In response to Bob and Annie's remark about the lack of baby Blue Tits and Great Tits, it could be because they haven't fledged yet. We have 5 occupied boxes in our garden (2 Great, 3 Blue) and they are all still feeding young, though some must be just about fledge. One Great Tit pair and one Blue Tit pair were very late to get going as they seemed to be late selecting the nest site. (The Blue Tit was keen to excavate the side of a window frame which was being replaced - we hurriedly supplied a nest box nearby which they rapidly adopted. The Great Tit finished up in the centre hole of a sparrow terrace, which the sparrows had completley rejected. Both these despite the fact that there are still 3 unoccupied perfectly good boxes around the garden which they could have chosen).
How the tits managed to feed small young during the storms I don't know but they seem to have done so. And how they are feeding young now is a mystery when the leaves have either been stripped off the trees or are all brown and crinkled and there can be few caterpillars present. We have had peanuts out the whole time but they don't use them very often, and it seems that they use them mostly to feed themselves rather than their young.
I understand that there was an item on Springwatch about the mistiming of tit broods and late oak leafing this year leading to very poor breeding success. That may be true in oakwoods but many tits do OK without any oak trees - we do not have any here within say, 300 metres, and many suburban tits have no oak trees. It will be interesting to see what the final results are when the tits have actually all fledged.
Rosemary Royle