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Great Tit (Parus major)

Not many species are candidates for the commonest bird in Europe, but the familiar Great Tit has a good case, occurring throughout our region except in Iceland. It is essentially a woodland bird, thriving most when there is a mixture of tree types and the cover is not too dark and cramped. But it has also readily adapted to using many different kinds of edge habitats, including scrub, farmland copses and gardens, and it even penetrates right into the heart of cities and sprawling suburbs. Not only is it familiar, but it is also one of the most intensively studied birds in the world, aided partly by its almost fanatical use of nest-boxes. If these are provided, the Great Tit will soon abandon its heritage of nesting in natural holes in favour of these new-fangled, artificial constructions.

The Great Tit differs ecologically from other tit species in typically feeding close to the ground, or on it. In winter it rarely strays above 7m, habitually searching for food on large branches and on trunks, where there is little competition from other tits. It has a powerful bill and can open large nuts, including those of hazel and beech, by hammering. Studies have shown that beech mast may be crucial to this bird’s prospects of winter survival; populations tend to be high in spring after a good autumnal beech crop, then poor the year after a moderate one. In summer the Great Tit abandons its low niche in favour of gleaning caterpillars, which at that time almost drip from the canopy.

In winter, most individual Great Tits forage as part of a roaming mixed species flock. These flocks, which form each day in the morning and may have some consistency of membership, at times attract dozens of individuals of such species as tits, Long-tailed Tits, Nuthatches, Treecreepers and Goldcrests. The main reason for gathering loosely like this is to create a communal vigilance against predators, but for a dominant bird such as a Great Tit, there is the added advantage of theft. It is easy for a Great Tit to persuade a Coal Tit, for example, to surrender any food that it has had the temerity to find, thus making stealing a cost-effective way to feed for the larger bird. Where human pickpockets or muggers benefit from a high density of population, so Great Tits benefit from being in flocks.

In early spring, in fact from January onwards, Great Tits take up territories by singing; if they leave it too late, they may be unable to acquire a patch of ground later. The male’s song is a very cheerful repetition of two notes, with something of an attack at the beginning; it has been likened to the sound of a saw-sharpening, a foot-pump, or the word “TEA-cher” repeated quickly. It is a dominant sound of the season.

The pair bond between male and female is monogamous, but often somewhat strained by infidelity, real and potential. At times a male Great Tit feels the need to watch its mate literally from dawn to dusk, from the time that the male sings during the dawn chorus to the time it escorts its mate back to her roosting hole. If all goes well, the 8-13 eggs and nestlings will all be his, but spring can be an anxious time.