The grey-headed chickadee or Siberian tit (''Poecile cinctus''), formerly ''Parus cinctus'', is a

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped') which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...

bird in the tit

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Paridae. It is a widespread resident breeder throughout subarctic

Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...

and the northern

Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is a biogeographic realm of the Earth, the largest of eight. Confined almost entirely to the Eastern Hemisphere, it stretches across Europe and Asia, north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. Th ...

, and also into North America in

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

and the far northwest of Canada. It is a

conifer Conifers () are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a sin ...

specialist. It is resident, and most birds do not migrate. 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 tit The great tit (''Parus major'') is a small passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is a widespread and common species throughout Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and east across the Palearctic to the Amur River, south to parts of No ...

s, decreased vegetation due to climate change, and logging of old-growth trees which are preferred over new-growth trees .

Taxonomy

The grey-headed chickadee was described by the French polymath

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French Natural history, naturalist, mathematician, and cosmology, cosmologist. He held the position of ''intendant'' (director) at the ''Jardin du Roi'', now ca ...

in 1779 in his '' Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux'' from a specimen collected in Siberia. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by

François-Nicolas Martinet François-Nicolas Martinet (1731 - c. 1800) was a French engineer, engraver and naturalist. Although trained as an engineer and draftsman, he began to produce engravings for books and it later became his primary profession. Martinet's year of b ...

in the ''Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle'' which was produced under the supervision of

Edme-Louis Daubenton Edme-Louis Daubenton (12 August 1730 – 12 December 1785) was a French naturalist. Daubenton was the cousin of another French naturalist, Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton. Georges-Louis Leclerc, the Comte de Buffon engaged Edme-Louis Daubenton to su ...

to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist

Pieter Boddaert Pieter Boddaert (1730 – 6 May 1795) was a Dutch physician and naturalist. Early life, family and education Boddaert was the son of a Middelburg jurist and poet by the same name (1694–1760). The younger Pieter obtained his M.D. at the Univers ...

coined the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...

''Parus cinctus'' in his catalogue of the ''Planches Enluminées''. The grey-headed chickadee is now one of 15 species placed in the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

'' Poecile'' that was introduced by the German naturalist

Johann Jakob Kaup Johann Jakob von Kaup (10 April 1803 – 4 July 1873) was a German naturalist. A proponent of natural philosophy, he believed in an innate mathematical order in nature and he attempted biological classifications based on the Quinarian system. Kaup ...

in 1829. The genus name is from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

''poikilos'' "colourful". A related word ''poikilidos'' denoted an unidentified small bird. The specific epithet ''cinctus'' is Latin for "banded". Formerly, the grey-headed chickadee was placed in the genus ''Parus'' with most other tits, but

mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the DNA contained in ...

cytochrome ''b''

sequence In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is cal ...

data and

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

suggest that separating ''Poecile'' more adequately expresses these birds' relationships. Four subspecies are recognised: * ''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 Poecile cinctus MWNH 1431

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q574447 grey-headed chickadee Birds of Scandinavia Birds of Russia Birds of North Asia Native birds of Alaska grey-headed chickadee Holarctic birds