Great Tit- Parus major
Classification
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Class: Aves
- Order: Passeriformes
- Family: Paridae
- Genre: Parus
- Species: Parus major
Identification characters
The Great Tit is certainly the best-known of the woodpecker species.
The Great Tit nests in natural or artificial burrows. In winter they can often be seen at feeders in towns and parks, eating sunflower seeds, walnut kernels, fat and apples.
The genus name – Parus – comes from the Latin name of the pygmy. The specific epithet comes from the Latin word maior which means larger, being the largest of the pygmy birds, with a body length of 13-15 cm. It weighs, on average, 11.9-22.1 g.
The head is glossy black with large white spots on the cheeks. On the ventral side, the plumage is yellow with a black median stripe and the dorsal side is dark greenish. There is a white band on the bluish-grey wing.
The sexes are relatively similar, with the male more intensely yellow ventrally and with the black midrib band wider, while the female is less intensely yellowish, with the black band narrower and often broken.
Juveniles are similar to adults, but are distinguished by a yellowish cheek patch with an incomplete black lower margin.
The Great Tit can often be heard and recognised by experienced individuals by a characteristic repeated trisyllabic sound, but is capable of more than 40 different types of songs and signals.