Five facts about Great Tits

After seeing a rise to our 7th most common garden bird in Scotland in the Big Garden Birdwatch 2024, here we share 5 facts you might not know about these familiar and noisy birds!

Great Tits are the largest of the tit family in Scotland, with a wingspan of around 24cm. They have a green and yellow body with a black stripe down their front, and a black head with white cheeks.

Their call is often likened to a squeaky bicycle wheel, with two repetitive high-pitched notes. Some people also remember it as sounding like “Tea-cher, tea-cher!”. However, there is a lot of variety in their calls, and male Great Tits with the most variety in their repertoire tend to be the most dominant and successful when finding a mate!

Great Tits commonly use garden feeders. Credit Nigel Blake

They are a woodland bird, but have adapted well to urban environments, and can often be seen bullying smaller birds at our garden feeders. In winter however, they form mixed flocks with Blue Tits and other birds which flit around gardens and woodland searching for food.

Great Tits eat seeds and some larger nuts in winter, and invertebrates, especially caterpillars, in summer. They use their feet to hold onto the food, and hammer into it with their bills. To match their change in diet, it's thought that their bills are slightly different shapes at different times of year. Caterpillars require longer and pointier bills to eat, and tough nuts and seeds need shorter and thicker bills. There also seems to be evidence that Great Tits are evolving longer beaks to help them peck food from bird feeders, with birds with longer beaks being more regular visitors to our gardens!

Occupied! Credit Molly Martin

 Like some of the other tits, Great Tits nest in hollows in trees and will use bird boxes, but they have been known to nest in more unusual nooks and crannies such as drainpipes or postboxes! 

Header image credit Ray Kennedy.