Bird introduction - Great Tit
🐦Great Tit (EU) - Bird introduction
Belongs to the tit family Paridae, The great tit is a passerine bird. Great tit widely spreads and very common throughout Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and east across the Palearctic to the Amur River, south to parts of North Africa where it is generally resident in any sort of woodland. Except extremely harsh winters, most great tits do not migrate. The great tit has black head and neck, with distict white cheeks, olive upper-parts and yellow underparts. Among multiple subspecies, there are some other distinctions.
🐛Great Tit Diet
Its main food in the summer is insects. But they will consume a wider range of food items during the winter time, including small hibernating bats. Besides insects, they would treat themselves with seeds, nuts, berries and buds in addition. To attract these coloful feathered buddies to your backyard feeders, you can prepare black sunflower seeds and sunflower hearts, peanuts in a hanging mesh feeder, plus suet blocks and suet fat balls.
🎵Great Tit Bird Song
You can hear their bird song all year long since they are very vocal birds. And there are many kinds of sounds that they can make. Male Great Tits can even make up to 40 different sounds! Their pleasant chirping sounds are usually made up of repeated two-note phrases. Some might sounds like'Tea-cher, tea-cher'. Sometimes, the song is played with three notes as well. Great Tits can make distinct noises, like whistles, chirping noises, and loud aggressive sounds.
📝Basic Info
Scientific Name: Parus major
Lifespan: around three years
Size: 4.9-5.5 inches
Weight: 0.49-0.77 ounces
Wingspan: 8.85-10.03 inches
🌎Great Tit Distribution and Habitat
They can be found in most of the UK but not in some northern and western Scottish islands. Great Tits live in central Asia, southern Russia, and northwest Africa as well. Additionally, they are replaced by the similar species Japanese Tit in eastern Asia, and Cinereous Tit in southern Asia.
Great Tits used to live in the forest, but now they can be found in parks, gardens, and places with the same kind of plants.
🪺Great Tit Breeding
Great tits are loyal bird, they are monogamous and they have specific areas where they lay their eggs and raise their babies. These lands were created in late January and great tits start defending them in late winter or early spring. In the following years, they might revisit and reoccupy these territories again.
Great tits like to build their nests in holes, usually in trees but sometimes in walls or rocks. They will also use nest boxes as their homes. The female bird builds a nest inside a hole in a tree. She uses plant fibers, grass, moss, hair, wool, and feathers to make it. The number in the clutch can be very big, up to 18, but usually it's between five and twelve. The eggs are white and have red dots on them. The mother bird takes care of keeping the eggs warm and the father bird brings her food while she does this.
⚠️Climate Change
Even it is a common species with a population over 300 million, Great tits are threathened by climate crisis severely. As one of the insect-eating birds, great tit's breeding season is synchronized with the peak of caterpillars availability to capture enough food for their babies. According to a recent study about great tit's life history, the rapid climate change causes warmer winter and earlier springs, and the peak of caterpillars availability pre-dated as well.
However, great tits need more time to adapt to this change. Many of them cannot get enough food for the chicks before the bug bounty ends, so the chicks may have a harder time surviving and growing up, which will ultimately have a greater impact on population numbers. If populations are unable to adapt to such climatic changes for a long period of time, it could eventually even lead to extinction.
However, great tits need more time to adapt to this change. Many of them cannot get enough food for the chicks before the bug bounty ends, so the chicks may have a harder time surviving and growing up, which will ultimately have a greater impact on population numbers. If populations are unable to adapt to such climatic changes for a long period of time, it could eventually even lead to extinction.
🌳Backyard Visitors
Many individuals enjoy observing the great tit in their gardens due to its entertaining feeding behavior with nuts and seeds. The use of nest boxes by this bird has sparked significant interest for bird study.It has been helpful for studying how different bird traits, like how many eggs they lay at once, have changed over time. Provide food and bird nests would not only add fun to your backyard experiences, but can also help them get enough food to cope with the rapidly climate crisis!
💙Great Tits vs Blue Tits
They should be the two most similarly shaped cousins in the tits family, with the only stark difference being the blue beanie on the head of the blue tits. Great tits are larger with wider wingspans, and their color tone are darker overall. The feathers of Great tits wings are more greenish if you observe them closer. As the biggest guy from the Paridae family, Some of the great tits can double the weight of Blue Tits!
For habitats, both of them are common in the Europe. Whereas, the Blue tit is also known as the Eurasian Blue tit and lives mostly in central and western Europe. The Blue tit lives in some parts of eastern Europe and the Middle East, like Iraq, Iran, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, North Macedonia and Syria, but not as far as the Great tit.
As cousins, Blue tits are shyer, the Great tits are calmer but also more aggressive when they are irritated. Compared with Blue tits, the Great tits are easily used to feed on the ground. Around bird feeders, small conflicts between these two cousins can be more common than us think. Great tits are always the winner since they are bigger and stronger.
🌿Great Tits vs Coal Tits
Great tits are named after their extraordinary sizes among the Paridae family. Nevertheless, coal tits are not being called "small tits" even though they are the tiniest ones. Just like great tits, coal tits feed on insects like spiders as well. Coal tits also consume seeds, and are willing to visit feeders and bird nests in gardens.
Compared with great tits and blue tits, the color of coal tits are more low-key overall. They have white cheek and neck patches, black caps and grey upper-parts. Besides the smallest bodies, coal tits have skinnier bills too. However, they might sound like Great tits, and both of them are very vocal birds obsessed with repeated phrases. But the coal tit's songs are higher and more whistle-like, which sounds thinner than great tit's.
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