Column gardener
| Column gardener | ||||||||||||
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Column gardener ( Prionodura newtoniana ) |
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| De Vis , 1883 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Prionodura newtoniana | ||||||||||||
| De Vis, 1883 |
The column gardener ( Prionodura newtoniana ) is a species from the family of the bower birds (Ptilonorhynchidae) and is a representative of the avifrauna of Australia . It is the only representative of its kind. Its distribution area is on the Australian northeast coast in Queensland . In contrast to the bowerbirds found in New Guinea , the way of life of the column gardener is therefore comparatively well researched.
With a body length of up to 25 centimeters, the column gardener is the smallest member of the bowerbird family and is one of the species of this family whose courtship behavior includes the construction of an arbor by the male. The German name for this type of bower bird alludes to the shape of this bower. In English usage the column gardener is called the Golden Bowerbid because of the plumage of the male. As is typical for bowerbirds, there is a striking sexual dimorphism . The female is much less plumed than the male. The species is monotypical.
Column gardeners are very long-lived and take several years to reach sexual maturity. Due to the intelligence they show when building their arbors, they are counted among the most intelligent of the birds. The IUCN classifies the column gardener's stock situation as safe ( least concern ).
features
Males reach a body length of 25 centimeters, of which 8.8 to 11.5 centimeters are on the tail. In contrast to the Sericulus species and the silk arborist, females remain smaller than the male and reach a body length of 23 centimeters. The tail accounts for 8.5 to 9.2 centimeters of this. The beak length is 2.2 to 2.4 centimeters in males and 2.2 to 2.5 centimeters in females. Column gardeners can weigh between 62 and 96 grams.
Characteristics of the male
In the male, the head, chin and top of the body are dark brown-yellow. On the top of the head there is a small and on the nape of the neck a larger spot, which is shiny metallic orange-yellow. The wings have a more pronounced olive tone and the inner feathers of the flight feathers are dark olive. The middle pair of control springs is olive, the nibs of the two adjacent pairs of control springs are olive-colored. The rest of the tail plumage is orange-yellow and contrasts strikingly with the rest of the tail plumage. The underside of the body is a faded yellow-orange with different color intensities on the chest and stomach. The flanks are washed out in olive green.
The plumage has a metallic sheen and, when exposed to light, has white highlights. The iris is isabel colored. The bill is black-brown with a slightly lighter tip. The legs are blue-gray.
Characteristics of the female
The female, which is somewhat smaller than the male, has a brownish olive color on the upper side of the body. The reins and, to a lesser extent, the ear covers are a little paler and greener. The underside of the body is bluish light gray, the throat and chin are slightly lighter. The sides of the chest and flanks are a bit darker and brownish. The arm and hand wings as well as the control springs are brownish olive in color, with the individual springs having pale yellow spring shafts. The iris is pale brown, the beak is darker than that of the male.
Characteristics of the young birds
Fledgling nestlings still have downy plumage on their head. Its beak and legs are blue-gray. The orbital ring is dull pale yellow, the iris is dark brown. In the young birds, the males initially show the plumage of the adult females. The iris is pale brown to gray in them. In subadult males, the plumage shows increasingly individual yellow feathers until they then show the full plumage of adult males.
voice
The typical call of the column gardener are rattling tones that last no longer than a second or two and that are repeated several times in a row. The calls of the male hood gardener also include individual whistles, which can be heard above all when the male approaches his arbor or when conspecifics are nearby.
The column gardener also has distinctive mocking properties and imitates the sounds of his surroundings. A series of rattling calls can be interrupted by the imitation of croaking frogs or singing cicadas. But they also imitate the calls of other bird species. Among other things, the calls of the white-breasted pigeon , the Banks black cockatoo , the yellow-hooded cockatoo and the king parakeet were proven . the Pennant parakeet , the Lärmpittas ( Pitta versicolor ), the yellow-throated Sernicornis ( Sericornis citreogularis ) and the Pale end-Sericornis ( Sericornis magnirostris ), the Grauwangengerogyne ( Gerygone mouki ), the stained beak honeyeater ( Lichenostomus Ferrand ) of slaty-Dick head ( Colluricincla Power ), the spectacle monarch ( Monarcha trivirgatus ), the thick-billed strangler crow , the Victoria bird of paradise , the black-eared bowerbird and the silky bowerbird .
The column gardener often imitates more than just the call of another bird species. With the Pennant Parakeet, for example, the whistling call and the alarm call are imitated, the column gardener also includes various calls of the black-eared bowerbird in his repertoire. It even mimics instrumental sounds such as the fluttering wings of the Victoria Bird of Paradise.
Occurrence
The column gardener occurs exclusively in a small distribution area in the Australian state of Queensland . The range includes high altitudes of the Atherton Tablelands , the region between the Thornton River up to and including Mount Windsor National Park and the Seaview Range .
The habitat of the column gardener is tropical mountain rainforest.
Way of life
Column gardeners are generally shy and inconspicuous birds. The males are comparatively easy to spot in Labendere due to their calls. Occasionally up to five column gardeners but also column gardeners bathe in streams. Column gardeners are also among those birds that actively unite . To do this, they take ants in their beak and stroke them through the plumage. The males have also been observed sunbathing. The plumage is raised and the wings are easily dropped.
food
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The column gardener, like all bower birds, is omnivorous. However, the greatest role in meeting its nutritional needs is played by fruits, of which it eats a wide range. In a multi-year study of birds in the Paluma Range , 93 percent of the diet consisted of fruits. The largest part of this is made up of stone fruits and berries, followed by capsule fruits and figs. 78 plants from 36 different families were important . Flowers, buds and invertebrates are also eaten. Column gardeners are among those birds that hoard food. Fruits are stored in tree hollows, in the crevices of tree stumps or under fallen wood.
Column gardeners cover around six percent of their nutritional needs with animal food. They eat caterpillars, termites, singing cicadas , beetles and spiders. Singing cicadas occasionally catch them in flight.
Since fruits dominate the diet, they can be observed predominantly in tree tops while foraging for food. They rarely stay in the undergrowth or look for food on the ground. Column gardeners are observed individually, in pairs or in small groups of young birds and / or females in fruit-bearing trees. To date, it has only been observed once that two males forage in the same fruiting tree at the same time. They are compatible with other bird species. Column gardeners are also associated with other species of bower birds in such fruit-bearing trees, including the black-eared bower bird , the tooth bower bird and the silk bower bird . They are then also associated with other bird species that do not belong to the bower birds. These include the rose-breasted cuckoo pigeon , the striped caterpillar catcher and the Victoria bird of paradise ( Ptiloris Victoria ).
Column gardeners drink from knotholes filled with water and absorb water droplets from wet leaves to cover their fluid requirements.
Reproduction
Column gardeners are polygyn , that is, the male mates with several females. The female alone takes care of the construction of the nest, the brood and the rearing of the young birds. The male woos females by building a columnar arbor. One of the peculiarities of column gardeners is that these arbors are built in traditional locations that have been used by column gardeners for several generations. Out of 25 traditional arbor places observed between 1978 and 1997, 21 were occupied by a male each year. Three other arbor places were 18, 11 and five consecutive courtship periods in use. There were clearly identifiable arbor owners in 20 of the arbor spaces. At five of the football pitches they were occupied for some courtship periods by young, not yet sexually mature males, who either continued to build on the existing arbor or built a rudimentary arbor.
Takeover of an arbor
Adult males, who own a traditional arbor place, stay in close proximity to their arbor from August to January. After observations in the Paluma Range, they search for food no further than an average of 110 meters around their arbor. Only when they visit the arbours of other, competing males do they move away over longer distances. On average this is 191 meters, the maximum determined distance was 488 meters.
Males not yet sexually mature can be regularly observed in places with traditionally existing arbors. There are indications that these young male birds moult before the adult males and then “practice” courtship and building the arbor at these points, while the traditional arbor owner is still moulting and does not visit the arbor, or only rarely. With increasing age, they increasingly stay at traditional arbor sites that no longer have an owner or whose owner is no longer able to successfully defend the arbor due to injuries or illness. After reaching sexual maturity, these young males take over the arbor for good.
Arbor construction
Preferred spots for building an arbor are on flat spots not far from the crest of a hill. In addition to several medium-sized to large trees, they also have numerous young trees or saplings.
The male builds towers up to two meters high from twigs and other plant material around the trunk of a tree sapling. These towers are connected with a narrow branch. This arbor-like structure is decorated with flowers and other colorful objects and serves as a mating place. The polygamous male sings and dances in front of the arbor to attract females and mates several times per season.
Breeding business
The breeding season falls from the end of September to January. In the Paluma Range, the peak of the breeding season falls in November and December. Nestlings can be observed in the period from November to January, young birds that have just fledged in the period from December to February. In nests observed in this region, the first nestlings fledged on December 7th, the last left the nest on February 17th. Only one clutch is raised per breeding season. There is no additional clutch even if the clutch is lost.
A total of 86 nests were analyzed in more detail in the Paluma Range. Of these, 51 were in flat or only slightly sloping wooded areas, 24 were in areas with a slope between 20 and 45 degrees and 11 were on steep slopes of a stream. The distance between the individual nests was occasionally small. Two females built nests at the same time that were less than 75 meters apart. Nesting sites are occasionally used again. The new nest is built over the old one.
As a nest location, the females prefer to use gaps in tree trunks so that the nest is arched. Even the females who do not use tree crevices build the nests between the roots of strangler figs or in indentations of tree trunks, so that the nests are arched. The majority of the nests are less than 1.5 meters above the ground. Only in two exceptional cases were the nests built at a height of 5.3 or 4.5 meters above the ground.
Column gardeners and people
In contrast to a number of other species from the bowerbird family, which comprises only 20 to 21 species, the column gardener has not yet been kept in captivity and has therefore never been shown in a zoo.
literature
- Clifford B. Frith, Dawn. W. Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-854844-3 .
- Bryan Richard: Birds. Parragon, Bath, ISBN 1-4054-5506-3 .
Web links
- Drawing ( page no longer available )
- photo
- Videos, photos and sound recordings of Prionodura newtoniana in the Internet Bird Collection
- Prionodura newtoniana inthe IUCN 2016.10 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved April 2, 2017.
- Voice of the column gardener in Xeno Santo
Single receipts
- ↑ Handbook of the Birds of the World zum Säulengärtnerl , accessed on April 5, 2017
- ↑ a b c Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 313.
- ↑ Prionodura newtoniana in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016.10. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2016. Retrieved April 2, 2017.
- ↑ a b c d e Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 314.
- ^ Voice of the column gardener in Xeno Santo , accessed April 6, 2017
- ↑ a b Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 316.
- ↑ a b c d Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 317.
- ↑ a b Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 315.
- ↑ Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 319.
- ↑ Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 322.
- ↑ a b Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 318.
- ↑ a b c Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 326.
- ↑ Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 327.
- ↑ Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 331.