Parus major
The largest tit, with a bold black necktie.
Size: 14 cm | Habitat: Garden Birds | Season: All year
Bigger and bolder than the blue tit, the great tit has a glossy black head, white cheeks, and a yellow breast split by a black central stripe. It's a familiar and confident visitor to bird tables.
Black head with white cheek patches · yellow underparts with a black centre stripe · greenish back · loud, varied song
Great tits have one of the largest song repertoires of any garden bird, often described as sounding like a bicycle pump: 'tea-cher, tea-cher'. They can be dominant at feeders, seeing off smaller birds.
The width of a great tit's black chest stripe can hint at its social status — wider stripes tend to belong to more dominant birds.
The Great Tit (Parus major) is the largest and boldest of Britain's tits, identified by its glossy black head, white cheeks, and the black stripe running down its yellow breast, which is typically broader and more continuous in dominant males. Its 'tea-cher, tea-cher' song is one of the first birdsongs many people learn to recognise.
Great tits are highly adaptable feeders, taking insects, seeds, nuts, and even occasionally small hibernating bats in exceptional cases, and readily use nest boxes in gardens and woodland alike. Their intelligence is well documented, including the ability to learn from watching other birds solve novel feeding puzzles.
Understanding the great tit reveals how adaptability, social learning, and dietary flexibility allow a single species to dominate feeding stations across almost every kind of British green space.
🟢 Conservation status: Green (UK Birds of Conservation Concern 5)
Green-listed, with a stable and increasing UK population. Great tits have adapted well to garden feeding, though they compete strongly with smaller tits for nest holes and food, so a mix of box sizes helps support a wider range of species.