Père David's tit or the rusty-breasted tit (''Poecile davidi'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

in the tit family

Paridae The tits, chickadees, and titmice constitute the Paridae, a family of small passerine birds which occur mainly in the Northern Hemisphere and Africa. Many were formerly classified in the genus ''Parus''. Eurasian and African members of this f ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to central

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

in southern

Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...

, western

Hubei Hubei is a province of China, province in Central China. It has the List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP, seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland ...

, southern

Shaanxi Shaanxi is a Provinces of China, province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to t ...

and

Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

. It is long with a weight of , and is similar to the related

sombre tit The sombre tit (''Poecile lugubris'') is a species of passerine bird belonging to the family Paridae, the “true” tits and chickadees. This species is found in southeast Europe and southwest Asia. Taxonomy The sombre tit was first formally ...

(''P. lugubris'') in appearance, with a black head with white cheeks, dark grey-brown back, wings and tail, and rusty brown underparts. Its natural breeding

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

is subalpine

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

s at 2,135–3,400 m altitude, mostly resident but higher altitude birds descending a little in winter to below .

References

;Notes ;Sources * * Père David's tit Birds of Central China Endemic birds of China Père David's tit Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Paridae-stub