Photo: © Dennis Olsen

The Great Tit is distributed in most of Europe, parts of north Africa and in large parts of
Asia from Siberia to Japan and Sr Lanka.
It prefers mixed woodland and scattered trees to pure deciduous forest and seems to dislike
coniferous forest. It is also well adapted to gardens, parks and farmland.

It feeds on insects, caterpillars in spring and seeds in winter.

It is the largest tit and has yellow underparts with a black central band. It has big white cheek
patches in a black head, an olive green back and a white wing-bar on a blue-grey wing.

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Great Tits come in many races, but they fall into three groups.
Great Tits in temperate Europe and Asia are essentially green above and yellow below.
Great Tits in China, Korea, Japan and southeastern Russia are green above and white or
yellow-tinged white below, and birds in India and south-east Asia are grey above and whitish below.

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It is, like other tits, a vocal bird, and has a large variety of calls,
of which the most familiar is a "teacher, teacher",
also likened to a squeaky wheelbarrow wheel.


Sibir tertitt, Parus cinctus
© www.ecosystema.ru/

Interestingly, Great Tits from the two south Asian groups of races do not recognize
the calls of the temperate Great Tits, and they may be a separate species.

Any hole will do for a nest, and it will readily take to nest boxes.
The number in the clutch is often very large, but seven or eight white eggs, spotted red,
are normal, with bigger clutches being laid by two or even more hens.
The bird is a close sitter, hissing when disturbed.


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Great Tits are primarily insectivores.
They prefer protein rich caterpillars during breeding season to feed their young.
A study published in 2007 found that Great Tits helped to reduce caterpillar damage
in apple orchards by 50%.

In England, Great Tits learned to break open the foil caps sealing bottles of milk
that had been delivered to homes to get at the cream floating on top.

This is a common and popular European garden bird, due to its acrobatic performances
when feeding on nuts or seed. It will join winter tit flocks with other species.
text: http://en.wikipedia.org


Photo © Jørgen Scheel