The great tit’s songs show spring is near
Mid-January and thoughts of spring are automatically diminished by the dreich conditions, yet there are hints of spring in the sounds we are hearing. A week or so ago, it was the eager drumming of great spotted woodpeckers, an interesting variation on a theme in which the frantic drumming in a sense substitutes for a vocal intervention.
Then on a more vocal note, there was the laughing ‘yaffle’ of a green woodpecker adding to the hint that some birds at least are projecting their thought processes ahead to events that determine the future of their kind. The breeding season may seem a long way off on these bleak January days but these early markers tell us that the age-old cycle is beginning to turn … even now!
And then came the far carrying, unmistakable twin notes of a great tit, ‘tea-cher, tea-cher, tea-cher’ confirming that, although we may not necessarily have noticed it, the days are at last fractionally longer – a sure herald of spring days to come. The cock birds, resplendent in their best bibs and tuckers, long black chest stripes dominant, are always amongst the first to pronounce that distinct approaching change of mood.
The louder the pronouncement, the better chance of getting a mate and the longer and denser that black chest stripe, the better again will a cock bird be regarded. The great tits, that have graduated to our towns and cities, actually sing louder in order to make themselves heard above the sound of traffic. As in almost all bird species, it is the male that does the running and the singing and the female that makes the choices.
When it comes to selecting a mate, it is the female’s prerogative that counts! However, when it comes to great tits, there is always a very clear pecking order.
There are some circumstances in which heavier birds dominate, others when heavier birds, deemed more vulnerable to predation by the likes of sparrow-hawks, are regarded as a disadvantage and therefore downgraded.
And, if it is that two-tone call which currently dominates due to an initial lack of competition from other songsters, the great tit is one of the avian world’s more versatile singers. Walk through a woodland on a spring day where great tits are present and you will find yourself listening to a remarkable variety of calls, most of which emanates from these birds.
I remember playing a recording of some 40 different calls to an audience and asking them how many different birds were involved. The answer was that they all were uttered by great tits!
By nature, great tits are woodland birds, given to constant searching woodland floors for beechmast and the like but they have very willingly become garden birds and take extremely well to nest boxes. As a result of their willingness to accommodate themselves so, great tits are among the closest studied of all birds. As most readers will know only too well, great tits are present in most gardens and happily feed upon a variety of nuts, seeds and fat, despite the fact that by nature they are mainly insectivorous.
However, readers may also be surprised to learn that in some cases, great tits can be regarded as predators. They are known occasionally to kill small birds such as goldcrests and will also feed on small lizards too. Great tits will also devour small frogs and surprisingly large insects. A recent discovery showed that great tits in Hungary also have a penchant for eating pipistrelle bats, which are about a quarter of the size of the tits themselves,
Caterpillars however, are the vital element in feeding their young and knowing that, the parent great tits have had to adjust their own breeding programme. As a result of global warming therefore, these caterpillars are now being produced that bit earller than used to be the case. The tits therefore have had to advance their own breeding activities in order to maximize the capture of these moth larva which are of the right size to suit their fast growing young.
The great tits, with which we are familiar here in Britain, are widespread in distribution being found right across Europe and Asia and even down into North Africa. Their range stretches from Ireland in the west to Eastern China in the east and there are several subspecies which penetrate well into the Southern Hemisphere. Caterpillars are the main source of food for all of them when they are rearing a family.
And of course, the size of caterpillars has also to be taken into account.
Small chicks cannot handle large ones so initially the parent birds know they must find smaller caterpillars, gradually increasing the size of prey as their brood grows. Therefore, timing is again of the essence. Great tits, although agile, are not quite as adept as some of the other, smaller tits such as blue-tits and coal tits and feed extensively on the ground in their natural woodland habitats.
The largest member of the tit family, the great tit rejoices in several pseudonyms, locally known as a ‘black-headed tomtit’, elsewhere as ‘black- headed Bob’. ‘Saw-sharpener’ is another name that emanates from the ‘tea-cher’ call alluded to earlier.
Few of our garden birds are so attractively plumaged, from the black cap, which gives it those localized names, to the yellow body, greenish back and wings. Its distinctive white face markings bring yet another colloquialism, ‘ox-eye’. The body stripe is fulsome in the males, in the females it is often broken.
As said, it may not yet feel like spring but these early sounds signify that sooner or later, winter will give way to the season of re-birth. The woodpeckers know that and so too do the chanting great tits with their challenging ‘tea-cher, tea-cher’ calls.
The urgent nature of the great tit’s calling promises much but January and February may have to pass before spring really does begin to function. However optimistic that sound makes me, the fact is that two woodpeckers and a great tit do not a spring day make! Not yet anyway!
It may not yet feel like spring but these early sounds signify winter will give way to the season of re-birth