Great Tit Life History

Habitat

Across Europe, Great Tits are found in open woodlands, gardens, city parks, orchards, hedgerows, and other habitats where there are trees or shrubs. They are at home in open or disturbed woodlands, especially those with oaks, rather than extensive dense forest. Gardens, parks, and cemeteries, which provide foraging opportunities on the ground, allow Great Tits to find fallen tree seeds—a favorite food source—during the winter months. In parts of Asia where wooded habitats are more limited (such as western China, Mongolia, and Siberia), Great Tits occur in birch and willow thickets along rivers, in isolated clusters of trees, and in villages.

Food

Great Tits feed largely on insects, including adults, pupae, larvae, and eggs. Favored insect groups include moths, butterflies, beetles, bugs, flies, wasps, bees, and ants, but Great Tits eat other types of insects, and spiders, depending on availability. During the winter, seeds—especially from beech and hazel trees—and fruits become important food sources alongside insects. Great Tits are also regular visitors to bird feeders.

Great Tits forage in trees by hopping along small branches, probing bark for insects, and hanging upside down when needed. They also hop on the ground, looking for invertebrates or fallen seeds from trees. After finding food, birds usually fly to a perch, hold the item with one foot (insects) or two feet (seeds), and peck at it.

Nesting

Nest Placement

Great Tits nest in cavities. Some populations only use nest boxes, but others also nest in natural tree cavities and holes in buildings and other structures.

Nest Description

The nest is cup shaped, usually built within a foundation of moss and dried vegetation and lined with hair, wool, and feathers.

Nesting Facts

Behavior

Great Tits are active, vocal (especially males), and at times bold birds. They often visit bird feeders, and some audacious individuals eat bird seeds out of human hands. They are also smart, quickly learning to take advantage of unique feeding opportunities. In a British study, these tits displayed spontaneous problem-solving skills—pulling levers and strings—to get food from a bird feeder puzzle. Great Tits are one of a small number of avian tool-users, with birds observed using a conifer needle to pull insect larvae out of a hole in a tree.

Great Tits are monogamous within a breeding season, but in areas where they form winter foraging flocks, pairs split up after the breeding season and then usually pair up again with the same partner for the next breeding season. The female builds the nest and is responsible for all incubation and brooding. Clutch size ranges from 3 to 18 eggs; first clutches in Europe generally average 9–11 eggs, while second clutches typically have two fewer eggs. Both sexes feed the nestlings, which leave the nest after a little less than three weeks. Outside of the breeding season, this species is social, with up to 50 Great Tits at a time forming mixed-species flocks with other small songbirds.

Conservation

The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists Great Tit’s conservation status for Europe as Least Concern, due to an extremely large range, a stable population trend, and an extremely large population size (estimated in 2020 as 127–205 million mature individuals).

Credits

BirdLife International. 2021. Parus major (Europe assessment). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2021: e.T22735990A166451105. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2021-3.RLTS.T22735990A166451105.en.

Cramp, S., and C. M. Perrins (1993). The Birds of the Western Palearctic. Volume 7. Flycatchers to Shrikes. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

Ella F. Cole, Dominic L. Cram, John L. Quinn, Individual variation in spontaneous problem-solving performance among wild great tits, Animal Behaviour, Volume 81, Issue 2, 2011, Pages 491-498, ISSN 0003-3472, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.11.025.

Gosler, A., P. Clement, and D. A. Christie (2020). Great Tit (Parus major), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, B. K. Keeney, P. G. Rodewald, and T. S. Schulenberg, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.gretit1.01

Jonsson, L. (1992). Birds of Europe: with North Africa and the Middle East. Christopher Helm, London, United Kingdom.

Matthysen, E., Adriaensen, F. and Dhondt, A.A. (2011). Multiple responses to increasing spring temperatures in the breeding cycle of Blue and Great Tits (Cyanistes caeruleus, Parus major). Global Change Biol. 17: 1-16.

Svensson, L., K. Mullarney, and D. Zetterström (2009). Collins Bird Guide. Second edition. HarperCollins, London, UK.

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