Grey-headed chickadee explained

The grey-headed chickadee or Siberian tit (Poecile cinctus), formerly Parus cinctus, is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is a widespread resident breeder throughout subarctic Scandinavia and the northern Palearctic, and also into North America in Alaska and the far northwest of Canada. It is a conifer specialist. It is resident, and most birds do not migrate. Curiously (with respect to its name), the bird has no grey on its head, which is black, white, and brown.

It is a fairly large tit, 13.5–14 cm long with a weight of 11–14.3 g. The head is dark brown with white cheeks, the mantle brown, the wing feathers blackish with pale fringes, and the underparts whitish with pale brown flanks.

Ecologists in Folldal, Hedmark, Norway found that the Siberian tits accounted for only 1% of all tit individuals in lichen-dominated pine forest in 2011 as opposed to 64% in 1982. This dramatic reduction is attributed to the interspecies competition with the willow tits and great tits, decreased vegetation due to climate change, and logging of old-growth trees which are preferred over new-growth trees .^[1]

Taxonomy

The grey-headed chickadee was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1779 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in Siberia.^[2] The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text.^[3] Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Parus cinctus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées.^[4] The grey-headed chickadee is now one of 15 species placed in the genus Poecile that was introduced by the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup in 1829.^{[5] [6]} The genus name is from Ancient Greek poikilos "colourful". A related word poikilidos denoted an unidentified small bird.^[7] The specific epithet cinctus is Latin for "banded".^[8]

Formerly, the grey-headed chickadee was placed in the genus Parus with most other tits, but mtDNA cytochrome b sequence data and morphology suggest that separating Poecile more adequately expresses these birds' relationships.^[9]

Four subspecies are recognised:^[6]

• P. c. lapponicus (Lundahl, 1848) – Scandinavia to north European Russia
• P. c. cinctus (Boddaert, 1783) – northeast European Russia through Siberia to Kamchatka and north central Mongolia
• P. c. sayanus Sushkin, 1904 – south Siberia and northwest Mongolia
• P. c. lathami (Stephens, 1817) – north and west Alaska and northwest Canada

Notes and References

1. Dale . Svein . Andreassen . Ellen T. . Population decline of the Siberian Tit (Poecile cinctus) in southern Norway and an assessment of possible causes . Ornis Fennica . April 2016 . 93 . 2 . 77–87 . 10.51812/of.133890 . free .
2. Book: Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc de . Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon . 1779 . Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux . 10 . Paris . De L'Imprimerie Royale . 173–174 . La mésange a ceinture blanche . fr . https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/42339337 .
3. Book: Buffon . Georges-Louis Leclerc de . Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon . Martinet . François-Nicolas . François-Nicolas Martinet . Daubenton . Edme-Louis . Edme-Louis Daubenton . Daubenton . Louis-Jean-Marie . Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton . 1765–1783 . Mésange de Siberie . Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle . 8 . Paris . De L'Imprimerie Royale . Plate 708 Fig. 3 . https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/35218311 .
4. Book: Boddaert, Pieter . Pieter Boddaert . 1783 . Table des planches enluminéez d'histoire naturelle de M. D'Aubenton : avec les denominations de M.M. de Buffon, Brisson, Edwards, Linnaeus et Latham, precedé d'une notice des principaux ouvrages zoologiques enluminés . Utrecht . 44, Number 708 Fig. 3 . fr .
5. Book: Kaup, Johann Jakob . Johann Jakob Kaup . 1829 . Skizzirte Entwickelungs-Geschichte und natürliches System der europäischen Thierwelt . c. 1 . de . Darmstadt . Carl Wilhelm Leske . 114 .
6. Web site: Gill . Frank . Frank Gill (ornithologist) . Donsker . David . 2019 . Waxwings and allies, tits, penduline tits . World Bird List Version 9.2 . International Ornithologists' Union .
7. Web site: Jobling . J.A. . 2018 . Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology . del Hoyo . J. . Elliott . A. . Sargatal . J. . Christie . D.A. . de Juana . E. . Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive . Lynx Edicions .
8. Book: Jobling, James A. . 2010. The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names . Christopher Helm . London . 978-1-4081-2501-4 . 107 .
9. Gill . F.B. . Slikas . B. . Sheldon . F.H. . 2005 . Phylogeny of titmice (Paridae): II. Species relationships based on sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome-b gene . Auk . 122 . 1 . 121–143 . 10.1642/0004-8038(2005)122[0121:POTPIS]2.0.CO;2 . free .