Great Tit

Squeaky bicycle pump, confusion artist

Among seasoned bird-listeners there is a rule of thumb: if you can’t tell what it is, it’s probably a great tit.

This is not to say that the great tit it always a mystery. It fact it has a wonderfully clear and teachable song, that actually sounds like ‘teacher teacher’.

The signature mechanical rhythm is often likened to a seesaw or a squeaky bicycle pump.

But they do like to muck around with it. In the following example it’s still got the mechanical quality, but the emphasis is different.

And this one’s added an extra note, producing a bouncier rhythm.

They can make many other noises too, including mimicking other birds’ songs and calls.

It’s very creative and very confusing, and thought to be part of the great tit’s deceptive strategy: to make its territory seem full of birds so that rival great tits think twice before muscling in.

👉 What does Kevin in Home Alone have in common with a Great Tit?

Deceptive noise-making aside, the regular see-saw song can be hear from parks, gardens, and most other places with deciduous trees, from late winter through the spring.

The singer will typically be mid-way up a tree, showing its lemon-yellow front with the black throat and line running to its belly .

And joining the club that likes to go ‘tchink! tchink!’ (club members also include blackbird, starling, chaffinch) great tits use this piercing alarm call.

You can hear from a few seconds in how they pair the exclamations with a rough chatter. With a bit of imagination, you may hear them shout ‘help! help!’, then furiously shake a pair of tiny maracas.

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Next week: Dunnock

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Thanks to Fintan O’Brien and the British Library archive for their great tit recordings. To hear many, many weird and wonderful variant calls and examples of their advanced mimicry skills, dive into the great tit pages at xeno-canto.