African Blue Tit vs Great Tit
Cyanistes teneriffae compared with Parus major
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Attribute | African Blue Tit | Great Tit |
|---|---|---|
| Scientific Name | Cyanistes teneriffae | Parus major |
| Order | Passeriformes | Passeriformes |
| Family | Paridae | Paridae |
| Conservation Status | Least Concern | Least Concern |
| Length | — | 14.0 cm (5.5 in) |
| Wingspan | 11.9 cm (4.7 in) | 24.0 cm (9.4 in) |
| Weight | 10.8 g (0.38 oz) | 18.0 g (0.63 oz) |
| Diet | -- | Insects and spiders in summer, seeds and nuts in winter. A frequent and dominant visitor … |
| Clutch Size | 3-6 | 3-18 |
| Population Trend | — | — |
Size Comparison
Habitat Comparison
Great Tit
Deciduous and mixed woodland, parks, gardens, and hedgerows. Readily uses nest boxes. Highly adaptable to human environments.
Song & Call Comparison
African Blue Tit
Great Tit
A repetitive, teacher-teacher 'tee-cher, tee-cher, tee-cher'. Also gives ringing 'pink-pink' alarm. Highly versatile singer; over 40 song variants recorded from a single male.
Geographic Range & Migration
African Blue Tit
Great Tit
Widespread across Europe and Asia from Britain to Japan, and south to North Africa and Southeast Asia.
Conservation Status
African Blue Tit
Great Tit
How to Tell Them Apart
African Blue Tit
Great Tit
Blue-black head with white cheeks. Olive-green back, yellow underparts with a broad black central stripe. White wing bar and blue-grey tail.
Short, stout, dark bill
About These Birds
African Blue Tit
The African Blue Tit is a small tit weighing about 11g found in the Canary Islands and North Africa. It inhabits woodland and gardens, feeding on insects and seeds much like the Eurasian Blue Tit.
Great Tit
The great tit is the largest European tit and one of the most studied wild birds in the world. Research at Wytham Woods in Oxford has monitored great tit populations since the 1940s, contributing enormously to ecology and evolution. These innovative birds famously learned to open milk bottle tops in 20th-century Britain.