The Penduline Tit in Catalonia:

Resident, winter visitor and passage migrant.

Best Sites: riparian woodland and wetlands such as those found in Lleida Steppes and Llobregat Delta respectively.

It seems that the mask of the male penduline tit has bestowed upon him some of the cunning as well as a passing resemblance to El Zorro, or The Fox as the name means in Spanish. 

For, although he often sings as he industriously goes about the building of his nest in an apparently blissful declaration of his dedication to his home, he’s more likely to be spending his time hatching a devious plan than a clutch of eggs.

This job he will leave to the first female who falls for his duplicitous serenading, as he fully intends to desert her the moment she has laid about half of her usual 6-8 eggs (any more would be too much for one parent).  This way he still has time to build another nest and court another female, meaning of course that he has more offspring and passes on more of his genes into the gene pool.  That’s the plan anyway.

But he had better watch out.  The female also has a mask and, whilst the pair diligently complete the nest together, one inside and one out as if making a deliberately ironic statement, the female may be hatching a plot of her own.

Studies of birds in Austria have shown that, incredibly, some females each day after laying their egg deliberately hide it in the nest lining!  Then, three days and three eggs later, and with the male blissfully unaware, she uncovers the eggs and departs, leaving him to raise their family alone whilst she goes in search of a second mate of her own. 

Touché.