Great Tit vs Northern Fulmar
Parus major compared with Fulmarus glacialis
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Attribute | Great Tit | Northern Fulmar |
|---|---|---|
| Scientific Name | Parus major | Fulmarus glacialis |
| Order | Passeriformes | Procellariiformes |
| Family | Paridae | Procellariidae |
| Conservation Status | Least Concern | Least Concern |
| Length | 14.0 cm (5.5 in) | 47.0 cm (18.5 in) |
| Wingspan | 24.0 cm (9.4 in) | 107.0 cm (42.1 in) |
| Weight | 18.0 g (0.63 oz) | 750.0 g (26.46 oz) |
| Diet | Insects and spiders in summer, seeds and nuts in winter. A frequent and dominant visitor … | Fish, squid, crustaceans, offal from fishing vessels, and zooplankton. Feeds by surface-seizing and shallow plunge-diving. |
| Clutch Size | 3-18 | 1 |
| 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.
Northern Fulmar
Open ocean and sea cliffs. Breeds on cliff ledges and grassy slopes on northern coastlines. Pelagic outside breeding season.
Song & Call Comparison
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.
Northern Fulmar
A nasal, cackling 'kak-kak-kak-kak' or grunting 'uh-uh-uh' at the nest and colony. Less melodic than petrels. In flight gives occasional single nasal calls.
Geographic Range & Migration
Great Tit
Widespread across Europe and Asia from Britain to Japan, and south to North Africa and Southeast Asia.
Northern Fulmar
North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans. Breeds from the Arctic south to Britain, France, and New England.
Conservation Status
Great Tit
Northern Fulmar
How to Tell Them Apart
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
Northern Fulmar
Light morph: white head and underparts with grey wings and back. Dark morph: entirely grey. Tube-nosed bill and stiff-winged flight distinctive at sea.
Yellowish hooked bill with prominent tubular nostrils on top
About These Birds
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.
Northern Fulmar
The northern fulmar is a long-lived seabird that can survive over 40 years. It defends its nest by projectile-vomiting a foul-smelling stomach oil at intruders, which can mat the feathers of predators and cause fatal loss of waterproofing. Fulmars have expanded their breeding range dramatically southward over the past two centuries.