most famous in the world titmouse - the so-called great tit, living in Europe, the Middle East, North and Central Asia as well as in some parts of North Africa.Have you ever wondered why titmouse titmouse called?Are these feathered creation once were blue?What kind of name is for the birds, painted in yellow, green and gray?Let's try to understand this.
Who is - this bird, titmouse?
From a scientific point of view, the titmouse (photo great tit is presented in the article) - a representative of passerine birds belonging to the family of the same name.The most famous tit - big.It can be found in parks and gardens of Europe, Central and North Asia, the Middle East and even North Africa.
The feed tits?
This agile and nimble birds.In the summer the animals feed exclusively on fodder, and in the winter and go on vegetarian food.In search of their favorite food - insects - they climb the branches, there rummage all the cracks, holes.
Titmouse, whose picture you see now - is nepereletnaya bird.In other words, during the cold season, it does not leave their native land, wintering side by side with the man.In search of food during this period the whole bevy of blue-tits fly from one place to another.Where necessary feed lot, they linger for a long time.
Tit - a useful bird!
Before we'll learn about why titmouse titmouse call, it should be noted the invaluable benefits that it brings.Tits - a real helper of gardeners.The fact that they are destroying pests, parks and gardens, causing irreparable damage.
For example, one day great tit eats its own weight equal to the number of insect pests.That is why these birds are taken to entice their garden plots.This can be done by using feeding.So you can hold in your garden than one generation of these funny birds.
Why titmouse titmouse called?
need only one look at these feathered creatures, to understand that they are not blue, and yellow-green with shades of black.Theories about the origin of their name a lot, and almost all of them came from the people.
For example, people believed that the name given to these feathered person who is colorblind.Some versions even funny: the meat of this bird is blue, supposedly hence its name.
Joking aside, and a single version of why titmouse titmouse named, there is still no!Currently, there are two plausible and generally accepted explanation.One of them may soon be true.
- first version states that the singing of birds is very similar to two human words - "Zin-Zin."It is believed that the first based on the harmony of these birds began to call zinitsami and after - tits.However, even here it is possible to argue, because different people singing these Ptah heard something different.For example, in Europe, believe that tit is not pronounced "Zin-Zin" and "Ping-Ping-Tarara".Ukrainians also hear in this "Tsen-Tsen-Tarara".
- According to the second version, the name "titmouse" is still associated with the color hue of this creature.Linguists together with historians believe that in the ancient language of the word "blue" meant a slightly different shade of color than at present.The fact that the concept of "blue" then it was more extensive than now.In Russia, black and blue was considered a bluish color, and in the tits just the so-called "cap" is exactly this shade.
Funniest titmouse
about it is impossible to be silent.The most amusing bird family Sinitsevyh a crested tit (photo 3), or grenaderka.This is a small songbird that inhabits almost all of Europe.Its favorite habitat - middle and northern latitudes to coniferous and mixed forests.It received its name by chance.Its distinctive conical crest, crowning a small head looks like hats elite infantry XVII-XVIII centuries - grenadiers.
How heavy is a miracle?
Crested Tit (photo 4) - a small, but mobile and cute feathered creature.In its size grenaderka markedly inferior famous big tits.Body length crested birds does not exceed 13 cm, and wingspan - 20 cm. It weighs no more than it is a miracle '12 Raised color black and white crest - is the hallmark of these birds.
The crested tit eats?
Birdie titmouse, like her colleagues, is carnivorous.Its main food in the spring and summer - a small invertebrates (crustaceans, molluscs, insects) and their larvae.Crested birds love to feast on beetles, leaf beetles and weevils, as well as butterflies and spiders.Willingly they eat flies and mosquitoes, wasps and bees, dragonflies, aphids, ants.
In the autumn-winter period tufted titmouse switch to pasture plant food.They feed on seeds of fir, pine, alder, birch and spruce, as well as eating juniper berries, mountain ash, hawthorn and dogwood.In early spring, when the insects have not yet woken up, "Khokhlushka" eat and drink anthers aspen birch and maple juice.
