The dorsal side of the brown-tit or puffy gray, and the top of the head and throat (chin) are painted black. The cheeks and abdomen are covered with greyish-white plumage, and in birds from the northern populations the cheeks are pure-white. Blurred bright spot usually available on the wing. Sexual dimorphism is not expressed, therefore the female is indistinguishable from the male.
The brown-headed tit in appearance is very similar to the black-headed tit, which is difficult to distinguish from in field conditions. They are often confused even by ornithological specialists, but if you look closely, you will notice differences not only in coloration, but also in voice and habits.
So, the coloring of the back of the gray nodule is gray, “mouse” in color, and the black cap goes far back on the head in the form of a pointed pigtail. The throat spot is rather large, as if it is blurred.
It is easy to distinguish the nature of the voice of the gray brown chickadee, since gray gaichek have very distinctive urge that can be passed as "chi-chi-gay. gee. gee. ". If the first syllables of this urge are jerky, screaming, then the last ones are hoarse and stretched, as if with stress. This kind of roll call is repeated almost every minute and is accompanied by a thin blue-eyed squeak and ticking. The gray gaithek has a special, resonant and rather low cry: “chi-chi-chi-fi-tsifik. ".
Marriage singing is completely different in both species, which can be heard from March onwards. These are sonorous and pure whistles - “Tiu-tiu-tiu. "Repeating in the gray tit 5-6 times in a row. In this case, the first three hits sometimes sing in a tone higher than the last three, and the whole song has a sort of sad tone.
Willow tit is spread throughout the forest zone, sometimes penetrating into the forest tundra and forest-steppe. It is absent in the Caucasus and the South Kuriles. Wintering places for brown-haired tit enter the nesting site. Gray tit is more widespread in Russia. It can be found from Arkhangelsk in the north, and to Ukraine in the south, it also dwells throughout the taiga of Siberia to Kamchatka and the Sea of Okhotsk in the east. During the winter migrations, beaks of gray tit enter their way further south, meeting even in Ukraine.
Both species of gaichek differ in their nesting preferences, since the brown tit prefers sparse deciduous forests, and the gray prefers raw mixed coniferous forests and lives even in remote taiga.
Gaichki are very mobile and even fidgety: they don’t spend a single minute at rest. They cleverly move even in the densest plexuses of branches, searching for various insects there. If the tit gets bigger prey, then she holds it with her toes, and she breaks the beak into pieces. She vigilantly looks through all the cracks and cracks in the bark and branches of the tree in the hope of finding prey. And the little tit feeds mainly on every little thing, including the tiny eggs of spiders and insects, pupae and insect larvae, searching for food from morning to evening. And in the winter, in frosts and blizzards, birds often hide in dense spruce forests, where wind and snow do not penetrate. From the autumn they appear near the dwelling, in gardens and parks, and easily get used to artificial bait, often attend the feeders.
In the summer, the niggaws eat only animal food, which is quite enough, then in the fall they begin to consume various seeds. Gaichi, both brown-headed and gray, eat sunflower seeds, sow thistle, various cornflower, sage, pickle, serpukha, and many others, mainly of the Compositae. They willingly hammer seeds of motherwort, collecting them from dry stalks protruding from under the snow at the edges of forest roads and along the edges. Very often, chickweeds are found among the seeds and hibernating insect larvae.
From early spring, the gaits return to their nesting places. Favorite nesting stations of the gray caps are deaf and swampy banks of forest streams, with rotten deciduous dead wood, among large coniferous trees. The nest is placed in a hollow, usually very low from the ground, most often in rotten stumps or broken trees with soft rotten wood. Gaping a hollow by a female takes from 8 to 25 days. Gnezdovaya lining is very scanty, made of thin, crushed bast fibers, moss, or even simply from wood rot, and feathers, wool and down are very rare. The diameter of the notch is 25-35 mm, the depth of the hollow is 100-200 mm.
The construction of the nest takes place in April. Full clutches are observed in the first half of May. Hatching eggs lasts 13-15 days. Chicks are in the nest for 17-19 days. Departure of chicks falls at the end of June - the first decade of July.
Little Tit brown-headed: a description of the appearance
The bird has a small dense body, up to 14 cm in length and with a mass of 9-14 g, short neck and plumage of a grayish-brown color. The top of a rather large head and the back of the head is a matte black shade. Most of the back, medium and small wings, shoulders, nadhvoste and loins have brownish-gray color. Cheeks white and gray. On the sides of the neck there is an ocher shade. On the front of the throat there is a so-called dickey - a large black spot. The bill has a dark brown color. The bottom of the bird is dirty white with a slight ocher tint on the sides, legs and paws are dark gray.
Willow tit in field conditions can be easily confused with blackhead. The difference between them is that the powder has a matte rather than a shiny black cap and a grayish longitudinal strip on the secondary wing wings. The most striking feature of these birds is their singing.
Habitats
Brown-headed chickadee is found in the forest zones of Eurasia, beginning in the east of Great Britain and the central regions of France, and ending with the coast of the Pacific Ocean and the Japanese islands. In the north, it lives in areas of woody vegetation, as well as the Scandinavian and Finnish forest-tundra. In the south, it is found in the steppes.
Willow tit is inclined to live in plains of coniferous, mountainous and mixed forests, in which pine, larch, spruce grows, as well as floodplains of rivers and wetlands. In Siberia, it settles in the dark-coniferous taiga with sphagnum bogs, willow trees and alder thickets.
In Europe, it mostly lives among shrub vegetation of floodplain forests, on forest edges and groves. In the mountainous area is found at an altitude of 2000 m to 2745 m, for example, on the Tien Shan. Outside the breeding season, the bird tends to rise much higher. For example, in Tibet, the powder was seen at an altitude of 3960 meters above sea level.
Lifestyle
Birds of this species nest in April and May. They are predominantly sedentary in hollows, which are located in stumps and dead trees at a small distance from the ground. The little tit is brown-headed, like woodpeckers, prefers to hollow out its dwelling in rotten dilapidated wood. The depth of the hollow is about 20 cm, and the diameter is 6-8 cm.
Birdies are engaged in arranging the nest in pairs, which they find in the fall. The males in the first year of life are looking for females in the nearest territory (no more than five kilometers). If they fail to do this, they fly away to distant areas of the forest.
It takes an average of one to two weeks to set up a nest in chubs. For this, birds use branches, bark of trees, bark, wool and feathers. The nests of the plumes differ from the dwellings of other species of gaichex in that they do not carry moss into their home. Tit - brown-headed tit - loves to make caches with plant seeds, but most often forgets the location of the treasure.
Powder eats various small invertebrates and larvae. In this way, chickweeds bring tremendous benefits to the forest ecosystem because they regulate the number of insects. In addition, they feed on the fruits and seeds of plants.
In the summer, the diet of the young tit is divided equally between food of animal and vegetable origin. In winter, they feed mainly on seeds of juniper, pine and spruce. Chicks are fed by spiders, butterfly caterpillars with the addition of vegetable feed. Adult chubs eat earthworms, bees, weevils, flies, mosquitoes, ants, ticks, and even snails.
From plant foods in their diet includes such cereals as wheat, corn, oats and barley. Of the berries, grabs prefer cranberries, mountain ash, lingonberries, blueberries and cotoneaster. Bird feeders visit extremely rare.
Breeding
This season coincides with the time of nest arrangement. The dummies find a mate in the first year of life and stay together until one of them dies. Life expectancy of brown-headed gaichek is not more than nine years.
The courtship of the males is accompanied by songs and shaking the wings. Before mating, they demonstratively offer females food. Before the beginning of laying, the birds resume the nest arrangement. Thus, at the beginning of the hatching, the eggs are covered with a litter. The laying usually consists of 5-9 white eggs with reddish-brown specks. Hatching continues throughout the crescent. At this time, the male produces food for the mother and protects the nest. Sometimes the female flies out of the dwelling for a while and feeds on her own.
Chicks hatch asynchronously for two to three days. At first they are covered with a rare brownish-gray fluff, the cavity of the beak has a brownish-yellow tint. The female and the male feed the young together. On average, they bring prey 250-300 times a day. At night and on cold days, the titlet, the brown-headed tit, sits inseparably in the hollow, heating its offspring. Nestlings begin to fly little by little after 17–20 days after birth, but they still remain dependent on their parents, since they are not able to independently obtain food. In mid-July, bird families are knocking together in wading flocks, in which, in addition to tits, you can find pikas, crowns and nuthatches.
The vocal repertoire of the brown-headed tit does not have such a diversity as, for example, the black-headed. Two types of songs are classified: demonstrative (used to attract a couple) and territorial (marking a nesting site). The first type consists of a series of measured whistling soft whistling sounds. tyi "Or" Tii ... Tii ... ". Willow tit (photo see below) performs this song at the same height or occasionally raises the tone. Chubby sing all year round, but most often it occurs in spring and in the second half of summer.
The territorial whistle is much quieter compared to the demonstrative one and resembles a gurgling trill with an intermittent squeak. It is more often performed by males than females. Also, many bird watchers sing a “murmuring” song. Frequently encountered calls include the typical for the family of bluefin ticas "chi-qi", after which you can almost always hear a rattling and rougher "jee ... jee ...".
This is also interesting!
Willow tit - intelligent and agile tit, living in the forests of Asia and Europe. A lover of coniferous forests, insect larvae, plant seeds and not averse to feast on the remnants of the human table.
Among the variety of birds there are species, at first glance, unremarkable. And not too famous, perhaps because they do not spin daily before your eyes, like sparrows or tits, or they cannot boast of the luxury of plumage, like parrots or peacocks. In general, they do not have any outstanding features to be popular with a person. But the difficulty of their existence and the resilience with which they overcome it, deserve respect. And small, but brave and strong lumps have every right to learn about them as much as possible.
Behind dark forests, high mountains ...
More recently, a small representative of birds, called "puhlyak" belonged to the blue-headed family. But, having studied better the habits, appearance, and way of life, ornithologists have understood that this is an absolutely independent group of birds. Therefore, they were singled out in a separate genus, which was given a ridiculous and affectionate definition - tit.
Gaichas are divided into two subspecies: blackheads and brown-headed. These babies do not particularly favor a person and prefer to spend their lives in deaf impassable forests. They can come to human housing only as a last resort if they are forced to go to hunger for a visit. Even the feeders with food visit very reluctantly.
In their native land, gaashes chose a thicket of coniferous forests of Eurasia and America, the Canadian and Caucasian mountain and taiga regions, as well as the Carpathians, Sakhalin and the Japanese islands.
Appearance and description of the powder
The family of brown-headed gaichek differs in miniature sizes, only 12 cm, maximum 14 cm. Plus a small tail of 5-6 cm. The weight of the little girl does not exceed 10-15 grams.
The appearance of the bird is rather inconspicuous:
- Head with a dark, far-reaching hat. The difference between the two species is that in the black-headed gaichi this cap is coal-black, and in black-and-brown grains it gives off a brown tint.
- The neck of the bird is white with a black "butterfly" on the chest.
- The back and the area above the tail are gray, all with the same brownish tinge.
- Abdomen off-white gamma.
- The sides and undertail of a pale reddish hue.
- Fly and tail feathers are gray, with the same brownness as the back.
The bird was called a powdery powder because during bad weather or in the cold it fluffs feathers strongly. At these moments, its plumage is hardly unremarkable. Yes, it does not begin to sparkle with all the colors of the rainbow, but its tail and wings with wide open feathers at this time resemble three small steel fans with clearly defined edges interconnected. Very beautiful sight.
Musical talents
We can’t just say a bit about the singing abilities of the tit. Given the detached habitat of a bird, it is not often possible to witness its trills. Those to whom it was lucky, in one voice will say - singing crumbs is delicious! It is great! The repertoire of Ptah is not rich in variations, there are only three of them:
- to designate a territory
- to search for couples in the mating season,
- for the expression of sympathy by the male to his girlfriend during courtship.
But if you only knew how inspirational, melodiously and gently the nigga performs its songs, how it fascinates its voice and caresses the ear. Musical abilities of the bird fully compensate the routine appearance.
Diet and Nutty Nutrition
Gaichka loves to eat. Is it amazing how such a huge amount of food fits in a small, neat little body? But the bird is not only a glutton, it is also a forest orderly. Its task is to free the trees from various parasites under the bark. What pichuga and does with great pleasure. Insects and their larvae make up half the dinner table in summer. The second half is food of plant origin: seeds, fruits, berries, even mushrooms. They love to feast on cereals on wheat, hemp, corn, and barley fields.
In winter, vegetable food is the basis of the diet. Seeds of cones of Christmas trees, cedars, yew trees. The lack of animal food is replenished by hollowing out sleeping insects, larvae and caterpillars from under the bark of a tree. It is noteworthy that for eating Gadget almost never go down to the ground, preferring to collect it directly from the bush, stem or stem.
Characteristic features in life and behavior
Chubby - birds are sedentary, rarely migrate. We can say that this family birds. They are looking for their soul mate long before the breeding season, picking up a mate for themselves in the fall, equipping the family nest, and only after six months of a happy life together they begin to prepare for breeding.
Independent birds rely only on their own strength and never occupy someone's left nests. They hollow out their own houses themselves, in trunks with soft, rotten wood. For this purpose, shabby outdated birch trees, alder, aspen - the most favorite options for housing.
A couple of hollows jointly hollow, 20 centimeters deep, with a rather wide entrance hole - up to 8 cm. The hard work takes an average of 2 weeks. The dwelling is settled on dwellings with bark, twigs, feathers and animal hair. And they never use moss for lining the nest.
Video "Singing of Little Brown Tit"
Lovingly equipped nest is ready and it will be warm and cozy in it. By the way, little birds are very smart. In order not to attract attention to their house, they carry away all the hollowed-out slivers away or hide in the needles.
Ptahas do not live in built nests for life. In the last year's nesting colonies return extremely rarely. After wintering and breeding offspring, in the fall they begin the cycle in a new way: the search and arrangement of housing, wintering, brood. And in the abandoned houses, other birds live with pleasure: blood beasts, titmouse, flycatchers and other forest inhabitants.
The quitlock has a mania to hide numerous caches with a reserve of seeds. But only their memory almost always fails. Very rarely, they can later themselves find their own treasures, and from the heaps of similar storages, then new trees sprout for new generations of gaiches.
