Mountain bullfinch
| Mountain bullfinch | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mountain Bullfinch ( Carpodacus rubicilla ) |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Carpodacus rubicilla | ||||||||||||
| ( Güldenstädt , 1775) |
The mountain bullfinch ( Carpodacus rubicilla ) is a songbird from the finch family . The rather large carmine pennant species inhabits bare high mountain regions in the Caucasus and from Central Asia via the Himalayas to western and northwestern China .
description
Appearance
The mountain bullfinch is 19–20 cm long and taller than a grosbeak . The horn-colored bill is strong with a fine tip. The chest also looks strong, both in the sitting and in the flying bird. The wings and tail appear relatively long. The flight is strong and takes place in long, deep waves. The flight image is sometimes reminiscent of a thrush or a large lark.
The wing length is 113.5–121.5 mm in the male and 105–112.5 mm in the female. The tail length is between 83 and 92 mm.
The sexes differ significantly in the color of the plumage. The male has a strong wine-red to raspberry-red color on the head, neck, underside and lower back, sometimes a little lighter on the belly and tapering into the pale pink under-tail coverts. In the area in front of the eye, this color is particularly dark velvet red. The red drawing is interspersed with bright feather centers, which become much larger towards the chest and especially towards the lower abdomen, so that the bird looks finely dotted on the head, spotted on the chest and clearly to roughly scaled on the lower abdomen. The ear covers are faded and light dashed. The back is brown and sometimes streaked with dark shaft stripes and partly covered in wine red. The upper tail-coverts are brownish, the forked joint black-brown with lighter brown edges. The arm covers are also dark brown with light, sometimes slightly pink, edges and light tips. Alula, coverts and wing feathers are black-brown with reddish edges and light-colored tips.
The female lacks the red parts of the male, it is completely gray-brown with a slightly lighter underside. The head and back are finely dotted with dark lines, the lower back is a solid gray. The underside is roughly dark dashed. The two outer feathers of the joint sometimes have a fine, white border. Birds in their youthful dress are similar to the female, but are more sandy brown. The beak is a single color, pale gray.
The mountain bullfinch is quite similar to the mountain bullfinch , with which it occurs in Central Asia. In particular, females and young birds can often not be distinguished at all. Only the light fringes on the outer tail feathers of the mountain bullfinch female can offer a distinction. The male mountain bullfinch looks lighter on the top, without dark stripes, the reddish areas look less intense and the underside is more coarsely spotted. The mountain bullfinch can also be confused with the rock bullfinch , which is slimmer, shows reddish face parts and a striped top.
voice
The call is a high twoi or a hard, sparrow-like tijck that is often uttered in flight. The singing consists of pure, clear stanzas with a slow tempo that fall off and fade away at the end, such as tju-tju-tju-tju-twütjut-tsü .
Distribution and geographic variation
One part of the distribution is in the Caucasus, the second, much larger, extends from Central Asia through the Himalayas to western and northwestern China. Four subspecies are described, which differ in the intensity of the red plumage and in terms of body dimensions. The largest subspecies is severtzovi .
- C. r. rubicilla (Güldenstädt, 1775) - Middle and Eastern Caucasus
- C. r. diabolica ( Koelz , 1939) - northeastern Afghanistan
- C. r. kobdensis ( Sushkin , 1925) - middle and southeastern Russian Altai to the extreme north of Xinjiang and the Mongolian Altai, possibly to northwestern Gānsu , western Changai Mountains and Sajan Mountains
- C. r. severtzovi ( Sharpe , 1896) - Middle Tian Shan and Pamir , east to West Xinjiang and into the Kunlun Mountains, east to Qinghai , in the south from Karakoram and Kashmir through northern Punjab to northern Nepal , Sikkim and southeastern Tibet
The species is not rare and abundant locally. She is not threatened.
Way of life
The Berggimpel inhabits high valleys and plains with scree and rock heaps between 2500 and 3500 m in the Caucasus and further east at altitudes between 3630 and 5000 m. In the Himalayas, it can sometimes be found at even higher altitudes. He settles here on sunny slopes that are at least sporadically or scattered with grasses, herbs, rhododendrons or birches. It can also be found on alpine meadows, on bare foothills or fields near villages. In winter it migrates to lower altitudes, which are mostly above 2600 - more rarely above 1500 m. In Tibet it can also be found in winter at heights of up to 4240 m. At this time of year it looks for its food in fields or on bushy slopes.
The bird can usually be observed individually or in pairs, in winter also in small groups. It then socializes with the mountain bullfinch in areas of common occurrence. It usually gathers its food on the ground and feeds on the seeds of alpine herbs and pea bushes , berries and occasionally insects.
The breeding season is quite late - usually not before the end of July. The nest is built in crevices or under rubble.
literature
- P. Clement, A. Harris, J. Davis: Finches and Sparrows , Helm Identification Guides, London 1993/1999, ISBN 0-7136-5203-9
- L. Svensson, PJ Grant, K. Mularney, D. Zetterström: Der neue Kosmos-Vogelführer , Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07720-9
Web links
- Carpodacus rubicilla in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2009. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2009. Accessed on March 5 of 2010.
- Videos, photos and sound recordings for Carpodacus rubicilla in the Internet Bird Collection
- Photos of Carpodacus rubicilla in the Oriental Bird Club image database , accessed March 5, 2010