Red Pheasant

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Red Pheasant
Red pheasant rooster

Red pheasant rooster

Systematics
Order : Chicken birds (Galliformes)
Family : Pheasants (Phasianidae)
Genre : Pucrasia
Type : Red Pheasant
Scientific name of the  genus
Pucrasia
Gray , 1841
Scientific name of the  species
Pucrasia macrolopha
( Lesson , 1829)

The crested pheasant or Koklassfasan ( Pucrasia macrolopha ) is a Hühnervogel art from the family of pheasant-like . It occurs in several large, isolated occurrences in the western and central Himalayas as well as in western, central and northeastern China . Its habitat is mountain forests on partly very steep slopes and gorges, which are between 2000 and 4000 m. The geographical variation is quite pronounced, so that nine subspecies are described in three groups.

The red pheasant is the only member of the genus Pucrasia . Both this name (Latinized from "Pukrass" or "Phokrass") and the English name "Koklass" are taken from the language of the Himalayan region and onomatopoeically describe the district call. The specific epithet "macrolopha" refers to the long head.

description

Drawing of a pair of the subspecies P. m. xanthospila

The red pheasant is relatively short and pointed-tailed and shows greatly elongated crown feathers both in the male and in the female sex, which in the rooster can be up to 10 cm long and fall in the neck. In addition, the ear covers of the rooster, similar to the ear pheasants, are greatly elongated, up to 12 cm long and protrude backwards over the head. They are set up vertically at courtship. The eye area is feathered, the iris dark brown. The beak is black-brown. The wings are quite long and, in contrast to many pheasants, protrude far beyond the arm wings when the wings are folded. The body feathers of both sexes are broadly lanceolate and pointed, so that the bird looks strangely scaled. The hens resemble those of the glossy pheasants in several ways . The shock consists of 16 control springs . A feature that the genus Pucrasia has in common with the blood pheasant and the tragopan is that the moulting of the control feathers begins with the middle pair. This distinguishes them from all other pheasants, but connects them to other members of the Phasianidae family . The legs, like the feet, are dark blue-gray and long spurred on the rooster.

The cock of the red pheasant reaches a body length of 58 to 64 cm, of which between 22 and 28 cm is accounted for by the tail. The wing length is 215–244 mm, the weight between 1.1 and 1.4 kg. The hood is cinnamon brown, the longest feather black. The head and the elongated ear-feathers are glossy black-green and contrast with a white field on the sides of the neck, which shows a different extent depending on the subspecies. The feathers of the lower neck, the chest and large parts of the rest of the body are silver-gray in the nominate form and have black shaft stripes. They are tinted warm beige on the rump. The front neck and a broad median stripe on the chest and stomach are dark maroon like the under tail coverts. The latter have white tips. The wing plumage is predominantly beige to reddish brown, has black shaft stripes and subterminal speckles on the arm wings. The elongated, red-brown upper tail-coverts have an interrupted, black shaft stripe and gray lace hems. They cover a large part of the control springs, which are also reddish brown, have a white subterminal tape and a black tip. The outer ones also have a blackish inner flag.

With a body length of 52–56 cm, the hen is shorter than the rooster. The tail measures 17–19.5 cm, the wing length is between 180 and 218 mm. The weight is around 1–1.1 kg. The parting is beige and merges into the black of the hood, which is shorter than that of the rooster and shows white tips. The wide stripe above the eyes is beige, the throat and the lower ear covers are whitish and separated from them by a dark stripe on the cheeks. The rest of the head, neck and underside are darkly speckled on a beige background and streaky towards the whitish lower abdomen. The red-brown under tail-coverts have white tips. The upper side is predominantly brown-beige with black spots and stripes and light shaft lines. The thrust is colored like the rooster.

Young birds are largely similar to hens, young cocks develop gender-specific characteristics in the first year.

voice

The roosters' Revierruf (audio sample), which can mainly be heard early in the morning and in the evening, is a series of melodious, harsh kok or kak calls that vary greatly depending on the geographical location and the individual. It has often been described with onomatopoeic interpretations such as kok kok kok kokrass or ka ka ka kah and is not infrequently triggered by noises such as thunder or aircraft noise. Roosters that fly when they are disturbed give a sharp croak, croak, croak . The hen’s alarm call is a rapid, melodic series of qui quik calls. The two syllables have a different pitch.

Distribution and existence

The distribution of the red pheasant extends in several, disjoint parts over the southern edge of the eastern Palearctic . In the Himalayas, the distribution extends from eastern Afghanistan to western Nepal . It is noticeable that the species is absent in the eastern Himalayas and is extinct in southeastern Tibet. Another sub-area extends in western China and extends into the northern center, another is located in the southeast of central China and a fourth in the northeast.

Nothing is known about the population, but the species is generally classified as not endangered (“least concern”). In the long term, it is threatened by increasing urban sprawl and intensive habitat management. There is a particular danger in forest grazing and the collection of plant parts and wood as animal feed or fuel. A dense undergrowth such as the species needs is destroyed in this way. The species is common in protected areas and, as annual counts in Nepal have shown, the populations appear to be stable. In other areas, and especially in the densely populated southeast of China, the situation is different. The species is no longer found in the southern Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Fujian . Likewise, deposits in southeast Tibet and probably in eastern Afghanistan have recently been extinguished.

Geographic variation

The geographic variation is sometimes quite gradual (clinical) from west to east, but there are very clear differences between the isolated populations, so that three groups of subspecies can be distinguished. While the hens vary very little, the roosters are sometimes quite different.

macrolopha group

In this group, which is native to the Himalayas, the relatively dark feathers on the upper side, the chest and the flanks only have a single black shaft stripe. The neck is chestnut brown to silver gray. In these subspecies the bump is chestnut brown, in all others it is black or silver gray.

  • P. m. astanea Gould , 1855 - eastern Afghanistan to Chitral in eastern Pakistan.
  • P. m. biddulphi Marshall , 1879 - Kashmir , eastward to the Kullu Valley .
  • P. m. macrolopha ( Lesson , 1829) - western Himalayas, from Kashmir to Kumaon in Uttar Pradesh .
  • P. m. nipalensis Gould , 1855 - western Nepal.

xanthospila group

The birds of the middle and northern populations show a golden to orange-yellow collar. The feathers on the upper side, the chest and the flanks show, in addition to the central shaft stripe, two black stripes on the side

darwini group

The southern and eastern populations lack the golden collar. The subspecies P. m. darwini shows two color morphs and intermediate forms. The body feathers on all taps have four black stripes. In the first morph, the neck, chest, and the edges of the gray or black tail are reddish brown. The second morph, sometimes known as the subspecies P. m. styani is more black and gray. You are missing the red-brown areas.

  • P. m. joretiana Heude , 1883 - Anhui .
  • P. m. darwini Swinhoe , 1872 - southwestern Sichuan, Hubei , Zhejiang and Fujian, extinct in northwest Fujian and northern Guangdong.

Way of life

The habitat of the Great Pheasant are coniferous and mixed forests on steep mountain slopes between about 2000 and 4000 m. It needs dense undergrowth of bamboo, rhododendron or other shrubs, but is also found in grazed forests. In the winter months, the species migrates to altitudes of 1600 m, and even deeper in the case of heavy snowfall, and sometimes forms smaller groups. The search for food takes place in the morning and evening hours, when roots and tubers are dug in the ground in clear places in the forest. The diet is purely vegetable and also consists of fern leaves, moss, grass, buds and berries. The roosts are in trees and from here the roosters start to call from an hour before sunrise during the breeding season.

The breeding season is between April and June. The species is believed to be monogamous . During courtship, the cocks impress with their ear feathers set up vertically, spread control feathers and ruffled neck plumage, so that the white spots on the neck appear more pronounced. In an upright position, the side of the body is turned towards the hen, the tail is tilted and the wing facing is lowered. With the tip of its wing, the rooster makes scratching noises on the ground and walks around the hen with slow steps. Occasionally he rushes towards the hen and jumps have also been observed. If the hen is ready for copulation, she adopts a stretched, crouching position and puffs up her neck plumage. 5–7, less often up to 9 eggs are laid in a dug out of the earth. These are spotted red-brown on a cream-colored background, rarely only finely dotted and about 51 × 38 mm in size. There is different information about the incubation period in captivity, some authors report from 26 to 27 days, others from 20 to 21.

supporting documents

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Charles William Beebe : A monograph of the pheasants , New York Zoological Society, 1918-1922, Vol. 3, p. 197
  2. ↑ Mathias Ritschard: XC21205 · · Koklasfasan Pucrasia macrolopha . xeno-canto.org. Retrieved October 21, 2019.

Web links

Commons : Red Pheasant  - Collection of images, videos and audio files