinal feeder filled with BOSS. The titmouse visits it a lot. It was a new bird for me since this is the first time I fed BOSS. They are cute little buggers.

Great pictures. My titmice are very bold. The other day one came on my porch to steal dog food. I have my cat food (purina cat chow) by the glass door so I can see my outdoor cats. Titmice are stealing it. I am going to move the cat food because the birds are eating it all.

Those are wonderful pictures; I especially like the one showing the 'hair on his chinny chin chin'. I just have a few and they seem to like the suet cakes best.

I can't get them still enough to grab a shot (camera) of them.

Thanks for all the info---------actually have mixed safflower in with the boss---maybe I should try it alone-------would anyone like to trade a couple hundred HOSP for a couple of Tufts?--------Krista-4 mentioned fruit---??????

The Oak Titmouse we get here are not as colorful as the Tufted Titmouse but they are still among my favorite birds to watch.

{{!gwi}}

Hi, just wanted to clarify that it's dried fruit.

In addition to the sunflower hearts, I have fuit blend seed mixes in the hopper. The titmice like the berries, apples etc.

I've read in a Bird Feeder Guide that titmice eat fruit in the wild, especially berries.

Mine regularly come to my feeders and love BOSS, but they'll go first for the unshelled BOSS hearts if they're in the mix.

I really like that Oak Titmouse - think I could attract one to come to the east coast?

Claire

Hi! I'm new here and also fairly green where it comes to birding. I think I sometimes see the titmouse here but I have a hard time sometimes differentiating it from the female cardinal. What are the main charactaristcs of of the female titmouse and the best way to differentiate.

Hi, I am new to birding too, about six months.

Both cardinals and titmice have crests. A female cardinal, red in her crest in contrast to the rest of her body, which is a brown color (sometimes a gorgeous golden brown), and the cardinal is larger than a titmouse by a couple of inches anyway. The cardinal has a very bright orange finch's bill, with a black mask above and below.

When I look to see if I'm looking at a titmouse (male and female are the same) I look for the almost all-over pale gray color (pale belly, white and yellow), and bright black "button" eyes (which give this bird a lot of its personality I think). Also, the crest of the tufted titmouse is gray like its body.

I have been shooting about 60ft from my window to the bird feeder in the maple tree. Yesterday I got the crazy idea to take an old pipe garment rack I had and set it about 15ft outside my bedroom window, then hang a feeder on the rack. first I hung a simple tube type seed feeder, then I got the idea to also hang a tube type thistle feeder. While i was hanging the thistle feeder on one end of the rack two chickadees came down and landed on the rack about 3ft from me and as soon as I started to walk back in the house a Titmouse landed on the seed feeder to be my first customer. That Titmouse remained there long enough to allow me to get in the house and snap a picture.

Within the first hour after I hung that feeder i had chickadee's, Titmouse, Nuthatches and a small female downy woodpecker who seems to have taken it over as her personal feeder.

Very nice picture.

I would say the titimice and chickadees are the primary birds to visit my feeders- they seem to like the sunflower seeds I have out there now. One interesting note that I read in my field guide- if you leave some of the hair from your hairbrush in an easy place for them to find it, the titmice will use it when they make their nests. I don't know if it would necessarily attract them, but it would be fun to see them use your offering.

According to the table in the book Titmice are primarily attracted to peanuts, Black oilseed sumflower seed, Black Striped sunflower seed and gray stripe sunflower seed followed by the common wild bird seed.

The book i mentioned also gives information on how to provide different nesting materials that will attract birds. It states that Titmice build a nest of sticks which they line with fluffy lint type weed materials, moss and hair. It states that in the wild they actually pluck the hair from animals.

In further research I found a note on my local county extension agricultural site that says they not only pluck hair from animals, there have been recorded instances where they have actually landed on peoples heads and plucked a few hairs before flying off.