Flutterby™! : Beware the murderous tits

Predatory Songbirds: the case of the murderous tits

A few months ago, I saw a photo of a European songbird, the great tit (Parus major), proudly standing over a dead vole, surrounded by snow on twitter. I was astonished to learn that it had killed this vole — I had thought that Great Tits typically eat seeds and small invertebrates. The observer described how the bird had only eaten the vole’s brain and left the rest for other scavengers. Apparently, this type of behavior is not so surprising, or even unusual, for this species.