217. Notes on the vocalizations of Great Tit (Parus major), Turkestan Tit (Parus bokharensis) and Green-backed Tit (Parus monticolus)

In the following we briefly analyze and compare voice of the different races of Great Tit (Parus major), Turkestan Tit (Parus bokharensis) and Green-backed Tit (Parus monticolus).We also try to quantify the extent of any vocal differences using the criteria proposed by Tobias et al. (2010), as a support for taxonomic review.We have made use of sound recordings available on-line from Xeno Canto (XC).This taxonomic group of no less than 41 races all together, is both morphologically and vocally extremely challenging, and may well need a PhD project to truly unravel all details of vocal variation and differentiation in this complex case.There is no easy way to quantify distinguishing features, so that groups can be separated from one another.Several strategies will have to be tried out to determine whether there is any clear correlation between race and voice, and an in depth statistical analysis will surely be needed.In any case, vocal differences are subtle, and will not score very high on the 'rough scoring scale' we typically use when applying Tobias criteria.Nevertheless, we can discern some possible trends from looking at sonograms, but these are nothing more than preliminary indications: Great Tit group major/exelsus: Many songs have short and pure flat-pitched bell-like whistles: Poland: Tunesia: bokharensis Similar in having mainly pure whistles, but generally lacks flat-pitched whistles: