Noise thicket
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Noise Thicket ( Atrichornis clamosus ) |
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| Atrichornis clamosus | ||||||||||||
| ( Gould , 1844) |
The noise thicket bird ( Atrichornis clamosus ), also known as the brown-bellied thicket bird or large thicket slip -on, is a songbird from the thicket bird family , endemic to Western Australia . It was considered extinct for several decades until it was accidentally rediscovered in 1961.
description
The noise thicket was discovered in 1842 by the British naturalist John Gilbert (1811-1845) near Waroona in the Darling Range southeast of Perth and first described in 1844 by John Gould . It reaches a size of 22 - 26 cm. It has short round wings, a long round tail and a characteristic triangular main profile. The adult animals have dark brown plumage. The top is pale dark striped. The wings are reddish brown. The color of the underside is gray-brown, which mixes into reddish-brown towards the rump and the under tail-coverts. The underbust is cream colored and the males have a black triangle on the throat with distinct white stripes. The throat of the females is whitish. The juveniles are unstriped and have a brown-yellow colored throat and chest.
The song of the brown-bellied thicket bird is varied and can still be heard by people from a distance of 1.5 kilometers. The song often contains elements of calls from other bird species.
Way of life
The noisy thicket secretly moves through the matted bush and heather vegetation.
It feeds on frogs, insects and lizards. Thanks to its strong legs, it can follow its prey on foot, reaching the speed of a mouse. The wings, on the other hand, have receded, so it cannot fly particularly well.
Endangerment and protection program
According to the records of John Gilbert, the brown-bellied thicket bird could still be seen relatively frequently at the time of its discovery on the heathland near the city of Albany. The decline in populations after the species was discovered is probably due to the differences in management between European settlers and Aborigines. Aborigines cleared the area by fire at longer intervals, whereas European settlers every two to three years. They used it to regularly remove the thick undergrowth that this species relies on.
The noise thicket is now endemic to Two Peoples Bay , an area of 160 km² in Western Australia. It was considered to be extinct from 1889, but was rediscovered in 1961 by some Australian ornithologists. Two People Bay is a hilly, rugged terrain that is only suitable for agricultural use to a very limited extent. However, at the time of discovery, when the population was estimated to be no more than a hundred individuals, a major new development project was planned for this region.
In 1970 the world population was estimated at 45 copies. Due to the rediscovery, the city of Albany saved original plans for the city expansion and declared the area around Two Peoples Bay a national park. Until 1976, most of the population was limited to a small area on Mount Gardner and Lake Gardner in Two Peoples Bay. Thanks to strict conservation measures that included reintroduction to five other areas, including Drakesbrook (near Perth) and Bald Island , the population recovered to 400 in the mid-1990s and is currently around 1,500. The main danger is considered to be bushfires , which in the past have severely affected the poorly flying birds.
literature
- Dominic Couzens : Rare Birds - Survivors, Evolution Losers and the Lost. Haupt Verlag, Bern 2011, ISBN 978-3-258-07629-4 .
Web links
- Noisy Scrub-bird (Atrichornis clamosus) Recovery Plan (Engl.)
- Diet of the Noisy Scrub-bird Atrichornis clamosus at Two Peoples Bay, South-western Western Australia (English; PDF; 287 kB)
- Atrichornis clamosus inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Couzon, p. 192