Brown-headed parrot's bill

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Brown-headed parrot's bill
Brown-headed parrot's bill of the subspecies Paradoxornis webbianus bulomachus

Brown -headed parrot's bill of the subspecies Paradoxornis webbianus bulomachus

Systematics
Order : Passerines (Passeriformes)
Subordination : Songbirds (passeri)
Superfamily : Sylvioidea
Family : Warblers (Sylviidae)
Genre : Sinosuthora
Type : Brown-headed parrot's bill
Scientific name
Sinosuthora webbiana
( Gould , 1852)

The brown-headed parrot's bill ( Sinosuthora webbiana , syn .: Paradoxornis webbianus ; also brown-headed parrot ) is a small songbird from the warbler family that is widespread in East Asia . Its distribution area extends from Vietnam via Taiwan , the People's Republic of China and the Korean Peninsula to the Far East of Russia .

Appearance

The brown-headed parrot's bill reaches a body length of 12.0 centimeters and a weight of 8.5 to 11 grams. The plumage of males and females is brownish with a slight reddish tinge to the apex and the flight feathers . The underside is paler, the long tail feathers are darker with grayish-brown outer feathers. The gray bill is very short and thick, with a pale tip. The small black eyes occupy a prominent position on the face. Legs and feet are also colored gray.

habitat

The brown-headed parrot's bill populates different habitats from open forest landscapes with scrub to bamboo forests . During the summer, the bird is mostly in the undergrowth and thickets on the edges of mixed forests . During winter, swarms of up to 40 individuals gather in the reed beds, on grassy slopes, thickets and agricultural areas.

Distribution area

The distribution area of the brown-headed parrot's bill stretches from northeast China and the southern part of the Far East Russia across the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan to northern Vietnam and Burma . As Irrgast the Brown-headed parrot's beak is also observed on the islands off the coast of Japan. Some northern populations migrate south in winter, but most of the birds simply change their habitat .

Since the mid-1990s, in the area around the Riserva naturale Palude Brabbia and adjacent areas, there has been a population of several thousand individuals of brown-headed parrot's beaks and the closely related gray-throated parrot's beaks ( Sinosuthora alphonsiana ) in northern Italy . The Italian population goes back to around 150 escaped individuals, is sedentary and has only a low potential for spreading. Both taxa occur in mixed flocks with a larger number of gray-throated parrot beaks. Mixed pairs have also been observed in Italy as well as in China, where the distribution areas of the two taxa overlap. The genetic analyzes also suggest that there are no two clearly distinguishable species. Rather, only two different genetic lineages could be determined that do not exactly match the morphotypes . This suggests a synonymization of S. alphonsiana (gray-throated parrot's bill) with S. webbiana .

behavior

The brown-headed parrot's bill usually forms flocks of ten birds, but flocks of up to 80 individuals have been observed. The swarms move through the dense vegetation with great agility and keep in constant contact with calls. The birds search the vegetation for seeds, insects , spiders and sometimes also grain .

Brown-headed parrot beaks are monogamous. The male weaves the outer frame of a deep, cup-shaped nest of grass and various fibers in low trees, bamboo , dense grass or bushes. The female then feeds the nest with moss, cobwebs, hair and the like. It then lays three to five blue-green to white eggs, which both parent birds incubate alternately for about 13 days.

Systematics

The former bird family " Parrotischbäbel (Paradoxornithidae)", published by John Gould in 1836, were initially reorganized in the Timalia (Timaliidae) and in 2009 by Gelang et al. incorporated into the warblers (Sylviidae). This was accompanied by numerous renaming of the binomial species name , including the brown-headed parrot's bill from “Paradoxornis webbianus” to Sinosuthora webbiana .

Six subspecies are distinguished:

  • S. w. mantschurica ( Taczanowski , 1885), Southeast Russia and Northeast China.
  • S. w. fulvicauda ( Campbell, CW , 1892), Hebei (east China), and Korea.
  • S. w. suffusa ( Swinhoe , 1871), Central and Southeast China and Northeast Vietnam.
  • S. w. webbiana ( Gould , 1852), Jiangsu and Zhejiang (East China), type species.
  • S. w. elisabethae ( La Touche , 1922), South China and Northwest Vietnam.
  • S. w. bulomacha ( Swinhoe , 1866), Taiwan.

However, the taxonomic classification of the brown-headed parrot's bill is controversial. So the species is sometimes placed together with the gray-throated parrot's bill and other species of the genus Sinosuthora .

Relationship with people

Damage to millet , sorghum , wheat, and rice that can be caused by the brown-headed parrot's bill is rare. Its restless acrobatic behavior in the undergrowth made the agile bird a popular cage bird in China and Japan. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China , male brown-headed parrot beaks were popular in bird fights.

The species is considered not to be endangered ( least concern ) due to its large distribution area and total population size . A decrease in stocks could also not be observed. On the contrary, the distribution area of ​​the brown-headed parrot's bill has expanded in recent years through human intervention. This is how the species was introduced to Italy in the 1990s.

literature

  • Charles William Campbell: A list of Birds collected in Corea . In: The Ibis (=  6 ). tape 4 , no. 14 , 1892, p. 230–248 ( online [accessed August 29, 2013]).
  • Władysław Ladislaus Taczanowski: List of the Oiseaux recus récemment du Sud-Ouest du pays Oussourien . In: Bulletin de la Société zoologique de France . tape 10 , 1885, p. 463-478 ( online [accessed August 29, 2013]).
  • Robert Swinhoe: Ornithological Notes from Formosa . In: The Ibis (=  New Series ). tape 2 , no. 14 , 1866, pp. 292-406 ( online [accessed August 29, 2013]). 300
  • Robert Swinhoe: A Revised Catalog of the Birds of China and its Islands, with Description of New Species, References to former Notes, and occasional Remarks . In: Proceedings of the Scientific Meetings of the Zoological Society of London . 1871, p. 337-423 ( online [accessed August 29, 2013]).
  • John David Digues La Touche: Mr. JD La Touche described the following new birds from SE Yunnan in SW China . In: Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club . tape 42 , 1922, pp. 51-55 ( online [accessed August 29, 2013]). 52
  • John Gould: The Birds of Asia . tape 3 . Taylor and Francis, London 1852 ( online [accessed May 23, 2013]).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Brazil, Mark: Birds of East Asia , London 2009, p. 382
  2. ↑ a b c Jerome A. Jackson: Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia , Second Edition, Vol. 10, Birds III, Detroit and New York 2003, p. 521.
  3. ↑ a b c Angelica Crottini et alii: Toward a resolution of a taxonomic enigma: First genetic analyzes of Paradoxornis webbianus and Paradoxornis alphonsianus (Aves: Paradoxornithidae) from China and Italy, in: Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution , Volume 57, Issue 3, ( December 2010), Pages 1312-1318.
  4. ^ IOC Taxonomy Updates - v2.6, October 23, 2010, Seq 163
  5. ^ Władysław Taczanowski, p. 470
  6. ^ Charles William Campbell, p. 237
  7. ^ Robert Swinhoe (1871), p. 472
  8. ^ John Gould, Part 4, Plate 72
  9. ↑ John David Digues La Touche, p. 52
  10. ^ Robert Swinhoe (1866), p. 300
  11. ↑ John Penhallurick and Craig Robson: The generic taxonomy of parrotbills (Aves, Timaliidae), in: Forktail 25 (2009), pp. 137-141.
  12. ^ BirdLife International 2012. Paradoxornis webbianus . In: IUCN 2013. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.1. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Retrieved August 19, 2013.

Web links

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