923 Great Tits were weighed and measured in Central Poland in the years 1992-1996, while recaptures took the total number of checks to 1828. Assessments of fatness in the birds followed accepted procedures in being confined to quantities of furcular and abdominal fat. The Great Tits were found to lay down reserves of fat in a different way to those described previously for Passeriformes. Moreover, the scales known to date were insufficiently precise to allow for the study of the biology of wintering birds. A proposed new scale of fatness extends by 4 points the 9-point scale used over many years to study birds migrating along the Baltic shore (in the Operation Baltic) and thus accounts for the way in which Great Tits lay down fat. The relationship between body mass and the points on the proposed scale is of a linear nature for low and moderate fatness. The data obtained make it clear that a general, more detailed than 9-point, scale of fatness cannot be produced for all the species of Passeriformes.
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