Maori flycatcher
| Maori flycatcher | ||||||||||||
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Petroica macrocephala macrocephala |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Petroica macrocephala | ||||||||||||
| ( Gmelin , 1789) |
The tomtit ( Petroica macrocephala ) in New Zealand Tomtit called, is a New Zealand songbird from the family of flycatchers .
features
The 13 cm long and 11 g heavy Maori flycatcher is a bird with a large head and short tail. The male is dark on the head and back and white on the underside. Throat and chest are yellowish, a white wing band appears in the black wings. The female is brown on the top and paler in color on the underside.
The individual subspecies look very different, so the subspecies Petroica macrocephala dannefaerdi , which occurs on the Snare Islands , is completely black.
Occurrence
This resident bird lives in forests and open woodlands in New Zealand.
behavior
The Maori flycatcher shows hardly any fear of humans and behaves in a curious or aggressive manner. Its food consists mainly of invertebrates, which it looks for in trees or on the ground. In autumn and winter it also eats small fruits.
Reproduction
The Maori flycatcher usually stays in the same territory with its partner for life. During the breeding season from August to January, the female builds a misshapen nest in a tree hole, on a broken branch or between thick creepers. It consists of twigs, pieces of bark, feathers and moss and is held together with cobwebs. While the three to five eggs are incubating, the female is fed by the male. It is incubated up to twice in one season.
literature
- Gordon Roy Williams: Tomtit . In: Alexander Hare McLintock (Ed.): An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand . Wellington 1966 ( online [accessed December 15, 2015]).
- Colin Harrison, Alan Greensmith: Nature Library of Birds . Dorling Kindersly Limited, Starnberg 2005, ISBN 3-8310-0785-3 (English).
- Bryan Richard: Birds - over 400 species from around the world . Parragon, Bath 2006, ISBN 1-4054-5506-3 (translated from English by Eva Dempewolf).
Web links
- photos
- Videos, photos and sound recordings of Petroica macrocephala in the Internet Bird Collection
- Petroica macrocephala onthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved February 2, 2014.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Snare Islands Project. October 10, 2003, archived from the original on October 30, 2010 ; Accessed December 30, 2015 (original website no longer available).