Saddle bird

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Saddle bird
Saddleback tiritiri.jpg

Saddle bird ( Philesturnus carunculatus )

Systematics
Subclass : New-jawed birds (Neognathae)
Order : Passerines (Passeriformes)
Subordination : Songbirds (passeri)
Family : Callaeidae (Callaeidae)
Genre : Philesturnus
Type : Saddle bird
Scientific name
Philesturnus carunculatus
( Gmelin , 1789)

The saddle bird or tieke ( Philesturnus carunculatus ) is a New Zealand bird belonging to the lobed family , which also includes the kokako and the extinct huia . The species includes two subspecies, the North Island saddle bird ( P. c. Rufusater ) and the South Island saddle bird ( P. c. Carunculatus ).

description

The bird is glossy black with a nut-brown saddle-shaped spot on its back and upper wings. Like all species in the family , it has a colored (bright red in the Tieke) skin appendage on both sides of its beak.

The tie is up to 25 centimeters long and weighs up to 75 grams, which is a little more than a blackbird . The beak is short and particularly strong.

behavior

The Tieke are bad fliers. Therefore, they mostly jump from branch to branch, but can also fly short distances. Saddle birds occupy a territory that they mark by singing in the twilight. Their threatening behavior towards rivals includes nodding the head, fanning the tail and trilling, causing the meat appendages on the beak to swell. In the event of a direct challenge, there will be fights, with the opponents trying to grab the appendages.

The birds are known for their fearlessness and their noisy behavior. Therefore, they were already noticed by the European naturalists of the 19th century.

Tieke nest in epiphytes , tree ferns, or tree hollows, often near the ground. The young also leave the nest to hop around on the ground in the typical noisy way.

nutrition

Tieke are predominantly insectivores. They tear pieces of bark from trees with their beak and eat the insects underneath, but they also search the litter for food. In addition to insects, they also take in fruits and nectar.

Tieke in the Māori culture

The name "Tieke", which is common in New Zealand, is derived from its typical call "ti-e-ke-ke-ke-ke". They traditionally have an important role in the Māori beliefs. If your scream comes from the right, this should be a good omen , whereas screams from the left are an unfavorable one.

A Māori legend tells how the bird got its saddle: The demigod Māui was thirsty after his battle with the sun. He asked the tieke to bring him water. This pretended not to hear him. The angry Māui grabbed the bird with his hot hand and left a brand on its back.

Stock decline and conservation

Their breeding behavior near the ground and the young hopping around there make the species particularly sensitive to introduced predators such as martens as well as to black rats and brown rats . Both subspecies therefore quickly disappeared from both of New Zealand's main islands. At the end of the 20th century they were only to be found on Hen Island ( Hen and Chickens Islands ) off Northland and in the far south on Big South Cape Island off Stewart Island .

The rats also reached Big South Cape Island in 1963, presumably with boats from "Mutton Birders", who were on the hunt for shearwaters (Titi or Muttonbird) . Only a swift rescue operation by the New Zealand Wildlife Service (now the Department of Conservation ) saved the local subspecies from extinction, while the local populations of the South Island snipe, the forest slipper and the great New Zealand bat fell victim to the rats. 36 Tieke were brought from this island to other, rat-free islands and were able to re-establish themselves there.

Today the population of the southern subspecies is again estimated at 700 birds on 11 small islands. The northern subspecies was resettled on numerous coastal islands, even on the North Island a breeding colony was established again in 2002 in the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in Wellington . Rescuing the Tieke is considered to be one of the major conservation achievements in New Zealand.

photos

  • front: adult specimen, back: young of the southern subspecies (from JG Keulemans in Buller 1873).

  • Tieke feeding on a New Zealand flax blossom

swell

  • Data sheet at BirdLife
  • Rod Morris and Hal Smith: Wild South: Saving New Zealand's endangered birds. Random house NZ limited, 1995.
  • John Dawson, Rob Lucas: Nature guide to the New Zealand forest. Godwit, 2000.
  • Chloe Talbot Kelly: Collins handguide to the birds of New Zealand. Collins, 1982.

Web links

Commons : Philesturnus carunculatus  - album with pictures, videos and audio files