Coal Tit
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| Missing image Parus_ater_2_(Marek_Szczepanek).jpg | ||||||||||||||
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| Parus ater Linnaeus, 1758 |
The Coal Tit, Parus ater is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is a widespread and common resident breeder throughout Europe and northern Asia. It is resident, and most birds do not migrate.
The Coal Tit is 10–11.5 cm in length, and has a distinctive large white nape spot on its black head. The head, throat and neck of the adult are glossy blue-black, setting off the white on the nape and sides of the face; the white tips of the coverts show as a double wingbar. The underparts are white shading through buff to rufous on the flanks. The bill is black, the legs lead-coloured and irides dark brown.
The young bird is duller than the adult, the black head having no sheen, and the white of the nape and cheeks is tinged with yellow.
There are a number of subspecies. The British race P. a. britannicus has an olive brown back, distinguishing it from the nominate continental race P. a. ater in which the back is bluish grey. The North African race P. a. ledouci has yellow underparts and cheeks, and the Cypriot P. a. cypriotes has a buff tinge to its upperparts, and deep buff underparts.
Coal Tits will form small flocks in winter with other tits. This species resembles other tits in acrobatic skill and restless activity, though it more frequently pitches on a trunk, and in little hops imitates the Treecreeper. Its food is similar to that of the others; it is keen on beechmast, picks out the seeds from larch and fir cones, and joins Redpolls and Siskins in birches and alders. During these food hunts it keeps up an incessant short flight or flock call; the song, if song it can be called, is a strident if-he, if-he, if-he, heard most frequently from January to June, but also in autumn. One variant of this song or call ends with a sharp ichi.
A favourite nesting site is a hole in a rotting tree-stump, often low down, and the nest is deep within the hole; holes in the ground, burrows of mice or rabbits, chinks between the stones in walls, old nests of magpies or other large birds, and squirrel dreys are also occupied. The materials, moss, hair and grass, are closely felted together, and rabbit fur or feathers added for lining; seven to eleven red spotted white eggs of the usual tit type are laid, as a rule, in May, but second broods are rare.
There is an image of a coal tit at this link (http://www.homepages.mcb.net/wormwell/pages/coal_tit1.htm).
Taxonomic note
Most authorities treat the Coal Tit in the subgenus Periparus within a broad view of the genus Parus, but the American Ornithologists' Union treats Periparus as a distinct genus, with the Coal Tit as Periparus ater.
Gallery
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