Floating consecration
| Floating consecration | ||||||||||
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Floating antlers ( Ictinia plumbea ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Ictinia plumbea | ||||||||||
| ( Gmelin , 1788) |
The Plumbeous Kite ( Ictinia plumbea ) is a small bird of prey from the subfamily of the buzzard-like (Buteoninae), whose distribution area from the extreme south of North America over the northern half of South America extends. It colonizes forest edges and open forest landscapes and feeds mainly on insects that are caught in flight from a control room.
description
With a body length of 29 to 38 cm and a wingspan of 70 to 85 cm, the size of the floating antler is roughly comparable to that of a tree falcon . Males weigh between 190 and 267 g, females between 232 and 280 g. It looks like a falcon with a short beak, long wings, angular tail and short legs. The sexes hardly differ. The female is only up to 2% larger, but up to 12% heavier than the male. A geographical variation is not described.
In adult birds, the area around the eye is blackish and the iris is orange-yellow to red. The wax skin is blackish-gray. The head and underside are light slate gray with a whitish lightened vertex and throat. The rest of the top is dark to blackish slate gray. The inner arm wings are lighter and the hand wings are reddish in the middle part, so that two noticeably reddish fields can be seen in flight. The dark rudder feathers have two white crossbars that are conspicuous on the underside, rather dotted on the top and interrupted by the single-colored central rudder springs. Legs and feet are yellow-orange to reddish-orange.
In juvenile birds, the iris is brown, later yellow, the wax skin greenish-yellow. They are overall blackish-slate-gray on the top. A whitish stripe over the eyes above the dark eye area, white hems on the top of the head and neck, narrower beige hems on the back and wing plumage and white tips of the large plumage stand out from this. The wings of the hand can already have a reddish paint on the wings. The underside is creamy white with strong, blackish dots. The legs and feet are yellow-orange.
Hovering antlers often sit more or less high and open on bare branches and are not shy, but sometimes they tend to seek cover. The flight appears casual and lively with slow, elastic wing beats and frequent gliding and sailing phases with spread control feathers.
voice
Outside the breeding season, the species is not very happy to call. In the breeding area, however, a two- or three-syllable, plaintive whistling can be heard, which at the end drops in pitch and can be reproduced as swi-siii or fi-diii . It is strongly reminiscent of the song of the short-billed masked tyrant ( Legatus leucophaius ). In addition, a shrill whistling schierieeeer or sissiiiooo is described or series of calls that sound like hie-hiee hie-hiee or jip-jip .
Distribution and existence
The Neotropical distribution area of the floating antler extends in Mexico from southern Tamaulipas and eastern San Luis Potosí via Veracruz , north from Oaxaca and Chiapas to the Yucatán peninsula , from there it extends south across Central America to western Ecuador . East of the Andes it stretches from Colombia , Venezuela and Guiana south to the east of Ecuador, the north-east of Peru , to Bolivia , to the north of Argentina , to Paraguay and to the south-east of Brazil . The floating antler also occurs in Trinidad .
The species is one of the regularly observed and is mostly common in South America. In French Guiana , densities of 9 individuals per 100 km² are reached. No reliable figures are available for the world population. However, the flocks of up to several hundred birds that migrate through Panama each year suggest five-digit population figures for southeast Mexico. Overall, the population could be between 500,000 and 5 million birds.
The species is therefore classified as not threatened. On a local level, the increasing destruction and urban sprawl of forests can pose a threat, such as that of the Atlantic rainforests in Argentina and Panama.
habitat
The Schwebeweih inhabits forest edges, open and semi-open forest landscapes of different types, which are mainly located in the lowlands of the tropical and subtropical zone. These include gallery forests, secondary vegetation, palm-lined grasslands, the semi-open transitional landscapes of the Gran Chaco and mangrove forests . The species often occurs in wetlands and near waterways, but rarely in the interior of closed forest areas. It also populates mosaics from cultural landscapes and primary forests. The altitude distribution is between sea level and 2600 m, with the species predominantly occurring at altitudes below 1200 m.
nutrition
The floating antlers feed mainly on large insects such as cicadas , dragonflies , beetles , butterflies and grasshoppers , but also swarming species such as termites , ants and bees . They are mainly captured in flight. The share of insects in the prey can be over 90%, in addition there are tree-living lizards , frogs , snakes , small birds or bats , and more rarely snails . Their proportion may increase when the young need to be fed.
The hunt takes place in flight or from a hide. But some prey are also snatched from the foliage. Hunting is often done at dawn or dusk. Once a couple was seen hunting swallows together. In Brazil, a couple hunted for hours in the company of marmoset monkeys , which scared off the cicadas that appeared in large numbers. Forest fire areas on which fleeing lizards can be hunted can be attractive. It also appears that injured birds are occasionally caught.
The success of the hunt is over 60% of the attempted catch flights, whereby the flight hunt is usually more effective than the hunt from a hide.
Reproduction
The breeding season is in the north of the distribution between March and August, in Trinidad between February and June, on the equator between January and May and between July and October, but in the south between September and February.
The Flugbalz consists of mostly silent gliding and diving flights, and you can hear occasional calls in the nest area. The nest stands between 13 and 36 m high on thick branches, in forks or on overgrown epiphytes in individual trees or overhangs . It is mostly flat but voluminous and consists of branches of very different thicknesses. The clutch usually consists of one, more rarely two eggs, which are incubated for between 32 and 33 days. The nestling period is 38 to 41 days. Both partners participate equally in breeding and rearing.
In Guatemala, the hatching success of 19 observed clumps was 58%. 64% of the young birds flew out and 37% of the broods were overall successful.
hikes
In South America, the hovering antler is predominantly a stationary or line bird . However, northern and southern populations move to unknown winter quarters east of the Andes. The birds from Mexico, Central America and Trinidad migrate between August and September and return to breeding areas between February and March. The populations in northern Argentina, southern Paraguay and southeastern Brazil vacate their breeding areas between February and September and overwinter north of them.
The species is very sociable on the train. In Panama flocks of 70 to 100 birds can form, in Argentina maximum numbers of 40 to 50 have been recorded. The species then socializes with the Schwalbenweih .
literature
- James Ferguson-Lees , David A. Christie: Raptors of the World. Helm Identification Guides, Christopher Helm, London 2001, ISBN 0-7136-8026-1 .
- RO Bierregaard, Jr., Jeff Marks: Plumbeous Kite (Ictinia plumbea) (1994/2014), in: J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, AD Christie, E. de Juana (eds.): Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive , Lynx Edicions, Barcelona 2014
Individual evidence
- ↑ Anett Kocum: Phylogeny of the Accipitriformes (birds of prey) on the basis of various nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences . Dissertation, University of Greifswald, 2006, p. 109.
- ↑ Bierregaard / Marks (2014), see literature
- ↑ Stephen F. Ferrari: A foraging association between two kite species (Ictinea plumbea and Leptodon cayanensis) and buffy-headed marmosets (Callithrix flaviceps) in southeastern Brazil , Condor 92 (3), 1990, pp. 781-783, cited in Bierregaard / Marks (2014)
- ^ NE Seavy, MD Schulze, DF Whitacre, MA Vásquez: Diet and hunting behavior of the Plumbeous Kite , Wilson Bulletin 109 (3), 1997, pp. 526-532, cited in Bierregaard / Marks (2014)
- ^ NE Seavy, MD Schulze, DF Whitacre, MA Vásquez: Breeding biology and behavior of the Plumbeous Kite , Wilson Bulletin 110 (1), 1998, pp. 77-85, cited in Bierregaard / Marks (2014)
Web links
- Ictinia plumbea in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2012. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2012. Accessed December 31, 2014.
- xeno-canto: Sound recordings - Plumbeous Kite ( Ictinia plumbea )
- Videos, photos and sound recordings of Ictinia plumbea in the Internet Bird Collection