Great Tit vs Black-capped Chickadee
Parus major compared with Poecile atricapillus
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Attribute | Great Tit | Black-capped Chickadee |
|---|---|---|
| Scientific Name | Parus major | Poecile atricapillus |
| Order | Passeriformes | Passeriformes |
| Family | Paridae | Paridae |
| Conservation Status | Least Concern | Least Concern |
| Length | 14.0 cm (5.5 in) | — |
| Wingspan | 24.0 cm (9.4 in) | 12.9 cm (5.1 in) |
| Weight | 18.0 g (0.63 oz) | 11.879999999999999 g (0.42 oz) |
| Diet | Insects and spiders in summer, seeds and nuts in winter. A frequent and dominant visitor … | -- |
| Clutch Size | 3-18 | 6-8 |
| 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
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.
Black-capped Chickadee
Geographic Range & Migration
Great Tit
Widespread across Europe and Asia from Britain to Japan, and south to North Africa and Southeast Asia.
Black-capped Chickadee
Conservation Status
Great Tit
Black-capped Chickadee
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
Black-capped Chickadee
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.
Black-capped Chickadee
The Black-capped Chickadee is one of North America's most beloved small birds, with its distinctive black cap and bib, white cheeks, and soft grey and buffy plumage. It inhabits deciduous and mixed forests, gardens, and suburban areas across northern North America from Alaska to Newfoundland and south through the Appalachians. It feeds on seeds, insects, and berries, and is well known for caching food for winter.