| Siberian Tit | |
|---|---|
| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Paridae |
| Genus: | Poecile |
| Species: | P. cinctus |
| Binomial name | |
| Poecile cinctus (Boddaert, 1783) |
|
| Synonyms | |
|
Parus cinctus |
|
The Siberian Tit or Gray-headed Chickadee (Poecile cinctus, formerly Parus cinctus) is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is a widespread resident breeder throughout subarctic Scandinavia and northern Asia, and also into North America in Alaska and the far northwest of Canada. It is a conifer specialist. It is resident, and most birds do not migrate.
It is a fairly large tit, 13.5–14 cm long with a weight of 11–14.3 g. The head is dark brown with white cheeks, the mantle brown, the wing feathers blackish with pale fringes, and the underpartswhitish with pale brown flanks.
Formerly, it was placed in the genus Parus with most other tits, but mtDNA cytochrome b sequence data and morphology suggest that separating Poecile more adequately expresses these birds' relationships (Gill et al., 2005). The American Ornithologists' Union has been treating Poecile as distinct genus for some time already. The genus name Poecile has often been treated as feminine (giving the species name ending cincta); however, this was not specified by the original genus author Johann Jakob Kaup, and under the ICZN the genus name must therefore be treated by default as masculine, giving the name ending cinctus (del Hoyo et al. 2007).