An astute and thoroughly reliable birding friend of mine years ago
found a Great Tit somewhere in a remote location in mainland Alaska
(I forget the details), which was not accepted by the state committee
bcs of its unprecedented nature and lack of photo. Not sure of the
subspecies, tho I could ask him. That observation suggests to me
that they can indeed make it over the Bering Strait into North
America, at least. Of course, WA is still a bit of a hike from there,
esp. for a parid.

Jay Withgott
Portland, OR
withgott at comcast.net


At 1:02 PM -0800 2/18/05, Scott Atkinson wrote:
>Mike:
>
>Well put. It might be added that the "European" form occurs as far
>east as the Amur Basin in the Khabarovskii Krai, that is, almost as
>far east (but a little more southerly) as/than Redwing....If memory
>serves, there is also an offshore AK record for (European) Great Tit
>in fall, either on one of the Pribs or Gambell if I'm not mistaken.
>I find myself also wondering about a cruise ship or trawler coming
>down from AK for retrofit/replenishing at one of our local yards, as
>is common in the winter season, there are so many more cruise ships
>around nowadays...Among memories of (western) Great Tit, I remember
>that this species can be incredibly tame under the right
>circumstances--at a bazaar in Ekaturinburg in Nov 2002, birds would
>mob stands and land right on people with food items.
>
>Taxonomic note: the Russians split eastern Great Tit (P. major
>minor if I remember right) from the nominate form found in Europe
>and eastward into two species sopme time ago, on the basis of
>differences in voice and plumage. The differences can be pretty
>subtle in the field, however; and there is a zone of
>hybridization/overlap in the Amur basin according to material I've
>read. The (eastern) Great Tit occurs mostly on the Russian
>mainland, but is also on Sakhalin and (not well advertised) there is
>a small introduced population in Petropavlovsk, at the s.e. corner
>of the Kamchatka Peninsula.
>
>Scott Atkinson
>Lake Stevens
>mail to: scottratkinson at hotmail.com
>
>
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