The Indian Black-lored Tit (Machlolophus aplonotus), Indian Yellow Tit, or Himalayan Black-lored is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. The closest relative is the yellow-cheeked tit, which also has yellow tit. The Indian Black-lored Tit is a resident breeder on the Indian subcontinent. This species is a very active and agile feeder.
Indian Black-lored Tit Food
The bird’s food includes small invertebrates and larvae that eat fruits, taking insects and spiders from the canopy. The black-lored tit is a common bird in open tropical forests. It is 13cm in size, with a broad black line down its otherwise yellow front.
The bird is easy to recognize in most of India. Because, the large crest, neck, throat, and head are black with yellow cheeks and supercilia,. Moreover, the upper parts are olive-green with two white or yellowish wing bars and white outer tail feathers. Yellow Tit may be uncommon; but their population have been further reduced by the felling of broadleaved forests. It is unable to occupy marginal habitats such as edge and scrub, plantations of conifers, and bamboo.
However, female birds are a bit duller than males. The bird’s underpart color gradually dulls from north to south through this tit’s range. Indian Black-lored Tit, like other tits, is a vocal bird and has a large variety of calls, of which the most familiar is a si-si. The song is a sometimes nuthatch-like chi-chi-chi, “tzee-tzee-wheep-wheep. The month of May has mixed-species foraging flocks in the non-breeding season. Normally, birds breed in April and build their nests on tall trees.
They have also used nets of a woodpecker or barbet holes. This species will also excavate its own hole or use man-made sites. Indian Black-lored Tit clutch is typically 3 or 5 white eggs, spotted red. The bird is a close sitter, hissing when disturbed. The bird was previously one of the many species in the genus Parus but was moved to Machlolophus after a molecular phylogenetic analysis published in 2013 showed that the members of the new genus formed a distinct clade.
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Source: Wikipedia
