Great Tit
(Parus major)
The great tit is a bright and cheerful visitor to our bird feeders. Easily identifiable by its yellow breast, black cap and green back, this spritely creature often comes into our gardens alongside other members of the tit family such as the coal and blue tit, with in excess of 20 birds feeding all at once!
Across the country, great tits are also known as the ‘teacher bird’ due to their distinctive ‘teacher teacher’ call, a common and much-loved sound in our gardens, parks and woodlands. However, male great tits are master songsters and can produce up to 40 variations of their call making them extremely versatile singers and communicators. These variations sometimes make it difficult to identify the great tit’s call; so, if you hear a song you don’t recognise, it might well be a great tit!
It is estimated that there are around 2 million pairs of great tits in the UK. With so many great tits around, they have learned to co-exist peacefully with humans and a large proportion of great tits use manmade nest boxes to raise their broods.
