Brown-headed tit: description and reproduction

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:46

The brown-headed tit is a bird from the tit family. In Russia, it is also known under the name "powlyak" because of the manner in which the feathers are fluffed strongly in extremely cold weather. Inhabits coniferous forest zones in Asia and Europe. Unlike other types of tits, it prefers to settle in remote places, but often shows curiosity towards humans.

Brown-headed tit: appearance description

The bird has a small dense body, up to 14 cm in length and weighing 9-14 g, a short neck and grayish-brown plumage. The top of a contented large head and the back of the head are matte black. Most of the back, middle and small wings, shoulders, rump and loin are brownish-gray. Cheeks are white-gray. On the sides of the neck there is an ocher hue. On the front of the throat there is a so-called shirt-front - a large black spot. The beak is dark brown in color. The bottom of the bird is off-white with a slight buffy tint on the sides, the legs and paws are dark gray.

The brown-headed tit in the field can easily be confused with the black-headed tit. The difference between them isthat the puff has a matte, and not a brilliant black cap and a grayish longitudinal stripe on the secondaries. The most striking distinguishing feature of these birds is their singing.

Habitats

The brown-headed tit is found in the forest zones of Eurasia, starting from the east of Great Britain and the central regions of France, and ending with the Pacific coast 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.

The brown-headed tit tends to live in flat coniferous, mountain and mixed forests, in which pine, larch, spruce grow, as well as floodplains and wetlands. In Siberia, it settles in the dark coniferous taiga with sphagnum bogs, willows and alder thickets.

In Europe, it mainly lives among the shrub vegetation of floodplain forests, on the edges and groves. In mountainous areas it is found at an altitude of 2000 m to 2745 m, for example, in the Tien Shan. Outside of the breeding season, the bird tends to rise much higher. For example, in Tibet, powder was seen at an altitude of 3960 m above sea level.

Lifestyle

Birds of this species nest in April and May. They lead a predominantly sedentary lifestyle in hollows, which are located in stumps and dead trees at a small distance from the ground. The brown-headed chickadee, like woodpeckers, prefers to gouge out its dwelling in rotten old wood. The hollows are about 20 cm deep and 6-8 cm in diameter.

Powders are engaged in arranging nests in pairs that find themselves in the fall. Males in the first year of life look for females in the nearest territory (no more than five kilometers). If they fail to do so, they fly away to the far reaches of the forest.

It takes an average of one to two weeks to set up a nest for puffers. For this, birds use branches, tree bark, birch bark, wool and feathers. The nests of puffballs differ from the dwellings of other types of chickadees in that they do not carry moss into their home. The brown-headed titmouse loves to make hiding places with plant seeds, but most often forgets about the location of the treasure.

Food

Powders feed on various small invertebrates and larvae. Thus, chickadees are of great benefit to the forest ecosystem, as they regulate the number of insects. In addition, they feed on the fruits and seeds of plants.

In summer, the diet of an adult chickadee is divided equally between food of animal and vegetable origin. In winter, they feed mainly on the seeds of juniper, pine and spruce. Chicks are fed with spiders, butterfly caterpillars with the addition of plant foods. Adult pufferfish eat earthworms, bees, weevils, flies, mosquitoes, ants, ticks, and even snails.

From plant foods, their diet includes grains such as wheat, corn, oats and barley. Of the berries, gaitka prefer cranberries, mountain ash, lingonberries, blueberries and cotoneaster. Visits bird feeders extremely rarely.

Reproduction

This season coincides with nesting time. Puffies find a mate in their first year of life and stay together until one of them dies. The life expectancy of brown-headed chickadees is no more than nine years.

Male courtship is accompanied by songs and shaking wings. Before mating, they defiantly bring food to the females. Before the start of laying, the birds resume the arrangement of the nest. Thus, by the beginning of incubation, the chickweed eggs are covered with a layer of litter. The clutch usually consists of 5-9 white eggs with reddish-brown specks. Incubation continues for a half month. At this time, the male obtains food for the mother and guards the nest. Sometimes the female flies out of the dwelling for a while and feeds on her own.

Chicks hatch asynchronously over two to three days. At first they are covered with sparse brownish-gray fluff, the beak cavity has a brownish-yellow tint. The female and male feed the young together. On average, they bring prey 250-300 times a day. At night and on cool days, the brown-headed tit sits inseparably in a hollow, warming its offspring. The chicks begin to fly little by little 17–20 days after birth, but they still remain dependent on their parents, since they are not able to get food on their own. In mid-July, bird families gather in nomadic flocks, in which, in addition to tits, you can meet pikas, kinglets and nuthatches.

Singing

The vocal repertoire of the brown-headed chickadee does not have such a variety as, for example, the black-headed one. Two types of song are classified: demonstrative(used to attract a pair) and territorial (marks the nesting area). The first type consists of a series of measured, soft-sounding whistles “tii…tii…” or “tii…tii…”. Brown-headed chickadee (see photo below) performs this song at the same height or raises its tone from time to time. Puffies sing all year round, but most often this happens in spring and in the second half of summer.

The territorial whistle is much quieter compared to the demonstrative whistle and resembles a gurgling trill with an intermittent squeak. It is performed more often by males than females. Also, many ornithologists distinguish a "murmuring" song. A common call includes high-pitched “chi-chi” sounds typical of the tit family, behind which you can almost always hear a rattling and more rude “jee… jee…”.