Graycatcher

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Graycatcher
Gray flycatcher (Muscicapa striata)

Gray flycatcher ( Muscicapa striata )

Systematics
Subordination : Songbirds (passeri)
Family : Flycatcher (Muscicapidae)
Subfamily : True flycatcher (Muscicapinae)
Tribe : Muscicapini
Genre : Muscicapa
Type : Graycatcher
Scientific name
Muscicapa striata
( Pallas , 1764)

The gray flycatcher ( Muscicapa striata ) is a species of bird from the flycatcher family (Muscicapidae). This flycatcher inhabits large parts of the western and central Palearctic from Portugal and Ireland to the northeast of Mongolia and occurs in almost all of Europe. The graycatcher is tied to trees and lives primarily in light areas in forests of all kinds, but also in parks, gardens and avenues in villages and towns. The species migrates long distances and winters in tropical Africa south of the Sahara, with the exception of the tropical rainforest .

The European population declined between 1970 and 1990 and has been largely stable since then. In the 2015 Red List of Breeding Birds in Germany, the species is on the pre-warning list. Worldwide, the species is regarded by the IUCN as not endangered (“least concern”) due to its large distribution area and the very high total population.

description

Graycatchers are quite small, slender songbirds with a rather large head, relatively long wings and a long tail. Overall, they are fairly monochrome gray-brown and have no noticeable markings. The sexes are colored the same.

With a body length of 13.5 to 15 cm, the species is about the size of a house sparrow . In adult birds, the entire upper side of the trunk including the rear neck and head as well as the small wing covers are monochrome dark to gray-brown, only the plumage on the forehead and front upper head is mottled brown with dark shaft stripes and light hems. The wings and control springs are darker gray. The wings of the hand and the control feathers have narrow, brownish hems on the upper side on the outer flags , the wings of the arms have wider and more whitish hems. In the fresh plumage, the large and middle arm covers show beige tips and equally colored hems; with increasing wear these light parts become more and more indistinct. The throat and the entire underside of the torso as well as the under tail-coverts are dirty white, throat and middle of the chest are fine on this ground, the light-brownish tinged chest sides and flanks are dotted with darker lines. The iris is dark brown. The very long bill is blackish horn-colored, the base of the mandible is lightened. The legs are black.

Graycatcher in youthful dress at the end of August

In the youth dress the upper side is more brown with light rust beige to isabel colored spots. The arm wings and the arm covers have reddish brown hems. The underside of the fuselage shows dark spots and hardly any stripes on an isabel-colored background.

Vocalizations

The little noticeable singing is usually performed by the males only a few days after arriving in the area from an exposed control room. It consists of a series of simple, quite soft and somewhat pressed or rough high tones such as "sip-sip-srii - sriiti-srii-sip" , which sound at an interval of just under a second, these tones are often a bit trilling. Much more noticeable are the calls of the young birds after they have fled the flight and the warning calls from their parents. The begging calls of the young birds are high and sound like “zit” , when an adult bird approaches with food, the young birds quickly call out “zi-zi-zi, zi-zi-zi” . The voices of the parent birds sound high and chirping and scratchy like "pull" or "zit" .

distribution and habitat

Distribution of the gray flycatcher:
  • Breeding areas
  • migration
  • Wintering areas

    • This snapper inhabits large parts of the western and central Palearctic from the boreal to the Mediterranean zone. In an east-west direction, the distribution extends from Portugal and Ireland over almost all of Europe to the northeast of Mongolia . In north-south direction, the area extends in the west from over 70 ° N in northern Scandinavia and northern Finland to the northern edge of the Sahara in the Maghreb and includes Sicily and Malta ; further to the east, the northern limit of distribution sinks to 61 ° N in the area of ​​the Urals and Yenisei and the area extends south to Syria and, with large areas of the Central Asian steppe region, to the south of Iran , Afghanistan , Pakistan and then turning north along of the north-western edge of the mountains of Central Asia approximately to the south-west of the Siberian region of Transbaikalia . The northeastern area boundary is not yet known exactly.

    The gray flycatcher is tied to taller trees, which, thanks to the large number of sitting areas, allow the use of open air spaces for insect hunting in the air and on the ground. It therefore primarily inhabits clear areas in forests of all kinds, including wooded fields, but also parks, cemeteries, gardens and avenues in villages and towns. Buildings represent a habitat enrichment through the supply of nesting places and the increased supply of insects due to the heat radiation. In Central Europe today the greater part of the population breed in the area of ​​human settlements, older parks usually have the highest breeding pair densities here.

    Graycatcher with young bird (left)

    nutrition

    Graycatchers hunt almost exclusively in flight and predominantly from exposed waiting areas. In good weather, up to two thirds of the prey is hunted in the open air, the rest is read in flight from trees, the herbaceous layer, house walls, compost heaps and the like. In bad weather, when there are hardly any insects flying, the animals hunt more in trees and near the ground.

    The diet consists primarily of flying insects, with preference given to larger dipteras such as hover flies and dung flies . In addition, a wide range of other insects from aphids to dragonflies , bumblebees , wasps and larger butterflies such as the peacock butterfly are preyed on. Graycatchers usually hit large insects several times against a hard surface and only then eat them, in the case of Hymenoptera with spines, the abdomen is removed beforehand. In rainy and cold weather, graycatchers also eat earthworms as an exception and, from around mid-July, also various fruits such as dogwood , firethorn or common bird cherry . The need for lime is covered by the occasional ingestion of small snails, woodlice or pods .

    Clutch

    Reproduction

    Graycatchers usually lead a monogamous seasonal marriage; occasionally, when the males change territory, there is successive bigyny . The nest is built very variably, mostly in or on a larger tree or building, predominantly in larger niche-like or semi-cave-like structures, but the nests can also stand completely free. Frequent nest locations on trees are, for example, dense trunk rashes, larger knotholes, broken knots or cavities behind protruding bark, on buildings nests are built in wall holes, on crossbeams, shutters or in flower boxes, as well as on trees and on structures in hilltops. Graycatchers also often use half-open nesting boxes for breeding. The nests are usually erected at a height of 1 to 15 m, and very rarely on the ground.

    Gelege,     Museum Wiesbaden collection
    Young graycatcher in the nest
    Nest under a shed roof

    The relatively loose and messy, bowl-shaped nest is mainly built by the female mostly from stalks, small roots and the like, in the forest also almost exclusively from moss. In the human settlement area, graycatchers also use plastic bands, twine and the like to build nests. The actual nest hollow is lined with animal hair, feathers or wool.

    The oviposition takes place variably depending on the geographical location, in Central Europe exceptionally in the first decade of May, usually from the end of May. Second broods occur regularly, the last clutches are started in late July or early August. The clutch consists of 2 to 6, usually 4 to 5 eggs, which are spotted darker rust-red or rust-brown and gray on a light greenish to beige background. The breeding season lasts 11 to 15 days, the incubation is carried out exclusively by the female. Feed both parents. The young birds leave the nest at 12 to 16 days. Sexual maturity is reached in the first year of life.

    hikes

    The species is long-distance migrant . The migration of Central and Northern European birds takes place in mid-July to mid-October with a high point in early August to late September. Individual stragglers are observed at the end of October or beginning of November. The world population of the gray flycatcher overwinters in tropical Africa south of the Sahara , leaving out deserts and rainforests . The winter quarters extend from the southern edge of the wet savannah between Gambia in the west and the Mount Kenya massif in the east to the south to the north-east of South Africa . The first homecomers in Central Europe are observed as early as mid-April, but normally only at the end of April and beginning of May. The move home reaches its peak at the end of May / beginning of June and expires at the end of June.

    Existence and endangerment

    There is no reliable information on the world population. The gray flycatcher is a very common breeding bird in Europe, as a rough estimate for the European population BirdLife International gives 14 to 22 million breeding pairs. In Europe, the population trend declined between 1970 and 1990, and has been largely stable since then. Overall, BirdLife International classifies the population of Europe as “depleted”. In the 2015 Red List of Breeding Birds in Germany, the species is on the pre-warning list. Due to the large distribution area and the very high total population, the worldwide population of the gray flycatcher was classified as “ Least Concern (LC) ” in the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species in 2018 .

    supporting documents

    literature

    • Einhard Bezzel: Compendium of the birds of Central Europe. Passeres - songbirds. Aula, Wiebelsheim 1993, ISBN 3-89104-530-1 , pp. 406-410.
    • Urs N. Glutz von Blotzheim , Kurt M. Bauer: Handbook of the birds of Central Europe. Vol. 13, part 1: Passeriformes (4th part) Muscicapidae - Paridae. Aula, Wiebelsheim 1993, ISBN 3-89104-022-9 , pp. 35-79.
    • Lars Svensson, Peter J. Grant, Killian Mullarney, Dan Zetterström: The new cosmos bird guide. Franckh-Kosmos, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07720-9 , pp. 312-313.

    Web links

    Commons : Gray Flycatcher ( Muscicapa striata )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

    Individual evidence

    1. ↑ Urs N. Glutz von Blotzheim, Kurt M. Bauer, pp. 43–46.
    2. ↑ Singing example (MP3; 688 kB).
    3. ↑ Urs N. Glutz von Blotzheim, Kurt M. Bauer, pp. 35–37.
    4. ↑ Urs N. Glutz von Blotzheim, Kurt M. Bauer, pp. 57–61.
    5. ↑ Urs N. Glutz von Blotzheim, Kurt M. Bauer, pp. 69–70.
    6. ↑ Urs N. Glutz von Blotzheim, Kurt M. Bauer, pp. 69–70 and 77–79.
    7. ↑ Detailed species account from Birds in Europe: population estimates, trends and conservation status (BirdLife International 2004) (PDF, English)
    8. ↑ Christoph Grüneberg, Hans-Günther Bauer, Heiko Haupt, Ommo Hüppop, Torsten Ryslavy, Peter Südbeck: Red List of Germany's Breeding Birds , 5 version . In: German Council for Bird Protection (Hrsg.): Reports on bird protection . tape 52 , November 30, 2015.
    9. ↑ Muscicapa striata in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2018 Posted by: BirdLife International, 2018. Accessed November 28 of 2019.