civil war

Terrible news. The winged kingdom is riven, Roundheads and Cavaliers style, by warring factions. Namely, birds v. bats. It's not good to take sides, and Things with Wings would like to state that it likes birds and bats entirely equally, but if we are going to point the finger of blame, it must surely be at the great tits who, unprovoked, are biting the heads off pipistrelle bats.

Picture the scene. A dark cave, somewhere in the Bukk Mountains of Hungary. A colony of hibernating pipistrelle bats, each weighing no more than 5 grams. As spring draws closer, the first bat wakes from his long sleep. He is cold, weak and exhausted and quite unable to fight off the great tit who SWOOPS into the cave and rips off his head. Just like that.

Greater detail comes from bat ecologist Bjorn Siemers, who notes that "the birds don't kill the bats before they start eating them but the bats eventually die when the birds peck open their brain case."

I will not post a picture of a headless pipistrelle because I do not wish to upset you. Having seen it myself is quite enough.

In defence of the great tits (never let it be said that we are not fair and even-handed in every way) food can get pretty scarce in the Hungarian winters.

Thanks to newscientist.com for bringing this to our attention. We will of course report any further BATtles in full.