Small yellow-headed vulture
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Lesser yellow-headed vulture ( Cathartes burrovianus ) |
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| Cathartes burrovianus | ||||||||||
| Cassin , 1845 |
The lesser yellow-headed vulture ( Cathartes burrovianus , syn .: C. urubitinga , C. urubutinga ) is the smallest member of the New World vulture (Cathartidae). He lives in Central America and in northern and central South America .
features
The lesser yellow-headed vulture becomes 53 to 65 cm long and weighs 950 to 1550 grams. It reaches a wingspan of 1.5 to 1.65 meters, its tail is short and 19 to 24 cm long. Males are only slightly smaller than the females. The plumage is dark, black above, more dark brown below. In the flight from below, the bird is black, the wings are silver, the tail is gray. The head is bare, yellow or orange, forehead and neck also red, the parting, sometimes the throat, are blue-gray. The scalp is wrinkled. The bill and legs are whitish to pink.
Fledglings have yellowish legs, a dark head and beak, and a light neck.
distribution
As a habitat, it prefers forest edges, moist savannas and meadows up to heights of 1000 meters. There are two subspecies.
The nominate form C. burrovianus burrovianus occurs in the coastal regions of southern Mexico , on the Pacific coast of Guatemala , in the Caribbean region of Honduras , Nicaragua and northeastern Costa Rica , in Panama , Colombia , with the exception of the Andean region, and in northwestern Venezuela .
Home of C. burrovianus urubitinga have the lowlands of South America, from Venezuela over the three Guiana , Brazil , eastern Bolivia , the extreme north and south of Paraguay , the Argentine provinces of Misiones and Corrientes , and the bordering regions Brazil Uruguay's .
In some regions in Venezuela and Panama, the birds only live at certain times of the year.
Way of life
Small yellow-headed vultures often sit on posts or other low perches. They look for their food flying close to the ground in a rocking glide. They rarely fly high. With the help of their good sense of smell, they find their food, which consists mainly of carrion . Their reproductive biology is largely unknown. In Suriname it has been observed that they raise their brood in hollow tree trunks. Parents with two young birds that had just fledged were observed in Colombia in May.
The species is not considered endangered and is relatively numerous.
literature
- Ferguson-Lees & Christie: The birds of prey of the world (German by Volker Dierschke and Jochen Dierschke). Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co. KG, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-440-11509-1
- Josep del Hoyo et al .: Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 2: New World Vultures to Guinea Fowl. Lynx Edicions, 1994, ISBN 84-87334-15-6 .
Web links
- Cathartes burrovianus inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved November 18, 2013.