Use this handy chart to identify various type of tit you may come across when you’re out and about in nature:

One of the most common garden birds in the UK could be completely wiped out by 2100 due to climate change impacting major food sources. Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology used population models of great tits to simulate the effects of warmer weather.

Great tits and similar species that are a regular visitor to bird feeders across the UK are among those that rely on insect larvae to feed their chicks during spring. Great tits have evolved to breed at the same time that insect larvae is at its most abundant in order to have a ready food source for their chicks but rising temperatures would see the larvae hatch earlier than expected and not be around by the time many feathered species rely on them to bring up their young, warned researchers from Norway.

While great tits can evolve to keep up with prey when the changes are slow, a faster change in temperature could see the birds left behind. The ‘breaking point’ is estimated to be when larvae and leaves are produced 24 days earlier than they are at the moment.

If that happens, great tits could be extinct in the UK by 2100, said lead author Emily Simmonds from the Norwegian University of Sciences and Technology. Simmonds said if changes happen too fast then species will become extinct and as the climate changes different species will be impacted.

‘Given conditions with big greenhouse gas emissions, the great tits won’t always be able to keep up with the changes in the larvae supply,’ explained Simmonds.