Best window bird feeder 202011/25/2023 ![]() The 11 subspecies of the cinereous tit were once lumped with the great tit but recent genetic and bioacoustic studies now separate that group as a distinct species Francis Willughby had used the name in the 17th century. ![]() Its scientific name is derived from the Latin parus "tit" and maior "larger". The great tit was described under its current binomial name by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae. The great tit is also an important study species in ornithology. The great tit has adapted well to human changes in the environment and is a common and familiar bird in urban parks and gardens. The nests may be raided by woodpeckers, squirrels and weasels and infested with fleas, and adults may be hunted by sparrowhawks. In most years the pair will raise two broods. The female lays around 12 eggs and incubates them alone, although both parents raise the chicks. Like all tits it is a cavity nester, usually nesting in a hole in a tree. It is predominantly insectivorous in the summer, but will consume a wider range of food items in the winter months, including small hibernating bats. The great tit is a distinctive bird with a black head and neck, prominent white cheeks, olive upperparts and yellow underparts, with some variation amongst the numerous subspecies. The great tit remains the most widespread species in the genus Parus. DNA studies have shown these other subspecies to be distinct from the great tit and these have now been separated as two distinct species, the cinereous tit ( Parus cinereus) of southern Asia, and the Japanese tit ( Parus minor) of East Asia. Until 2005 this species was lumped with numerous other subspecies. It is a widespread and common species throughout Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and east across the Palearctic to the Amur River, south to parts of North Africa where it is generally resident in any sort of woodland most great tits do not migrate except in extremely harsh winters. The great tit ( Parus major) is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. Range of current and former subspecies groups
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