I had hoped to find an excuse to use them in response to something of Dermot's; he has posted about great tits a few times in the past. The opportunity just hasn't come up though.
I don't know that I should really admit that I was hoping that the subject of Dermot's tits would come up though.
No, those are great tits. They are the same family. Chicadees and great tits are both of family Paridae, and the NatGeo Birds of North America field guide lists chickadees and titmice in the same section, it's just a matter of common name. That book doesn't have great tits since they're non-migratory european and asian birds.
They DO look a lot like black-cap chickadees, or perhaps mountain, but they have more distinctive yellow markings, plus the white wing band and the dark breast band.
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Date: 2009-03-19 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-19 11:50 pm (UTC)I don't know that I should really admit that I was hoping that the subject of Dermot's tits would come up though.
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Date: 2009-03-20 09:05 pm (UTC)Okay, that's it. ROTFLMAO.
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Date: 2009-03-19 10:33 pm (UTC)K.
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Date: 2009-03-19 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-20 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-20 03:26 pm (UTC)They DO look a lot like black-cap chickadees, or perhaps mountain, but they have more distinctive yellow markings, plus the white wing band and the dark breast band.
Wikipedia is an excellent source for birds, someone's been doing a crazy amount of work on it in this area:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_tit