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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGreat tits are killing birds and eating their brains. Climate change may be to blame.
https://www.popsci.com/great-tits-murder-climate-change?cmpid=ene20190112&utm_source=internal&utm_medium=email&cid=46539&mid=401399543Every year, little black-and-white birds called pied flycatchers make the lengthy trek from sub-saharan Africa to northern Europe to feast on caterpillars, claim a nest, and have babies. This typically goes off without a hitch, and the birds return to Africa a few months later, offspring in tow. But recently, some flycatchers have arrived to find their nesting sites occupied by haughty, territorial great tits. And those birds dont just chase flycatchers awaythey brutally attack them, kill them, and eat their brains.
Article Continues Below:
The reason for such grisly bird murders might be due to a shift in migration and nesting timelines for both birds, according to a new study published Thursday in Current Biology. While great tits typically breed two weeks earlier than pied flycatchers, their breeding periods now occasionally overlap due to climate change-related factors, the authors say.
Great tits live in European forests like the Dwingelderveld and Drents Friese Wold forests in the Netherlands, where the study took place, all year round. Flycatchers, on the other hand, are merely regular vacationers. Since the 1980s, flycatcher breeding season has been inching up earlier in the month of April. Warm spring temperatures have caused caterpillar populations to boom sooner in the month, so flycatchers adapted to that and started arriving a bit earlier, too. That wouldnt be too big a problem for flycatchers, except that great tit breeding periods are also in flux. Now, when tits delay their breeding period a little bit in colder Aprils, they overlap with the flycatchers, and violence ensues.
Fozzledick
(3,860 posts)Lochloosa
(16,084 posts)Glamrock
(11,803 posts)Iggo
(47,597 posts)The Velveteen Ocelot
(116,003 posts)There are chickadees on my bird feeders all the time. I wonder if they'll start eating brains?
FirstLight
(13,368 posts)I have said before, while watching the chickadees, Jays and various others in and around my deck... "There's actually a lot of them, good thing they don't have a taste for human flesh..."
*gulp*
Fuzzpope
(602 posts)I love tits, great tits even more, good golly.
And I'm willing to put up with a metric ton of crap for the sake of having great tits in my life, but brain eating tits are where I draw the line, goddamn it.
No can do.
NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)The Velveteen Ocelot
(116,003 posts)NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)LividModerate
(11 posts)Theyre all over the place in Islamorada.
jmowreader
(50,601 posts)According to its Wiki page, a great tit is 12.5 to 14.0 cm in length. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds' great tit page gives their weight as 18 grams - an ounce is about 30 grams, so there's not much meat on these things.
csziggy
(34,140 posts)As said above, tits are related to American chickadees. I've seen chickadees chase much larger birds, such as blue jays, away from the bird feeders. One chickadee can show up and clear the feeder of a half dozen larger birds. They are also champions at scolding the cats, snakes and other predators that might be around. I've even had thm dive bomb me if I get too close to their nests.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)betsuni
(25,815 posts)Elwood P Dowd
(11,443 posts)Ferrets are Cool
(21,117 posts)it is a very sad tale.