Cinereous Tit

Parus cinereus Vieillot, 1818

≈13 cmLength14 gWeight

It has a gray back, white belly, black hood, white cheeks and a single black line down the center of the belly.

Busiest months: February · Most records: India, China, Japan

Looks like Great Tit

How to identify

Field marks

Black hood with white cheek patches
Back gray; wings with white wing-bars
Underparts white, with a single broad black longitudinal band down center
No crest

Male, female and young

The female has a narrower black belly line and slightly duller plumage; juveniles have a green tinge to the back and yellow-tinged underparts.

Voice

A whistled “titiweesi”, repeated three or four times before a pause; calls particularly frequently in the breeding season.

Similar species

Great Tit

This species has a white belly and gray back; Great Tit has a yellow belly and green back, and juveniles of this species resemble it more closely.

Where and when it's recorded

Cinereous Tit has been recorded at 1,787 of the 8,171 birding hotspots we track, in 19 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

Fergusson College CampusIndia6,701 records
GKVK CampusIndia5,716 records
Wildlife Institute of IndiaIndia5,568 records

More places

Vetal Tekdi/HillIndia2,478 records
Mai Po Nature ReserveHong Kong (China)2,457 records
Saul Kere / Sowl KereIndia2,279 records
Tai Po Kau Nature ReserveHong Kong (China)2,131 records
Forest Research Institute (FRI), New Forest CampusIndia1,901 records
Doddanekundi KereIndia1,831 records
Valley SchoolIndia1,803 records

Countries and regions with the most records

India China Japan South Korea Nepal Thailand Sri Lanka Indonesia

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The cinereous tit or Asian tit (Parus cinereus) is a species of bird in the tit family Paridae. This species is made up of several populations that were earlier treated as subspecies of the great tit (Parus major). The great tit in the new sense is distinguishable by the greenish-back and yellowish underside.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

Questions

How big is the Cinereous Tit?

The Cinereous Tit is about ≈13 cm long and weighs around 14 g.

Where does the Cinereous Tit live?

Its breeding range: Oriental, Palearctic, Australasia: southern, eastern, Southeast Asia to eastern Lesser Sundas. It is most often recorded in India, China and Japan.

When is the best time to see the Cinereous Tit?

At the hotspots we track, it is recorded most in February (Northern Hemisphere).

What does the Cinereous Tit eat?

Main food: Insects & other invertebrates.

What family is the Cinereous Tit in?

It belongs to the family Tits, Chickadees (Paridae), order Passerines (Passeriformes).

At a glance

Length: ≈13 cm
Weight: 14 g
Habitat: Woodland
Diet: Insects & other invertebrates
Lifestyle: Perches in trees
Migration: Resident (barely migrates)

More measurements

Wing: 63 mm
Tail: 58 mm
Bill: 11 mm
Tarsus: 17 mm

Averages from the AVONET dataset; length from field guides where available.

Range

Oriental, Palearctic, Australasia: southern, eastern, Southeast Asia to eastern Lesser Sundas

Breeding range, IOC World Bird List 15.2

Subspecies · 4

Parus cinereus hainanus Hainan (off se China)
Parus cinereus minor e Siberia, s Sakhalin I., ec, ne China, Korean Pen. and Japan
Parus cinereus tibetanus se Tibet, sw, sc China to n Myanmar
Parus cinereus commixtus s China and n Vietnam