Hedge cuckoo
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Hedge Cuckoo ( Centropus sinensis ) |
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The hedge cuckoo ( Centropus sinensis ) is a magpie-sized , black-brown colored cuckoo bird (Cuculiformes). It belongs to the subfamily of the spur cuckoo (Centropodinae), whose representatives are not brood parasites . Because of its long tail, he is also in English Crow Pheasant ( Crow Pheasant called). The specific epithet refers to the southern Chinese distribution area from which the type specimen comes.
Hedge cuckoos live as resident birds in pairs in a large area of South and Southeast Asia . They build extensive nests with lateral entrances in which they raise two to three young. They are food opportunists with an emphasis on insects and snails; the latter also form the main component of the boy's food.
Usually 6 subspecies are described. The Andaman cuckoo ( C. andamanensis ), previously a subspecies of the hedge cuckoo, was recently placed in species rank , this is being discussed for another island breed ( C. kangeangensis ). The hedge cuckoo is a species that is common in certain areas. Its population situation is indicated by LC (= least concern - not endangered ).
Appearance and voice
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Hedge cuckoos are large, strikingly colored birds that are largely unmistakable in their range. The very similarly colored short- tailed cuckoo ( Centropus rectunguis ), which occurs sympatric with the hedge cuckoo on Borneo and Sumatra, is much smaller.
Adult hedge cuckoos are 47–52 centimeters tall. Their weight is between 236 and 268 grams. As with all spore cuckoos, there is a slight reverse size and weight dimorphism , so females are slightly larger and heavier than males. The sexes do not differ in their plumage. The subspecies C. s. kangeangensis occurs in a light and dark morph .
The head, neck and the entire underside are black, as is the long, broad tail. The mantle, the elytra, and the wings are a deep maroon. There are no color transitions, so that the two colors contrast strongly. Depending on the incidence of light, the black parts of the plumage are iridescent , especially on the cheeks, on the crown and on the chest, purple or purple, and on the tail more greenish. The iris is reddish brown, the powerful, curved bill is black; legs and toes are also colored. As with all representatives of the genus Centropus , a rear toe has a straight, clearly elongated claw, the spur that gives the genus its name .
Fledglings differ significantly from colored individuals. The head is dull black-gray with brownish inclusions, the neck is banded with whitish, the back is reddish-brown and the tail shows narrow, light-brown banding. Individual wings are also banded. The underside is banded or dotted with dirty white on a dark brown background, individual feathers have distinct yellow shafts. The iris is gray to brown, the lower beak light gray. Young birds molt into the largely unbanded adult plumage at the end of their first year of life, only individual banded wings stay longer.
Hedge cuckoos are bad fliers. The straight, slow flight seems strained. A few quick flaps of the wing are alternately followed by a short glide phase.
As a species that usually lives in pairs, the hedge cuckoo is acoustically quite noticeable. A characteristic call is a lined-up, deep, and soft huup ... huup (audio sample) which is often uttered in long sequences, with a rising and falling pitch. The calls of the female are usually deeper and more hollow than those of the male. Couples often call in a duet. The call is vaguely reminiscent of that of the hoopoe . Often a quiet tok… tok… tok as well as various croaking calls can also be heard.
distribution and habitat
The species is distributed from East Pakistan over the entire Indian subcontinent , south China eastwards to Zhejiang , the Indochinese and Malay Peninsula south east to Sumatra, Borneo and Bali . To the north, the distribution area extends into the foothills of the Himalayas , where an area expansion has recently been observed. Widespread is the way further on most large and small islands of this region such as Sri Lanka , Hainan , Palawan , the Sulu archipelago and other islands in the Sulu Sea , Madura and the Kangeaninseln . The species breeds on the Matsu Islands and Kinmen , but not on Taiwan . The spur cuckoos of the Andaman Islands and the coconut islands to the north of it, which were formerly considered a subspecies, are now considered a species, while those of the Nicobar Islands belong to the subspecies C. s. counting bubutus .
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Hedge cuckoos are widespread in different habitats . They colonize open, loosely tree-lined grassland, thicket of thorns, secondary forests , cleared areas, the edge of the jungle, agricultural land, especially rice fields, river fringes and mangroves . They appear in larger tree-lined gardens and breed in urban parks. They do not colonize dense primary forests .
The species mainly inhabits the lowlands and the hill country level up to 1200 meters. In the north of its range it breeds sporadically up to 2100 meters.
The space requirement is very small for the size of the bird. In South India, a mean territory size of 3.8 hectares was determined.
Hedge cuckoos are resident birds in their entire range.
Food and subsistence
Hedge ducks are food opportunists. They are both carnivorous and frugivorous , but animal diet is the main component of their diet. Among the insects, they primarily prey on caterpillars , cockroaches , grasshoppers , catching horrors , beetles and their larvae , ants and dragonflies . Other arthropods among the prey are hundred- and millipedes , spiders , scorpions , crabs , earthworms and land snails . Regionally, snails, especially Helix vittata, can become main food. Young birds and bird eggs, lizards , geckos , frogs , toads and small snakes as well as small mammals such as mice and young hedgehogs also belong to the food spectrum. They also go to carrion and consume various fruits and seeds.
Hedge cuckoos mainly hunt for their prey on the ground. They pursue fleeing animals jumping and running, poke in the ground, in the mud and in shallow bank areas, turn stones and read insects from grass and the leaves of bushes. They can also be found looking for food in trees up to the top of the tree, where they pick fruit but also read living things from the surface of branches and plunder bird nests. Hedge cuckoos eat the mesocarp of ripe oil palm fruits and are considered pests in oil palm plantations.
Breeding biology
Adult hedge cuckoos live in pairs. They apparently have a monogamous relationship about the duration of which no information is available. The courtship consists of singing duets, chases, begging for food and handing over of food. Mating mostly takes place on the ground.
The males in particular build extensive, spherical, covered nests from dry grass, twigs and thorns, which are clad and camouflaged on the outside with materials from the environment. Sometimes the construction is reinforced with mud. The entrance is on the side. Nests open at the top are rare. Females take part in nest building to varying degrees. The nest is seldom more than 6 meters in trees, in thick thorn bushes or well camouflaged on the ground.
In regions, oviposition usually begins with the onset of the rainy season, but fresh clutches can be found throughout the year - especially in the distribution areas near the equator . The clutches consist of 2–3, in exceptional cases up to 5 white eggs, which have a yellowish sheen when freshly laid. With a weight of around 15 grams, they are on average 35 × 28 millimeters in size. Oviposition often begins before the nest is completed. The breeding period is 15-16 days. Both partners breed and feed the young. In the first few days, snails in particular form the nestling food. After 18–22 days, the young birds leave the nest and are then led by their parents for about two months. No information is available on the dismigration of the young birds.
A study from India gives the following figures on the breeding success: 77% of the eggs hatched, 67% of the nestlings came out. Many clutches are destroyed by crows, especially by species from the thick-billed crow complex ( Corvus macrorhynchos see left ).
Systematics
The hedge cuckoo is one of 28 species in the genus Centropus . This genus, whose representatives are native to South, Southeast Asia, North Australia and the Solomon Islands , Africa and Madagascar , has no breeding parasites. The sister species of the hedge cuckoo is the Andaman cuckoo ( C. andamanensis ), the Java cuckoo ( C. nigrorufus ) belongs to the closest relatives . Payne counts C. andamanensis as a subspecies of the hedge cuckoo, but mostly this is regarded as an independent species.
- Centropus sinensis sinensis ( Stephens , 1815) : Pakistan, northern India, southern foothills of the Himalayas, southern China.
- C. s. parroti Stresemann , 1913 : Central and Southern India, Sri Lanka. Upper back black. Young birds have no banding on their wings.
- C. s. intermedius ( Hume , 1873) : Bangladesh , Yunnan , Hainan, Myanmar , Thailand , northern Malay Peninsula. Like C. s. parroti but a little smaller.
- C. s. bubutus Horsfield , 1821 : Central and southern Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo and Java and Palawan. A large subspecies. Wings lighter brown with individual light feather shafts.
- C. s. anonymus Stresemann , 1913 : Balabac and Sulu Islands. Like C. s. bubutus , but wings darker.
- C. s. kangeangensis Vorderman , 1893 : Kangean Islands. Two color morphs: In the case of the dark morph, the head, back, throat and tail are gray-brown, the chest is mottled gray. The light morph is dirty white except for the maroon wings.
Persistence and Threat
The hedge cuckoo is a species that is common in some areas. However, there are no exact population data, especially the development of the population of the island races is unknown. The distribution area covers approximately 8 million km². At the moment the species with all subspecies is not considered endangered.
Importance to humans
The hedge cuckoo plays a certain role in the popular belief of the local population as both a good and a bad omen. In folk medicine, its meat is used as a remedy for asthma and other lung diseases.
literature
- Robert B. Payne: The Cuckoos . Oxford University Press 2005. (Bird Families of the World No. 15) ISBN 0-19-850213-3 : Plate 1; Pp. 3-136 and 238-242.
- Joseph del Hoyo, Andrew Elliot, David Christie (Eds.): Handbook of the Birds of the World . Volume 4: Sandgrouse To Cuckoos. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona 1997. ISBN 84-87334-22-9 . Pp. 588 and 589.
Individual evidence
- ↑ James A. Jobling: The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. Helm, London 2010; ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4 , p. 357.
- ↑ BirdLife International: Species Factsheet - Centropus sinensis .
- ^ Payne (2005), p. 238.
- ↑ Mike Nelson: XC94081 (MP3) xeno-canto.org. January 23, 2012. Retrieved May 7, 2019.
- ^ Payne (2005), p. 238.
- ^ Payne (2005), p. 239.
- ^ Payne (2005), p. 239.
- ^ Payne (2005), p. 241.
- ^ Payne (2005), p. 241.
- ^ Payne (2005), p. 242.
- ^ Payne (2005), p. 242.
- ^ Payne (2005), p. 85.
- ↑ Centropus andamanensis in the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS).
- ↑ BirdLife International: Species Factsheet - Centropus sinensis .
- ↑ Shukla and Upadhyaya: Economic Zoology . Rastogi Publications, 2009. p. 380.
Web links
- Centropus sinensis inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved October 16, 2013.