Tit… The 11 O’Clock Bird

By Ragoo Rao, Ethologist

[Pic. by SOM reader H.S. Sreeranjini]

Tzeee….Tzeeee….Tzeeeee… the familiar sound of the grey and black bird, the size of a Sparrow, quite often mistaken for the male House Sparrow, is that of Cinereous Tit – Parus Cinereous. Until recent times, called as the Great Tit – Parus major, it has now been renamed under the Clementine’s Checklist of Birds in Bird Taxonomy as Cinereous Tit and given the Taxonomical name Parus cinereous.

They are often found in pairs, visiting home gardens, gleaning insects and spiders under the plants leaves. Constantly flitting from branch to branch in the shrubs, with a constant chirping, Tzeeee….Tzeeeee….Tzeeee…. with a metallic sound, they sometimes get into the garages looking for spiders and other insects in the rafters.

11 O’Clock Bird…?

Yes, it is fondly referred to as the 11 O’Clock Bird, by birders, because of its habit of visiting gardens around that time regularly. One can check on this and find it very interesting.

These birds are always in pairs, or parents with their fledglings in tow. These birds are insectivorous and forage on the plant infesting insects, hidden under the leaves, which the human eyes always miss to see. They do not forage on grains or fruits. Hence, very helpful in pest eradication from the home gardens. These birds are very human-friendly and they are the first to accept a bird bath and it is a joy to watch these birds taking baths. While one takes a bath, the other keeps a watch. They love to bathe. A Bird Bath in the garden can be placed under some tree or shrub, to protect them from raptors taking them unaware while bathing. A Bird Bath will attract these birds and they can get quite bold, by tolerating human presence watching them.

It is fun to watch the fledglings (young birds that are trying to be independent) of these birds, taking a community bath — all two or sometimes three of them together bathing, and having great fun, like our children do in swimming pools or rivers.

These birds nest in boxes, if provided by home gardeners, but very often they select the switch or fuse boxes on electric poles. A Nest Box, no poison spraying to the home gardens and a clean water trough, is all these birds ask from us.

We owe them this much at least. Don’t we? The planet belongs to them too.