Tit birds - their varieties. Black-headed tit: description, features and interesting facts

The Russian Bird Conservation Union (SOPR) has chosen the brown-headed chickadee as the 2017 bird of the year. This bird is also called the fluffy bird, due to the way it fluffs up its plumage greatly in cold weather.

The chickadee is the most numerous species of tit, after the great tit. It is a small bird with a wingspan of 16-22 cm and a weight of 9-14 g.

Contrary to the name of the bird, its head is not brown, but black, although duller than that of the black-headed, or marsh, chickadee. Black color occupies the entire upper part of the head and even slightly covers the neck. The rest of the upper body plumage, as well as the wings and tail, are gray, while the cheeks, chest and belly are white.

Since autumn, these tits often stay in common flocks with other tits, pikas and nuthatches. They inspect both coniferous and deciduous trees and, more often than other tits, jump to the ground to look for food among fallen leaves in the fall, and on the surface of the snow in winter.

It is very easy to see the tracks of a chickadee jumping in the snow. The size of her paw print is noticeably smaller than that of a great tit, and slightly larger than that of our other tits - blue tit, grenadier and tit. Moving through the snow, she lowers her paw not from above, but slightly dragging it along the surface, dragging it. Therefore, the length of the imprint on the snow is often slightly longer than the supporting surface of the foot.

In the summer, you won’t find a puffball near human habitation.
Until July, young titmice are tied to the nest; later they will unite in noisy, cheerful flocks with kinglets and other small birds. Until winter they wander from place to place. In winter, when there is not enough food for birds, they can be seen in city parks, gardens, and near reservoirs. The food of the brown-headed chickadee is very diverse - it is mainly caterpillars, weevils and spiders.

Like some other species of tits, chickadees store food in the summer and early autumn. The tendency to hoard food is very pronounced in chubby goats. Throughout the year they hide some of the food they find. Food storage can be observed even in winter, seemingly under the most unfavorable feeding conditions. Young plumes begin to hide food as early as July.

Powderfish hide their reserves in a wide variety of places: on coniferous and deciduous trees, less often on bushes, stumps and even on the ground at the base of trunks. Hidden food is sometimes covered with a piece of bark or lichen. In a day, one bird can equip and fill up to two thousand such storage rooms!

However, chickadees apparently do not remember the location of supplies and find hidden food by accident. The use of reserves sometimes begins almost immediately after they are stocked. The birds eat some of the found reserves, and hide some again. Thanks to this constant re-hiding, the food is distributed more or less evenly over the area.

Pairs of these tits show amazing attachment to certain areas of the forest with an area of ​​10-20 hectares. Their whole life takes place in this limited territory, which they can cross in a matter of minutes. But they remember every tree here very well, they know where to find food, a place to sleep, silt and nests. Every day, flying from tree to tree, they slowly move around their area in search of food, walking a winding path of 3-5 kilometers.

Brown-headed chickadees have two songs, completely different from each other. The so-called whistling song is a series of loud, beautiful whistles: “tiu-tiu-tiu-tiu.” Each bird uses several of its variations, differing in height and tempo of execution. This song can be heard already in the first sunny days winter, at the end of December. But most of all it attracts attention in March, when there are still few other singing birds. Together with bullfinches, pikas, kinglets and great tits, puffy birds create the sound background of a forest that has just awakened in spring.

The second song of the puffball - gurgling - is quite quiet and consists of alternating trills: “si-sisi-sisisi-tyur-r-lyu-lu-lyu...” Not only male puffballs sing, but also females. The whistling song is most often used to attract a female and maintain communication between partners. The gurgling sound serves as a sign that the individual has a territory and is going to nest here. Males sing a special quiet version of the gurgling song when courting females.

When the forest is filled with the noise of spring streams, and flowers bloom on their banks yellow flowers coltsfoot, puffy ducks begin to look for a place for a nest. Like all tits, they nest in hollows. However, unlike other European tits, plume tits, as well as tufted tits, prefer to hollow out the hollow themselves. Living trunks are too strong for their small beaks. Therefore, they choose stumps and dead trees with soft, rotten wood for hollows. The male and female take turns flying up to the tree and quickly nipping at the rotten wood. Having collected as many pieces as possible into its beak, one bird flies off to the side, and another bird takes its place without hesitation. When making a hollow, puffballs do not throw wood chips directly under it - after all, those chips, brightly whitening on the forest floor, can give away the location of the nest. They fly away with pieces of wood and often not just throw them away, but hide them between the needles, behind loose bark, in holes where the knots have fallen out.

The shape of the finished hollow is variable and depends on the location of the soft and hard areas of the wood. And when strong twigs force the chubby ones to make a very intricate move into the hollow. Most often, the depth of the hollow is 14-16, and the diameter of the bottom is 7-8 centimeters. The nests of brown-headed chickadees differ well from the nests of other tits - they have no moss. This is a rather careless lining of strips of juniper bast, aspen, hazel, pine bark scales, wool and feathers. Like all tits, the nest is built by the female alone, and the male accompanies her on flights for building material.

Along with woodpeckers, puffy woodpeckers are suppliers of hollows for other small birds - cavity nesters, since they make a new hollow every year. They are especially often occupied by pied flycatchers. Sometimes they unceremoniously drive out chicks even from new hollows, forcing them to abandon eggs or small chicks.

Chickadees begin laying eggs later than other tits, in early May. The female spends the night in the nest, where the male accompanies her every evening. In the morning, he flies up to the hollow again and calls his girlfriend with a quiet song. Every morning, before leaving the nest, the female lays one white egg with brown specks. The birds spend the whole day together. The female often begs for food from the male, at this moment reminiscent of a fledgling chick asking for food. And she screams like a chick: “si-ti-zhe.” The male from time to time gives her the food he finds, which is very important for the female during the period of intensive development of her eggs, each of which weighs about 1.2 grams and is approximately a tenth of the body weight of an adult bird. In the first half of the day, the female returns to the nest several times, bringing tufts of wool and dry blades of grass to cover the unfinished clutch.

The first two days after the birth of the offspring, the female spends most of the day in the hollow, warming the almost naked babies with sparse fluff on the head, shoulders and back. There are usually seven or eight chicks. It is mainly the male who obtains food for the whole family. Then the female increasingly leaves the nest and participates in feeding the chicks along with the male.

Brown-headed chickadees feed their chicks often - 300-500 times a day. The food consists mainly of spiders, caterpillars and sawfly larvae. They bring them eggshells, lumps of earth, shells of terrestrial mollusks. Over the entire period of nesting life (about 19 days), approximately 20-30 thousand (800 grams) of various invertebrate animals disappear in the yellow mouths of the chicks.

The chicks leave the nests already able to fly well. As a rule, this happens early in the morning. The chicks peer through the entrance hole into a new world for a long time, until the first one suddenly decides to fly. The rest fly out after him and never return to the nest. Excited parents often scream and sing a whistling song. They accompany each chick on its first flight to the place where it lands, and immediately feed it.

Hello dear readers of the site about animals. Alexandra is in touch with you. You know, by chance I just remembered how recently I was delighted by the flight of beautiful birds to our feeder on a tree in the garden near the house. We always hang a large number of them on every tree in winter.

And this time, beautiful birds, which we had not seen before in the summer, flew to the feeders. These were the birds - tits. So beautiful, you can’t take your eyes off them. In this article I will tell you what types of tits there are and look at their photos.

Types of tits photos and names

It is difficult not to notice yellow-breasted tits, as they fly into the forest in the summer and live there until cold weather sets in.

But as soon as the first frost hits, timid snowflakes will appear in the air - tits will be drawn to human habitation. Near a person you can always find a crumb for food. And people remember about birds: they prepare feeders, hang up a piece of unsalted lard. Everything for them, for the tits and their brothers.

During cold weather, small birds gather in groups, because it’s more fun to spend the winter this way and there are also more chances to survive.

At first glance, it seems that all the birds are the same, except that they can be distinguished by their height. Actually this is not true. Here's the usual one titmouse nicknamed bolshak. She's big. Her plumage is bright: her belly is yellow with a black stripe in the middle. The titmouse's cap is also black. It creates a sharp contrast with white cheeks. The back of the bird is colored in different shades of green.

Great tits are very lively birds in terms of movement. They scurry along the tree trunk, looking for hidden insects under the bark. At the same time, the birds talk loudly among themselves. In summer, the nearby forest serves as their home.

Smaller birds are jumping next to the big tits. They differ from large ones in the color of their plumage. This blue tits. They have blue caps and no black stripe on the chest and abdomen. Due to their low weight, blue tits can perch on the very tip of a thin branch. It cannot be said that their character is modest. Blue tits do not allow themselves to be offended; they make noise at the feeders and drive away other birds.

Blue tits are related princeling. The prince is truly unusual. He is “dressed” in a striped blue and white tailcoat. This bird is rare, and information about it is recorded in the Red Book.

In the dark coniferous forests lives a bird similar in plumage to the Bolshak - a bird nicknamed Moscow. Apparently, due to the gloom of its habitat, its plumage is dull. It looks like the bird was sprinkled with grains of coal. It can be recognized by the white spot on the neck.

Muscovites are neighbors chubby And brown-headed tit. These are also titmice. Their backs are gray-brown, their bellies are light, there is a black spot on their head, and the same one under their beak. The sisters differ in their voices and preferences: the chickadee can be found among the fir trees, the black-headed chickadee in deciduous forests near the floodplain of the reservoir.

It is very rare, but you can still see a cute bird with a crest. For the presence of a crest, the bird is called grenadier. Once upon a time in the 18th century, grenadier headdresses had similar crests. The grenadier also has a common name - the tufted tit.

What all these birds have in common is that they live in hollows. They inhabit hollows abandoned by woodpeckers or voids formed by nature in a tree. Their food is insects and seeds. Those who live in a spruce forest naturally feed on seeds from spruce cones. If the cone harvest is poor, tits become nomads.

Other tits thriftyly store insects and seeds. Birds often forget about their pantries, but supplies do not go to waste. Those who are the first to discover such a pantry feast on them.

We can say that tits have cousins, forming separate family. This long-tailed tits. They are also called ladles because they look like little ladles with a long handle. These “ladies” are good builders.

The building material for them is moss. It makes strong and good-quality round houses, which can only be reached through side door. As a rule, these houses are well camouflaged.

In winter, long-tailed tits form a group independent from the rest. They can accompany the woodpecker if they are weakened. Then the titmice have the opportunity to look for insects under the bark torn off by the woodpecker.

In winter, birds place their greatest hope on humans. If he supports the birds in winter, they will repay him with kindness in summer. Dear readers, I wanted to ask you, do you feed the birds in winter and make feeders? Please report it in the comments to this article. And then we will somehow tell and show in the following articles how to make bird feeders. Would you be interested?

Brown-headed Chickadee one of the most common birds in Russia. Among all tits, it is the second most numerous after, and in central Siberia, where coniferous forests, is more common than any other birds of this family. Unlike other tits, it does not like to live near people and flies to feeders only in situations of acute food shortage. Therefore, despite its numbers, people rarely encounter these birds.

Official name: Brown-headed chickadee, or chickadee, in Latin Poecile montanus, also called Parus montanus, English name Willow tit. This bird is called a fluffy bird because of its habit of fluffing up its plumage very much during the cold season.

Description of the brown-headed chickadee

The puffy bird is a small bird, smaller than a great tit or sparrow, slightly larger. Average length The brown-headed chickadee is about 13 centimeters long, weighs about 10 grams, and has a wingspan of 20 cm. Females are almost indistinguishable in appearance from males. Unlike the Great Tit and appearance The brown-headed chickadee is quite dull and inconspicuous. Directly from the eyes, a matte black, and not brown, as one might think from the name of the bird, contrasting cap begins, passing through the back of the head and ending on the back. Because of this, the head of the chubby appears disproportionately large. Young birds have a duller cap. The back, tail and wings are approximately the same brownish-gray color, only the back is slightly lighter. The tail is sharply rounded. The sides of the head and cheeks are pure white and contrast sharply with the cap. The sides of the neck and bottom of the bird are whitish with a creamy tint, the beak is small, dark brown, almost black, under the beak there is a black spot with blurred edges. Legs are grey.

Externally, the Brown-headed Chickadee is very similar to the Black-headed Chickadee, but natural conditions It is very difficult to distinguish them, but it is possible. The chickadee has a matte cap, while the black-headed chickadee has a shiny cap with a metallic sheen. Black spot under the beak (bib) The brown-headed chickadee is larger and more like a triangle than an oval, the cheeks are whiter and larger in area. The most noticeable distinguishing feature of the feather feather is the light edges of the secondary flight feathers, which form a contrasting light field on the dark wing.

Like all tits, the Brown-headed Chickadee is a songbird, but its repertoire is not very diverse. There are three types of songs: territorial (usually performed by males to camouflage the nest), demonstrative (performed by both sexes to find a partner), courting (performed by males during courtship with a female).

Powderfish habitats

Found throughout Eurasia east of central France and Great Britain and up to Japanese Islands. In the north, its range is limited by the boundaries of forests, on the Scandinavian Peninsula it is also found in the forest-tundra, and in the south by the border of forest-steppes and steppes. It is found in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Ukraine up to the southern foothills of the Carpathians.

The brown-headed chickadee is not afraid of people and shows curiosity towards them, but does not like to settle next to them. Lives in lowland and mountain forests, where they are found coniferous trees: spruce, pine, larch. In the European part of the country, it settles in floodplains, groves, bushes, and can often be found in wetlands of forests. In Siberia it inhabits continuous dark coniferous taiga and swamps, and closer to the south it inhabits cedar plantings. In the mountains, the habitat boundary is the boundaries of tree vegetation.

The brown-headed tit is a sedentary bird, sometimes migrating over short distances. The puffy bird forms stable pairs in the fall, the birds are monogamous, and pairs remain until the death of one of the partners. Males first look for a companion in the nearest territory, within a radius of no more than 5 kilometers, but if unsuccessful, they go to other parts of the forest. In the spring, the pair jointly hollows out a hollow for a nest; unlike other tits, the chickadee, like a woodpecker, does this on its own, and does not occupy ready-made premises.

The small beak of the brown-headed chickadee imposes restrictions on the tree species in which they can find shelter. Birds build nests in stumps, dead or rotten trees, usually birch, aspen, alder, larch, at a height of no more than 3 meters from the ground. The careful puffy never leaves chips from construction under a tree, but carries them to another part of the forest. The nest is built exclusively by the female. It takes them an average of one to two weeks to build a house. To do this, birds use branches, tree bark, birch bark, wool and feathers. The nests of chickadees differ from the homes of other species of chickadees in that they do not bring moss into their home. Before starting masonry, there is a break of about a week in construction. Nest construction resumes after the female lays her first egg. The bird continues to bring soft material to the nest, so that after laying is complete, the eggs are covered with soft bedding.

Reproduction and nutrition

As a rule, laying occurs once a year, in early May, and usually contains 5-9 white eggs covered with red-brown specks. The female sits on the eggs for about two weeks. All this time, the male guards the territory and brings food to the female, on average flying to her 200-300 times a day. Occasionally, females take off from the nest and provide themselves with food on their own. The chicks hatch within two to three days. At first they are covered with sparse brownish-gray down, the beak cavity has a brownish-yellow tint.

The female and the male jointly feed the young. At night and on cold days, the brown-headed chickadee returns to the nest with the chicks and sits inseparably with the chicks, warming their offspring. The chicks begin to fly away from the nest 17–20 days after birth, but they still remain dependent on their parents, since they are not able to obtain food on their own. In mid-July, bird families gather in nomadic flocks, in which, in addition to tits, you can find pikas, wrens and nuthatches. Throughout its life, the bird stays within the same area, rarely moving more than 5 km from its place of birth.

In its diet it prefers animal food, consisting of insects. In summer, its diet consists of half animal food, but in autumn and winter seeds occupy most of the food supply. However, in the fall, before the snow falls, the puffer takes the opportunity to find dormant larvae and other invertebrates. The chicks are fed exclusively with animal food. It feeds in the lower layer of the forest and undergrowth, but rarely falls to the ground. You can often see the puffball hanging head down on a very thin branch, trying to catch some insects. It actively makes reserves throughout the year, hiding seeds in crevices of the bark, between the needles, and under lichens.

Life in wildlife Brown-headed tits are no more than 9 years old; in captivity they sometimes live up to 11 years.

This article will talk about one of the surprisingly small inhabitants of mixed and deciduous forests. The conversation will be about birds, which bring considerable benefits to forestry.

This is a black-headed chickadee. She also has other similar relatives, which you can learn about by reading this article.

It should be noted that the characteristics of this bird are a little difficult due to its great similarity to other species of chickadees, for example, the brown-headed chickadee. But more on that below.

Black-headed (or marsh) chickadee: description

The marsh tit, or black-headed tit, is a small tit weighing about 10-11 grams. It is smaller in size than a sparrow and its plumage is not very brightly colored.

The total length with a weight of up to 15 grams is 12-14 centimeters, and the wingspan reaches 18-20 cm. The neck and head are blue-black, the throat and chin are black, and the feathers at the tips have a white border. The back is dark sandy with an olive tint, and the thighs are browner. The tail (with stripe) and wings are grayish in color. The sides are reddish and the ventral region is light gray. Dirty white cheeks, black beak, dark gray paws.

The black-headed chickadee is a fairly active bird. Its flight is very fast and wave-like. These birds have no pronounced sexual dimorphism; it is difficult to distinguish a female from a male. Young birds look duller in plumage, and their caps are matte and dark brown.

External differences between species

The black-headed chickadee and the chickadee are very similar in appearance. How to distinguish them? Unlike the second, the upper and lower parts of the body of the black-headed chickadee are clearly distinguishable by color.

This bird has one more detail of black plumage - a small spot with slightly blurry edges just under the beak (does not reach the chest).

It is also practically indistinguishable in nature from another species. What is the difference between the black-headed one and the other? There are two barely visible distinctive feature- the second one has a shorter cap with a bluish tint and a thicker beak.

Habitats, lifestyle

The black-headed chickadee is a bird that lives mainly in deciduous forests and riverine thickets of poplars, bird cherry and willows. It is found, in addition to swampy damp lowlands, and in dry wild thickets, gardens, groves and parks.

The habitats of this small bird vary depending on the time of year. Unlike the brown-headed chickadee, the black-headed chickadee avoids coniferous forests, may end up in them only in winter and autumn, during the period of migration.

In February, chickadees are observed in meadows, among willow thickets and alder forests. In May they can live in spruce-alder forests, alder forests, hornbeam-oak forests, and in June - also in hornbeam-oak forests and alder forests. In dense hazel thickets, in mixed spruce-deciduous forests and in young oak forests they can be found in July, and in mixed forests, among birch thickets and in young pine forests This bird lives in August-September. In October-November, birch forests become the habitat of the chickadee. mixed forests, alder and pine forests.

This bird nests in hollows of deciduous trees and in rotten stumps with rotten wood. As a rule, the hollow is located at a height of about 1-1.5 meters above the ground, sometimes higher. It is cleared by the chickadee itself. If she hollows out a hollow on her own, she carries the wood chips away from the future nest to some distance.

The hollow is usually so small that the nest litter and the bird sitting in it are often visible from the outside. In a clutch (April-May) there are 5-9 white eggs interspersed with a reddish-brown hue. Rarely, these birds sometimes make a second clutch.

The black-headed chickadee is a common (and sedentary) bird, and these species of birds, like other tits, live together in flocks and pairs. They are very dexterous and agile, they like to cling and hang on the tip of thin branches.

How is a nest built?

The outside of the nest is made of green moss mixed with wool and cobwebs. The tray itself is usually lined with wool mixed with horsehair, and sometimes there is down and feathers. The average diameter of the nest is 3-6 centimeters. The height of the tray is no more than 3 cm, and its average dimensions are 1.4 cm.

The black-headed chickadee nests in solitary pairs. For the most part, unlike its related species (brown-headed tit), it uses an existing hollow, only expanding it when necessary by plucking wood from it. Nests are sometimes located at a height of about 3 meters. Typically, the diameter of a hollow's entrance is no more than 3.5 cm. This bird can also inhabit artificial hollows.

This bird has an average of 7-10 eggs in a full clutch. Their shell is milky white, shiny, covered with small rusty-reddish brown spots. The weight of the egg is 1.3 g, the diameter reaches up to 13 mm, and the length reaches 17 mm.

Nutrition

The black-headed chickadee feeds mainly on caterpillars and spiders, and in autumn and winter on seeds, including thistle seeds.

Insects and their chitinous larvae also serve as food for these birds. hard shell, and also flies, spiders and aphids.

In summer, adult birds feed on ants, weevils, spiders, and various small beetles. In the spring, they eat the anthers of willows and aspens, and drink the sap of maple and birch trees. In autumn and winter periods Most of the diet consists of seeds of spruce, pine, maple, black alder, rowan, various herbaceous plants, etc. Chickadees feed their chicks mainly on caterpillars of butterflies and spiders.

Peculiarities

The voice of the black-headed chickadee is very diverse. His call is a sonorous “qi-qi-zhee-zhee” or a little sadder “pyuyu-piyuy.” Her singing is surprisingly sonorous and melodic. Also, a chickadee can utter a quick “weep, wheeze” with hoarse exclamations and metallic notes, or a drawn-out “tey-tey-tey”, meaning alarm. There is another whistling song - "sis-si-ris-si".

A characteristic feature of this bird is the manner of staying only in pairs and strong affection for each other. In winter, ordinary mixed flocks in which small wintering birds gather, as a rule, one or two marsh chickadees can be found. They rarely live alone. Partners do not separate either in winter or autumn, even when they are in a flock of their relatives or join flocks of other tits.

The chickadee's lifestyle is sedentary and in winter it always stays near the nest.

In conclusion: some interesting facts

• In spring (usually in April), pairs decide on a nesting site and females begin to choose a hollow for themselves. The eggs are incubated for 14 days. Chicks usually fly out of the nest on days 17-19, after which the male also joins in raising them.
• There have been cases where there were chickadee nests lined with moss mixed with hare fur and a small amount feathers
• Black-headed chickadees are useful birds for forestry because they feed on many insects, especially small bugs (several studies have been done on the stomachs of these birds).