Marsh tit

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Marsh tit
Marsh tit (Poecile palustris)

Marsh tit ( Poecile palustris )

Systematics
Order : Passerines (Passeriformes)
Subordination : Songbirds (passeri)
without rank: Passerida
Family : Titmouse (Paridae)
Genre : Poecile
Type : Marsh tit
Scientific name
Poecile palustris
( Linnaeus , 1758)
In contrast to the closely related willow tit, the black head cap shines and the cheeks are not so pure white, the sides of the neck are gray-beige. The black "bib" is rather narrow.
The marsh tit's song consists of the rather monotonous repetition of a monosyllabic or two-syllable element.

The swamp tit or nun's tit ( Poecile palustris , Latin for palus , swamp) is a songbird species from the tit family (Paridae). The species is a widespread and frequent breeding and annual bird in Central Europe. Its distribution area is divided into two parts, which are separated by a gap of almost 2000 km. The western part includes the mixed oak forests of Europe as far as the Urals , the eastern part the Gebirgstaiga and the deciduous deciduous forests of East Asia ; it extends to Japan and eastern China . Contrary to what its name suggests, the marsh tit colonizes mainly deciduous and mixed forests with old trees and dead wood , in which they find a sufficient number of caves. It feeds mainly on insects and arachnids , but also a lot on seeds. If these are available in sufficient quantities, the marsh tit builds supplies by hiding individual seeds in cracks in the bark and under moss.

The swamp tit looks confusingly similar to the closely related willow tit . It is best to differentiate between the two types of calls and singing.

description

With a body length of 11.5 to 13 cm, the swamp tit is between the great tit and blue tit.

The beak is blackish with (possibly in contrast to the willow tit) lightened edges. The iris is dark to black-brown. The shiny black head cap in adult birds extends over the forehead and crown, down to the middle of the eye and back to the neck. The white cheeks and ear covers contrast with this. The sides of the neck are brownish white. The chin and middle of the throat are black, with the feathers partially tipped with white. The upper side of the nominate form is brown-gray, but the rump is often a bit lighter and warmer beige in color. The dirty white underside is tinted pale beige, especially towards the flanks and tail-coverts. The dark brown-gray hand and arm wings are narrow brown on the outer flag and lined with white on the inner flag. The hand covers are also dark brown-gray, the umbrella springs matt brown-gray. Axillary feathers and under wing coverts are white with a beige tint. The control feathers are dark brown with an olive brown border on the outside flag; the outer edge of the outer one is lightened whitish. Legs and feet are bluish gray to slate in color.

Birds in youthful dress can be recognized by the matt soot-black cap, the brown-black throat patch, the grayer top and the whiter, barely beige-tinted underside.

The swamp tit is very similar to the willow tit. Calls and singing are the best way to differentiate, but external characteristics can also be used with a little practice. The headstock of the willow tit is matt soot black and the white hems of the arm wings form a light field on the folded wing. Often the throat spot in the swamp tit is much narrower and the cheeks are less pure white. In addition, the swamp tit looks small and round-headed overall. Other distinguishing features can be very different geographically. For example, the willow tits of Fennoscandia ( P. montanus borealis ) are more colorless gray on the top and more whitish on the underside. In contrast, marsh tits appear warmer and brownish overall. In Central Europe the differences are smaller. Here, willow tits are more noticeable because of their warm beige flanks, while marsh tits appear “more colorless”.

voice

The most distinctive and characteristic utterance of the marsh tit is an "explosive" pjiet-scha (audio sample). This call replaces a territorial song outside the breeding season and is heard more often from the male than from the female. It is rarely heard during the breeding season. The repertoire of calls is otherwise quite large, as with all titmice. Another common voice that is heard is a pointed high tzie or szie . In excitement, this (or the Pjiet-scha ) is followed by a dä-dä-dä series, which is clearly different from the nasal däh of the willow tit and is more reminiscent of blue tit calls (audio samples). The excited "snarling" (audio sample) is similar to that of the great tit .

The singing is quite variable individually. The human ear can distinguish between 6 and 7 variants; With the help of sonograms , however, almost 40 could be determined. It is composed of stanzas about 15 seconds long, followed by a longer pause and, in the simplest case, consists of a simple repetition of the same, quite high syllable such as sijep sijep sijep sijep ... (audio sample) or djep djep djep djep ... (audio sample ). The speed can be very different. Fast singing can be reminiscent of the “trilling” of the greenfinch . The partly similarly structured song of the willow tit, however, is always fluting and melodious (audio sample). Two- or multi-syllabic vocal variations such as a widze widze widze ... (Sample) can sometimes heavy with the singing of the coal tit be distinguishable.

Individual males have a repertoire of up to 20 song variations. Females sing too. However, the vocals are more reserved and mostly simple. The singing varies only very slightly within the distribution area.

distribution

Distribution area

The distribution area of ​​the swamp tit spans the temperate zone of the Palearctic , but has a gap of almost 2000 km in the Urals and western Siberia.

The western Palearctic sub-area conspicuously coincides with the distribution of the common beech , but extends beyond that in the north and east. The species occurs in the entire area of ​​the mixed oak forests. It extends in the north-west to Wales and Central England, in the west to the French Atlantic coast and in the south-west to the Iberian Peninsula . In the Mediterranean area, the deposits extend along the French Mediterranean coast, include the Appennine Peninsula and Sicily as well as large parts of the Balkan Peninsula. South and east of the Black Sea , the species occurs in northern Anatolia and the western Caucasus. To the north, the area extends to southern Scandinavia and, in Norway, partly along the fjord coast and across the Baltic States. Eastward, it stretches narrowly to the southern Urals.

The eastern Palearctic sub-area extends from the western Altai to Sakhalin and the southwestern Kuril Islands Iturup , Kunashir and Schikotan . In Japan the species occurs in Hokkaido . The northern border of the distribution runs via Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk through Transbaikalia to the Amur , the southern border along the southern Altai and the Mongolian Altai , the south from Changai and Chentii through northern Mongolia. On the East China Sea , the deposits extend south to Jiangsu and across Korea .

Geographical variation and hybrids

The geographic variation is not particularly pronounced. However, three groups of subspecies can be distinguished. A species status of the East Palearctic populations has been discussed several times; however, the genetic difference is small. Some authors also put the black- necked tit ( Poecile hypermelaenus ), which occurs from central China southwest to Myanmar , as a fourth subspecies group of this species. At least it is part of the same super species .

palustris group (Western Palearctic)
This group varies clinically in size and coloration. The body size decreases from east to west, the color becomes darker and warmer brown.

  • P. p. dresseri ( Stejneger , 1886) - Wales, southern and central England and western France
  • P. p. palustris ( Linnaeus , 1758) - Northern and Central Europe, from southern Scandinavia to the north of the Iberian Peninsula, east to central Poland, western Balkans and Greece
  • P. p. italicus ( Tschusi & Hellmayr , 1900) - French Alps , Apennine Peninsula and Sicily
  • P. p. stagnatilis ( CL Brehm , 1855) - eastern Europe to the southern Urals and north-western Turkey
  • P. p. kabardensis ( Buturlin , 1929) - Caucasus and northeastern Turkey

brevirostris group (Eastern Palearctic)
This group is more long-tailed than the Western Palearctic population. The coloring is rather gray-brown with light edges of the wing and control feathers. The color is darker in the west and decreases clinically to the east. In this respect, however, the island populations of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands correspond more closely to the more western birds.

  • P. p. brevirostris Taczanowski , 1872 - southern center and southeast Siberia, northern Mongolia, northeastern China (west and north of Manchuria and Liaoning) and northern Korea
  • P. p. ernsti ( Yamashina , 1933) - Sakhalin
  • P. p. hensoni ( Stejneger , 1892) - southern Kuril Islands and northern Japan (Hokkaido)

hellmeyeri group (Northeast China)
Within this group, which has only been differentiated since the 1980s, the color of the upper side is browner than that of the birds of the brevirostris group. The underside is darker and more yellowish beige; the dark "bib" is relatively narrow.

  • P. p. jeholicus ( O. Kleinschmidt & Weigold , 1922) - northeastern China (north of Hebei)
  • P. p. hellmayri Bianchi , 1902 - eastern China (from Hebei south to Shandong and Jiangsu) and southern Korea.

A pair of male willow tit and female swamp tit raised five cubs in Belgium; in France a presumed hybrid of great and swamp tit was found in 1993.

hikes

The swamp tit is a resident bird with high territorial loyalty. Even northern populations seem largely to remain in the breeding areas. In Russia and East Asia, local migratory movements in autumn and spring can be observed to a lesser extent, but there are no major evasions as in other tit species. There is very little evidence of the south of the brood distribution. Also Dismigrationen are held by young birds after the breeding season only very limited and mostly over short distances. In Great Britain, for example, only 1% of birds migrated over 50 km.

The species was found to be a stray visitor in Corsica , Ireland and Finland .

habitat

The western Palearctic distribution area of ​​the swamp tit coincides with the distribution of the common beech and the mixed oak forests. The species also occurs in other forest forms.

The swamp tit prefers to colonize varied and borderline-rich deciduous forests or deciduous mixed forests that have a large amount of old wood , sufficient deadwood and sparse undergrowth . In Central Europe, it is typically found in mixed forests of oak and beech, but also in floodplain and swamp forests , field trees, on fruit-growing areas , in parks , larger gardens with old trees or in cemeteries. In pure coniferous or beech forests it is usually only found rarely or in peripheral areas.

Even if the species occurs in reed swamps in parts of East Asia, the name “swamp tit” is misleading, because it is by no means tied to swampy habitats. Although it reaches high settlement densities in moist forests, locations that are too wet - as well as excessively dry or nutrient-poor locations - are avoided. While the willow tit is usually more common in the wooded and semi-open landscapes of the river lowlands, the swamp tit predominates in the closed forest forms of the lowlands and the hilly country. In contrast to the willow tit, it can sometimes be found in suitable habitats within cities.

At the southern edge of the distribution, the marsh tit colonizes the Mediterranean oak (e.g. Pyrenean oak ), beech and chestnut forests in Europe . In the taiga of southern Siberia and Sakhalin , it can be found in forests of poplar , birch , willow and bird cherry near the river , but hardly in coniferous forests.

The swamp tit is found mainly in lowlands and in the hilly country, but the elevation range extends to 1400 m in the Alps , to 2200 m on Olympus , to 1200 m in Altai and to 1400 m on Hokkaido. In northeastern China and Korea it settles at altitudes between 650 and 2100 m.

Outside the breeding season, the species is less picky about habitats. You can often find them in coniferous forests or in hedges in the more open landscape. She also often visits feeding places near the forest edge.

nutrition

Marsh tit with prey

The marsh tit's diet changes with the season. While insects and arachnids are preferred to eat in spring and summer, seeds represent a large part of the diet from late summer and are particularly important in autumn and winter.

Concerning the finding as food insects include not only two , skin and lacewings , stone and caddis flies , bugs , beetles and earwigs particularly small prey such as springtails and plant lice . In the case of butterflies , the caterpillars play a bigger role - especially as nestling food. In the case of gradations , this can also consist mainly of aphids . Even spiders , mites and molluscs are part of the food spectrum.

Seeds are more important to the swamp tit than to other tit species. These include seeds from grass, herbs and perennials, but also harder tree seeds and nut fruits such as beechnuts, especially in winter. Berries such as honeysuckle , elder or mountain ash are more likely to peel the seeds than to eat the pulp. Occasionally, however, larger fruits such as pome fruits are also picked. Flowers, pussy willow and buds, pollen and tree sap play a lesser role than seeds, but can also be of importance for food at times.

The food is primarily sought in trees and bushes, where the marsh tit is found preferentially at medium and lower heights from the trunk area to the outer branches. Unlike the blue and tailed tit, it is not specialized in the outer crown area. From summer on, marsh tits also increasingly seek the herbaceous layer to collect seeds and in autumn and winter the ground.

Marsh tits operate all year round, but increasingly in autumn, stockpiling and hide seeds or dead insects in crevices of bark, under moss and lichens, on the ground or in dense vegetation. During the collecting activity, constant, somewhat further flights of up to 80 m for food are accepted. Marsh tits can transport up to three seeds at the same time. They choose, distribute and vary the hiding spots so skillfully that they cannot simply be guessed and found by potential thieves using a search pattern. Up to several hundred seeds can be hidden per day and most of them can be recovered within a day or a few days. Some of them are "stolen" - often overnight - by small rodents. The behavior is presumably a strategy to survive short-term food shortages and thus an alternative to the complex building and maintenance of fat reserves.

Reproduction

Marsh tit eggs

Marsh tits are sexually mature at the latest after the first year of life. You are in a permanent monogamous marriage. In one couple, cohesion has been proven over six years. Young couples often form a temporary bond in the first autumn and winter. However, a permanent pair bond only arises when a male can occupy a territory. It then exists all year round. Outside the breeding season, the territories can be a bit more extensive. Flocks of young birds are then tolerated. At the beginning of the breeding season they try to establish territories in adjacent areas or, if necessary, to replace deceased partners of established couples.

Courtship actions begin very early in the year and are indicated by excited wing tremors. High frequency singing from the male is reciprocated by the female. It approaches the male with trembling wings, who flies over in a butterfly-like singing flight and lands on the female's back for copulation. An important element is also the courtship feeding of the female by the male. This begins in the time before the laying begins and makes a decisive contribution to the success of the brood.

In order to choose a nesting site, the couple roams the area from late autumn, but more intensively only in March, and inspects existing caves. Small cavities in rotten wood are widened by chopping, or existing caves are used such as rotting caves in knotholes, old woodpecker caves or old and new caves of the willow tit. Natural caves are preferred to nesting boxes, but these are accepted in the absence of anything else - for example in coniferous forests. The caves can be up to 10 m or even 20 m high, but mostly they are 2 to 3 m high. The choice is made by the female who, if necessary, makes the cave accessible by chopping or expanding it and building the nest.

During the chopping work, a break of 5 to 10 minutes is taken after 15 to 20 minutes of intensive work. Shavings are carried away in the beak and dropped a few meters from the cave. Caves are mostly about 20 cm deep, the entrance hole is about 13-20 cm². The bowl-shaped nest consists of a base made of moss and padding made of animal hair or plant fibers into which a nesting trough is formed. It is usually completed within 5 to 8 days.

The clutch usually consists of 7 to 9 (in rare cases 4 to 12) eggs, which are speckled rust-red to red-brown on an old white background and have hardly any sheen. The drawing often condenses in a ring at the blunt pole. The dimensions are approximately 16 × 12 mm. The eggs are laid at intervals of one day and are incubated shortly before the last egg is laid for between 12 and 13 days, and more rarely for up to 15 days.

The young are fed by both parents, but only flocked by the female . They fly out after 16 to 21 days, but are still looked after by their parents for one to two weeks and then leave the area to disperse into the surrounding area .

literature

Web links

Commons : Poecile palustris  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Glutz von Blotzheim, p. 378, see literature
  2. ↑ Gosler / Clement (2015), section “Description”, see literature
  3. ↑ a b Lars Svensson, Peter J. Grant, Killian Mullarney, Dan Zetterström: Der neue Kosmos Vogelführer . Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH, Stuttgart, 1999, ISBN 3-440-07720-9
  4. ↑ Fernand DEROUSSEN: XC153824 Marsh tit Poecile palustris . xeno-canto.org. November 2, 2013. Accessed November 10, 2019.
  5. ↑ Terje Kolaas: XC236839 Marsh tit Poecile palustris . xeno-canto.org. April 19, 2015. Accessed November 10, 2019.
  6. ↑ Piotr Szczypiński: XC176214 · · Marsh Tit Poecile palustris . xeno-canto.org. April 23, 2014. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  7. ↑ a b Glutz von Blotzheim, p. 381f, see literature
  8. ↑ Jack Berteau: XC278924 · Marsh Tit · Poecile palustris . xeno-canto.org. April 11, 2015. Accessed November 10, 2019.
  9. ↑ Joe Klaiber: XC243664 · Marsh tit · Poecile palustris . xeno-canto.org. April 15, 2011. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  10. ↑ Hannu Jännes: XC214356 . xeno-canto.org. May 3, 2003. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  11. ↑ Eddy Scheinpflug: XC234081 · Marsh tit · Poecile palustris . xeno-canto.org. April 1, 2015. Accessed November 10, 2019.
  12. ↑ a b Gosler / Clement (2015), section “Description”, see literature
  13. ↑ a b c Glutz von Blotzheim., P. 375 f, see literature
  14. ↑ Gosler / Clement (2015), see literature
  15. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Bauer et al. (2012), pp. 115-119, see literature
  16. ↑ a b c Harrap (1995), p. 240 f, see literature
  17. ↑ a b c Jürgen Haffer in Glutz von Blotzheim., P. 375 f, see literature
  18. ↑ Harrap (1995), p. 241, see literature
  19. ↑ Glutz von Blotzheim., P. 391 f, see literature
  20. ↑ Gosler / Clement (2015), section “Movements”, see literature
  21. ↑ a b Harrap (1995), p. 239, see literature
  22. ↑ a b c d Glutz von Blotzheim., P. 393 f, see literature
  23. ↑ a b c Gosler / Clement (2015), section “Habitat”, see literature
  24. ↑ a b c d e Harrap (1995), p. 239 f, see literature
  25. ↑ a b c Glutz von Blotzheim., P. 393 f, see literature
  26. ↑ a b c Gosler / Clement (2015), section “Food and feeding”, see literature
  27. ↑ a b c Glutz von Blotzheim., P. 403 f, see literature
  28. ↑ Harrap (1995), p. 240, see literature
  29. ↑ a b c d Gosler / Clement (2015), section “Breeding”, see literature
  30. ↑ a b c d e f g Glutz von Blotzheim., P. 395 f, see literature
  31. ↑ Glutz von Blotzheim., P. 409, see literature
  32. ^ C. Harrison, P. Castell, H. Hoerschelmann: Young birds, eggs and nests of birds in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East , Aula Verlag, Wiebelsheim 2004, ISBN 3-89104-685-5 , p. 404