The tits, chickadees, and titmice constitute Paridae, a large family of small passerine birds which occur in the northern hemisphere and Africa. Most were formerly classified in the genus Parus.
These birds are called either “chickadees” (onomatopoeic, derived from their distinctive “chick-a dee dee dee” alarm call) or “titmice” in North America, and just “tits” in the rest of the English-speaking world. The name titmouse is recorded from the 14th century, composed of the Old English name for the bird, mase (Proto-Germanic *maison, German Meise) and tit, denoting something small. The spelling was influenced by mouse in the 16th century. Emigrants to New Zealand presumably identified some of the superficially similar birds of the genus Petroica of the family Petroicidae, the Australian robins, as members of the tit family, giving them the title Tomtit although, in fact, they are not related.
These birds are mainly small stocky woodland species with short stout bills. Some have crests. They range in length from 10 to 22 centimetres. They are adaptable birds, with a mixed diet including seeds and insects.
Upper body: Pale blue/ashy, darker on back with a dark line through eye and around nape. Wings blue with a white bar and white tips to tertials. Tail blue with white tips and white outer rectrices.
Under body: throat pale/ashy; breast pale yellow, belly white with blackish median band from breast to vent. Sexes alike.
Behavior: Tits are active, noisy and social birds. They are territorial during the breeding season and often joining mixed-species feeding flocks during the non-breeding season. The tits are highly adaptable and, after the corvids (crows and jays) and parrots, amongst the most intelligent of all birds
Breeding
Tits are cavity-nesting birds, typically using trees, although Pseudopodoces builds a nest on the ground. Most tree-nesting tits excavate their nests,and clutch sizes are generally large for altricial birds, ranging from usually two eggs in the Rufous-vented Tit of the Himalayas to as many as ten to fourteen in the Blue Tit of Europe. In favourable conditions, this species had laid as many as nineteen eggs, which is the largest clutch of any altricial bird. Most tits are multibrooded, a necessary strategy to cope with either the harsh winters in which they reside in the Holarctic or the extremely erratic conditions of tropical Africa, where typically a single pair cannot find enough food to rear even one nestling and in drought years breeding is likely to be futile. Tits also have a variety of methods for attracting mates, primarily through their intricate, bouncing mating dance. Only the Blue Tit is typically polygynous: all other species are generally monogamous.Courtship feeding is typical of pair-breeding tits to deal with the cost of rearing their large broods.
Diet: Paradise Earth Premium SoftbillBlend, Insects and Worms