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  Profile

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  In flight

Songbirds

Marsh Tit

Poecile palustris

• uncommon
• 40 km/h
• Least Concern

Despite the name, prefers dry woodland. Ornithology's most misleading address.

Population

13.6–24.2 million mature individuals globally; slowly decreasing (BirdLife/IUCN)

Habitat

Mature deciduous and mixed woodland with old, dead, or rotting trees and open undergrowth — especially oak and beech forest and riverine woodland; also parks, large gardens, and hedgerows with mature trees; occurs from sea level to 3,000m

Fun fact

Marsh Tits hide thousands of individual seeds in scattered caches every autumn and rely on an enlarged hippocampus — proportionally larger than a Great Tit's — to relocate them months later.

Range

Resident (non-migratory) across a large swath of Europe and temperate Asia, from the British Isles and France east through Scandinavia, Russia, and the Middle East fringes to Mongolia, China, and Japan; occurrence area of ~30.1 million km²

Diet

Insects, spiders, and other invertebrates in the breeding season; seeds, nuts, and berries the rest of the year; caches (hides) large quantities of food each autumn for later retrieval

Size

0.115 m

Wingspan

0.19 m

Lifespan

11 years