Circling the tree

I popped over to the garage ie our wine cellar for something to chill for dinner. As I went my eyes were drawn into the garden. In the central rockery there is a columnar evergreen tree. Al, our gardener, had volunteered to take it down earlier this year as it is largely dead. The leaves have been browning & falling rapidly with just the dry brown twiggery left. I'd said leave it a bit longer. While there was still some green it might as well stay there. At least it stops weeds growing in that spot & I hadn't thought about what to do to replace it.

Anyhow around this tree, half a dozen small birds were circling, occasionally diving into the twiggery. I just had to investigate the phenomenon. I slowly neared. Once the birds noticed me they flew off into another evergreen tree nearby. I'd got sufficiently close to see they were some sort of tit, though without my glasses (I'm short-sighted), they were too small for me to identify which. I looked at the dead tree. No nest, so what was the attraction? I went back to find the wine.

An hour later the birds were again circling the tree. This time I got my glasses before I ventured out. Again I approached the tree. Now I could identify the birds as coal tits, a whole family I presume.

And the attraction? I suspect the dead tree was crawling with insect life, in other words dinner was the attraction. Even if it doesn't look very pretty, maybe we ought to leave that dead tree there longer....