Great Tit (Parus major)

Nikon D7200, Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6

f/6.3, 1/500s, ISO 500, 500mm Cambridgeshire 2019

The largest Tit species found in the UK, its range covers almost the whole of the mainland, apart from the highest parts of the the Scottish highlands.

It can be a bit of a bully and I see it on our bird feeders pushing off other species including Starlings, which takes some doing!

It has a distinctive call that sounds very much like Teacher! Teacher!

  • KevinFRKEnglish
    3•10 months ago

    Ah, but you have seen them, in a manner of speaking. To quote Wikipedia:

    The tits, chickadees, and titmice constitute the Paridae, a large family of small passerine birds which occur mainly in the Northern Hemisphere and Africa. Most were formerly classified in the genus Parus.

    Members of this family are commonly referred to as “tits” throughout much of the English-speaking world, but North American species are called either “chickadees” (onomatopoeic, derived from their distinctive “chick-a dee dee dee” alarm call)[1] or “titmice”.

    I’m sure I’m wrong, but I imagine some colonist puritan going “We can’t keep talking of shameful female things… we will henceforth refer to them as chickadees”

    • @EvilTedOPEnglish
      2•10 months ago

      Lol yes I can definitely see them getting hot under the frilly collar!

      My understanding is that the Chickadees were moved to the genus Poecile (was a sub-genus) which does contain some birds called tit e.g. Willow Tit but is genetically distinct from the other genera that contain the UK birds we call Tits e.g Cyanistes (Blue Tit) or Parus (Great Tit). However, they are in the same Paridae family which are commonly referred to as the Tit family lol I think that’s why using common names becomes an issue when you need to be specific. Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_(bird)

      I also think the problem is, since the advent of genetic testing, we are finding many species need recategorising. And even though the scientific names change the common names are unlikely to.