Yellow-breasted Tit

Parus flavipectus (Severtzov, 1873)

2015-06-28 Alai Mountains	© Oleg Belyalov

Description

Adult Yellow-breasted Azure Tits have pale-grey head including throat. Black Eye-strip is slightly expressed. Head is bordered from mantle by broad black band. Back and shoulders are bluish-grey. Inner webs of flight feathers are brownish, outer webs and wing coverts are bluish. White tips of wing coverts formed broad wing-bar. Last secondaries have large white spots than furled wing have clear broad bar in rear border. Central pair of tail feathers are brownish-blue with small terminal spot; on each next pair white terminal spots are extended. On outer tail feathers dark occupies only main part of inner web. Craw and breast are lemon-yellow. Belly is white. Legs and bill are dark-horn color. Juveniles have brownish yellow-tinged upperparts; all underparts (including throat) are yellow. Sizes: wing 61-75, tail 58-66, tarsus 14-18, bill 6.6-8.0 mm. Weight 10.6-12.1 gr.

Biology

Yellow-breasted Azure Tit is rare, in places common resident. It inhabits deciduous or juniper forests, groves, gardens, riparian forests and man-made forests at attitudes 1200-1800 m. Breeding in separate pairs at 15-250 m from each other. Nest is built in tree hollows, cliff cracks, building cavities, holes of concrete poles of railway, in clay precipices hole and in nest boxes; nest is from moss and shrub bast and is lined with plenty of hair. Only female prepares hole and builds nest in period beginning from mid April, male only escorts it. Clutches of 5 - 10 eggs is founded in period from early May to end of June. Only female incubates for 13-16 days and male rarely feeds it. But both parents feed juveniles, which fledge at age 18-21 days old, in period from first decade of June to end of July. Two broods per season. Most of the year Yellow-breasted Azure Tits live in small groups.

References

"Птицы Казахстана" том 4. "Наука". Алма-Ата, 1972. Э.И.Гаврилов. "Фауна и распространение птиц Казахстана". Алматы, 1999. Gavrilov E. I., Gavrilov A. E. "The Birds of Kazakhstan". Almaty, 2005.