The long-tailed tit – successful, adaptable, sociable, and oh so cute

This tiny ball of fluff with an impossibly long tail, has almost doubled in numbers since the 1980s

A brief, high-pitched "see-see-see" sound, followed by the appearance of half-a-dozen tiny balls of fluff, each attached to what looks like a protruding stick. Then, more calls, as these flying lollipops flit from one tree to the next, pause, grab an invisible insect, and then move rapidly on.

Encountering a flock of long-tailed tits on a frosty January day is always a delight. Few other birds so immediately provoke a smile, for few other birds are quite so" well, adorable is the word that most readily to mind. When you discover that - as my friend and fellow nature writer Dominic Couzens puts it - the long-tailed tit is the only small bird that spends Christmas with its family, then their status in the pantheon of cuteness is confirmed.