Strawberry heads
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Strawberry heads ( Agapornis lilianae ) |
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| Agapornis lilianae | ||||||||||||
| Shelley , 1894 |
The strawberry head ( -Agapornis lilianae ) is a bird art from the genus of Unzertrennlichen . Together with the other species of this genus, as well as the gray parrot , the long wing parrots , the Rose-ringed Parakeet and Madagascar endemic Vasa Parrots this type is a typical parrot species of Afrotropical . Strawberry heads are one of the rarer species among lovebirds.
description
Strawberry heads are very small agapornids with a size of only 12–13 cm and a weight of 28–37 g. The head and neck are salmon pink. This color changes to yellow on the chest. The neck is also yellow and this color changes to green towards the back. The tail feathers are also green, but with black feathers on the sides. The eyes are dark red-brown and the beak bright red. Males and females are the same in plumage color. Young birds have a less red head.
distribution and habitat
Distribution areas of the strawberry heads are southern Tanzania and the border area of Zambia and Zimbabwe and the northwest of Mozambique and Malawi . Here they live in the moist alluvial forests of the river lowlands, for example. B. the Zambezi . In the Mopani district they live in acacia forests at altitudes of 1000 m on alluvial land and in river valleys.
Lifestyle and diet
Strawberry heads are very social animals which, except in the breeding season, live together in large flocks of 20 to 100 animals and more and then show quite extensive migratory movements. They also inhabit whole trees together and are also quite noisy. Depending on the season, they feed on sorghum , grass seeds, herbs, flowers, leaves and leaf buds and sometimes cause great damage to agriculture.
Reproduction
The birds nest in colonies, mainly in knotholes in high trees, but nests of weaver birds , mainly the buffalo weaver , are also accepted. The nesting material consists of small twigs and straw. The breeding season in Zimbabwe is between January / February and September and in Zambia between January and July. 3–8 eggs are laid and incubated for 21–22 days. After about 35 days the young are fully fledged.
Sources and References
literature
- Georg A. Radtke : Inseparable (Agaporniden): keeping, breeding and color variations , Franckh, Stuttgart 1981, pp. 31–33, ISBN 3-440-04947-7
- Dirk Van den Abeele: Agapornids. Volume 1: species, husbandry, nutrition, breeding. Arndt-Verlag , Bretten 2010, ISBN 978-3-9813383-1-7 .
Web links
- World Parrot Trust , accessed February 14, 2010
- agapornis.ch , accessed on February 14, 2010
- Agapornis lilianae inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved December 26, 2013.