At the beginning of this winter, a two-year-old male great tit was spotted in the Summer Garden, ringed by ornithologists in the city of Hanko in Finland. In St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, as well as in the southern part of Finland, there are at least six species of tits, including the great tit. This species is not characterized by a strictly sedentary life, and for many young birds, movements of tens and hundreds of kilometers are typical.

The little feathered hero has traveled more than four hundred kilometers and now feels great in the territory of the Summer Garden.

Over the 120 years of the history of this method of study, tens of millions of different birds have been ringed and marked in the world. Special rings worn by ornithologists on the paws of birds weigh fractions of a gram and do not interfere with them at all. All rings have their own unique number and, when ringed birds are found, it is reported to the Ringing Center (in our country in Moscow), which exchanges information about ringed birds with ringing centers in more than 50 countries of the world on all continents.

This method of study in the Leningrad region has been used since the first half of the last century for an in-depth study of bird migrations and their flight paths. In this way, many other information can be obtained.

It was with the help of ringing that it was proved that in the Leningrad region, as well as in other areas of the great tit’s habitat, some birds have two clutches per summer, i.e. in a season, two generations of offspring may appear. The number of second clutches varies from year to year.

This information is confirmed by our observations of the development of birds in the titmouse gardens of the Russian Museum.