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Blue Tit

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Birds

                    iBlue Tit

                             Conservation status

   Least Concern (LC)
            Scientific classification

   Kingdom: Animalia
   Phylum:  Chordata
   Class:   Aves
   Order:   Passeriformes
   Family:  Paridae
   Genus:   Cyanistes
   Species: C. caeruleus

                                Binomial name

   Cyanistes caeruleus
   (Linnaeus, 1758)

                                  Synonyms

   'Parus caeruleus'

   The Blue Tit, Cyanistes caeruleus (often still Parus caeruleus), is a
   10.5 to 12 cm long passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is a
   widespread and common resident breeder throughout temperate and
   subarctic Europe and western Asia in deciduous or mixed woodlands. It
   is a resident bird, i.e., most birds do not migrate.

   The azure blue crown and dark blue line passing through the eye and
   encircling the white cheeks to the chin, give the Blue Tit a very
   distinctive appearance. The forehead, eyestreak, and a bar on the wing
   are also white. The nape, wings and tail are blue; the back is
   yellowish green; the under parts mostly sulphur-yellow with a dark line
   down the abdomen. The bill is black, the legs bluish grey, and the
   irides dark brown. The young are much yellower than the old birds.

   This is a common and popular European garden bird, due to its perky
   acrobatic performances when feeding on nuts or suet. It swings beneath
   the holder, calling tee, tee, tee or a scolding churr.

   The song period lasts almost all the year round, but is most often
   heard during February to June.

   It will nest in any suitable hole in a tree, wall, or stump, or an
   artificial nest box, often competing with House Sparrows or Great Tits
   for the site. Few birds more readily accept the shelter of a nesting
   box; the same hole is returned to year after year, and when one pair
   dies another takes possession.

   The bird is a close sitter, hissing and biting at an intruding finger.
   When protecting its eggs it raises its crest, but this is a sign of
   excitement rather than anger, for it is also elevated during nuptial
   display. The nesting material is usually moss, wool, hair and feathers,
   and the eggs are laid in April or May. The number in the clutch is
   often very large, but seven or eight are normal, and bigger clutches
   are usually laid by two or even more hens.

   Blue and Great Tits form mixed winter flocks, and the former are
   perhaps the better gymnasts in the slender twigs. A Blue Tit will often
   ascend a trunk in short jerky hops, imitating a Treecreeper. As a rule
   the bird roosts in ivy or evergreens, but in hard weather will shelter
   in a hole.

   The Blue Tit is a valuable destroyer of pests, though it has not an
   entirely clean sheet as a beneficial species. It is fond of young buds
   of various trees, and may pull them to bits in the hope of finding
   insects. No species, however, destroys more coccids and aphids, the
   worst foes of many plants. It takes leaf miner grubs and green tortrix
   moths. Seeds are eaten, as with all this family.

   An interesting example of culturally transmitted learning in birds was
   the phenomenon dating from the 1960s of Blue Tits teaching one another
   how to open traditional British milk bottles with foil tops to get at
   the cream underneath. This behaviour has declined recently because of
   the trend toward buying low-fat (skimmed) milk, and the replacement of
   doorstep delivery by supermarket purchases of milk.

Gallery

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Tit"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
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