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A Great Tit Specialised in Hunting Large Butterflies From Below

A great tit holding a green insect in its bill
Research · Behaviour

A male great tit (Parus major) developed an unusually efficient way of catching large butterflies in a garden in southern Sweden. The behaviour was documented in a peer-reviewed short communication published in Ornis Svecica on 10 March 2026. During a little more than an hour, the bird repeatedly approached a flowering butterfly bush from below, seized butterflies and carried them to a nearby conifer to eat them.

The observation came from Röstånga in central Skåne. In August 2018, a mixed flock of five or six great tits and several blue tits visited a garden rich in flowering plants. One male behaved differently from the others. It flew low along a wall from a thuja to the bottom of a three-metre-high butterfly bush, Buddleja davidii. From inside the lower part of the bush, it moved upwards and attacked butterflies sitting on the flowers from beneath.

The same hunting sequence produced at least 23 large insects

After each capture, the great tit returned to the same thuja. There it removed the wings before eating the body. When the bird left after just over an hour, the observer inspected the ground beneath the perch. The remains represented at least 18 peacock butterflies (Aglais io), four small tortoiseshells (Aglais urticae) and one large yellow underwing moth (Noctua pronuba).

The direction of attack may have been important. Large butterflies are agile and difficult for small birds to catch in flight. Peacock butterflies also have dark undersides that provide camouflage when their wings are closed. If attacked from above, they can suddenly expose large eyespots on the upper wings, a display that may make a bird hesitate long enough for the butterfly to escape. An approach from below may reduce the value of both defences.

The technique remained confined to one observed male

The authors interpret the repeated sequence as individual foraging specialisation. Other great tits present at the site were not seen copying the technique during the observation period.

The report does not show how often such behaviour occurs in the wider population, and it concerns one bird observed on one day. It documents a repeated feeding tactic in which the bird combined vegetation, a low approach and a fixed handling perch to capture unusually large insect prey.

Sources and image credit

  1. Andersson, G., & Brodin, A. (2026). Specialised predation by great tit Parus major on peacock butterflies Aglais io and small tortoiseshells Aglais urticae. Ornis Svecica, 36, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.34080/os.v36.27869Primary peer-reviewed open-access short communication published 10 March 2026 under CC BY 4.0. It reports one male great tit in Röstånga, Skåne, repeatedly capturing butterflies from below; remains from at least 18 peacock butterflies, four small tortoiseshells and one large yellow underwing were found after a little over an hour.

Image: Zeynel Cebeci — great tit (Parus major) holding a green insect at Espiye, Giresun, Turkey, photographed 5 July 2017; Wikimedia Commons; representative species/foraging image, not the Röstånga male or one of the butterflies in the reported observation · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

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