turtledove

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
turtledove
Turtle dove (Streptopelia turtur)

Turtle dove ( Streptopelia turtur )

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Pigeon birds (Columbiformes)
Family : Pigeons (Columbidae)
Genre : Lovebirds ( streptopelia )
Type : turtledove
Scientific name
Streptopelia turtur
( Linnaeus , 1758)

The turtle dove ( Streptopelia turtur ) is a species of bird from the family of pigeons . The distribution area covers large parts of the western and central Palearctic and extends from northern Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and Great Britain to the east via the Near and Middle East to northwest China and Mongolia . The turtledove is particularly common in the Mediterranean region. According to an EU study published in 2007, however, their population has declined by 62 percent over the past 25 years. The decline in the population is attributed to changes in agricultural cultivation methods and the decline in the types of smoke that play a major role in feeding the lovebirds. However, the factors responsible for the decline in the population also include the shooting of the pigeons, especially in the Mediterranean area during migration times.

The turtledove is “ Bird of the Year ” 2020 in Germany .

Lovebirds are a symbol of luck and love. Colloquially, two people who have just fallen in love are called "lovebirds".

description

The turtledove reaches a body length of 27 to 29 centimeters and weighs an average of 160 grams. It is therefore significantly smaller and more delicate than a domestic pigeon . A sexual dimorphism is only slightly pronounced. The females are generally a little more dull in color and a little smaller. In flight it often spreads its tail, which is long and rounded in relation to its body size, in a fan-shaped manner. Then the white tips of the control springs are clearly visible.

The top of the turtledove is rusty brown. The throat and upper chest are wine reddish. The shoulders and parts of the wing are rusty brown with dark spots. The back is blue-gray and becomes browner towards the rump. The adult birds have several narrow, black cross bands on the sides of their necks on a white background. The tail consists of twelve blue-black feathers, each of which is white at the ends. The two outer tail feathers also have white outer flags. The belly and the under tail-coverts are light.

Young birds differ from older birds in that their plumage is brown on the head, back and wings. The neck ties characteristic of the adult birds develop only after a few months.

Your call sounds like "turr turr".

distribution and habitat

The distribution area covers large parts of the western and central Palearctic and extends from northern Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and Great Britain to the east via the Near and Middle East to northwest China and Mongolia . The northern border of the distribution runs in Europe through Central England, Denmark and then along the Baltic Sea coast, through Estonia and through the Saint Petersburg area and the Nizhny Novgorod region to the Urals .

Lovebirds are only widespread in the warm lowlands and are rare in wooded regions as well as in the middle and high mountains. They colonize light deciduous, coniferous and mixed forests as well as field trees, parks, wastelands, cattle pastures, riparian forests, willow quarries and orchards as well as vineyards. Lovebirds are increasingly developing urban habitats and can also settle in urban green spaces. The subspecies S. t , which is widespread in North Africa, shows a particularly close connection to humans . rufescens . This predominantly sand-colored subspecies of the turtle dove settles socially in ruined houses.

Distribution of the turtledove:
  • Breeding areas
  • Wintering areas
  • Compiled by BirdLife International and Handbook of the Birds of the World (2019) 2019.

    Subspecies

    There are four known subspecies:

    Streptopelia turtur isabellina ( Bonaparte , 1856) is now a synonym for S. t. rufescens , and Streptopelia turtur loëi by Jordans , 1923, is a synonym for S. t. arenicola and Streptopelia turtur moltonii Trischitta , 1939 regarded as a synonym for the nominate form .

    hikes

    Turtle dove in the UK

    Lovebirds are distinct long-distance migrants. In Central Europe they can only be observed in the period May to September. In Central Europe they initially form swarm communities at the beginning of September and move to their wintering areas from around mid-September to October. These can be found in the Mediterranean and in Africa south of the Sahara. During the train time, they are concentrated by the thousands along certain routes. One of the most important bases in the Mediterranean is the island of Malta , where up to 20,000 migrating lovebirds can be observed in one day in spring. They are also hunted intensively on almost all routes that the lovebirds use to cross the Mediterranean.

    In spring they return to Central Europe relatively late. The mean return time of the turtledove is from the beginning to the middle of May. However, withdrawal can be significantly delayed, and migrating lovebirds can be seen in the Mediterranean until early June.

    nutrition

    The turtle dove almost invariably looks for food on the ground. It feeds on seeds and parts of plants . It eats seeds both when ripe and when they are milky. Cereal grains , wild grasses , millet , the seeds of conifers, birch , alder and robinia as well as the seeds of the various types of smoke make up a large proportion of the food spectrum . It also eats berries, mushrooms, buds and herbaceous plants like clover and rapeseed. It also takes in insects and small snails.

    Reproduction

    Egg of the turtledove

    Returning lovebirds do not brood immediately, but move around individually and as a pair for several weeks. They then often stay for several days in regions that are not part of their breeding area. Even a courtship is not an indication that the couple will brood in this place.

    The breeding season extends from May to August. Lovebirds usually raise only one brood per year. The nest is relatively small and is built by both parent birds from thin branches and twigs in bushes and trees. Occasionally they also use the nests of other bird species. The female lays two white eggs . The incubation period is 15 days. Young birds leave the nest at an age of around 14 days. They are not yet able to fly at this point and are in the branches near the nest.

    Hunting and stock

    The species is hunted in many countries. In Switzerland, the turtledove is not one of the huntable species; it is also under protection in Germany. It is one of the endangered bird species in Germany, its population has declined by over 40 percent in the last twelve years. It has been on the Red List of Endangered Birds Since 2015 . The population for Switzerland is given as 600 to 2000 breeding pairs. The species is classified there as a sparse breeding bird and migrant and extremely rare winter visitor.

    The population for Austria is given as 4000 to 5000 breeding pairs, the species is rare in the west of the country. In 2008, it was found that the population of the species has shrunk by around 30 percent nationwide within ten years. The hunt for the turtle dove is limited to the east of the country. Since the Austrian hunting statistics only document the shooting of wild pigeons and do not differentiate between species, they are worthless for determining the shooting figures for this endangered species. Hunting continues in the federal states of Burgenland , Lower Austria and Vienna .

    A significant decline in the population has been known for many years by bird hunting enthusiasts in Spain , Italy and especially Malta . In Malta alone, with the approval of the EU, 20,000 lovebirds are officially caught in fishing nets by around 14,000 registered hunters in the country every spring within a period of two weeks. This corresponds to about a third of the total German breeding population of lovebirds. (Malta has for years successfully insisted on an exemption from the EU Birds Directive, which actually prohibits the hunting of migratory birds in spring.) According to estimates by the Sempach Ornithological Institute and the University of Giessen in 2016, 2 to 3 million lovebirds are shot annually in the Mediterranean area alone. In addition to the official catches or kills to pass the time of the registered hunters, the number of unreported cases is many times higher. In Italy alone it must be assumed that 5.6 million birds of various species are illegally killed each year.

    literature

    • Einhard Bezzel: birds. BLV Verlagsgesellschaft, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-405-14736-0 .
    • Gerhard Rösler: The wild pigeons of the earth - free life, keeping and breeding , Verlag M. & H. Schaper, Alfeld-Hannover 1996, ISBN 3-7944-0184-0 .

    Web links

    Commons : Turtledove  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
    Wiktionary: Turtledove  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

    Individual evidence

    1. ^ Alison Benjamin: Study reveals severe decline of Europe's common birds. In: Guardian.co.uk. The Guardian , December 21, 2007, accessed March 5, 2011 .
    2. Threatened symbol for luck and love - the turtledove is bird of the year 2020. In: nabu.de. Naturschutzbund Deutschland e. V., October 12, 2019, accessed on October 13, 2019 .
    3. Rösler, p. 114.
    4. UN Glutz v. Blotzheim and KM Bauer: Handbook of the birds of Central Europe . Vol. 9th, 2nd edition, AULA-Verlag, Wiesbaden, 1994: pp. 141 and 144. ISBN 3-89104-562-X .
    5. a b c d Rösler, p. 115.
    6. Pigeons. In: worldbirdnames.org. IOC World Bird List, October 13, 2019, accessed October 13, 2019 .
    7. ^ Carl von Linné: Systema Naturae per Regna Tria Naturae, Secundum Classes, Ordines, Genera, Species, Cum Characteribus, Differentiis, Synonymis, Locis . 10th edition. tape 1 . Imprensis Direct Laurentii Salvii, Stockholm 1758 ( biodiversitylibrary.org ).
    8. Ernst Hartert: On a desert form of tutururur (L.) . In: Novitates Zoologicae . tape 1 , 1894, p. 42 ( biodiversitylibrary.org ).
    9. Hans Geyr von Schweppenburg: New forms from northern Africa . In: Ornithological monthly reports . tape 24 , no. 4 , 1916, pp. 56-60 ( biodiversitylibrary.org ).
    10. Christian Ludwig Brehm: The foundation booklet of the natural research society of the Osterlland in Altenburg, on July 5, 1843, and something about the birds of Greece and Australia . In: Isis von Oken . tape 1 , 1845, p. 323-358 ( biodiversitylibrary.org ).
    11. ^ Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte: Suite et fin des Additions et Corrections au Coup d'oeil sur l'Ordre des Pigeons, et à la partie correspondante du Conspectus Avium . In: Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences . tape 43 , 1856, pp. 942-949 ( biodiversitylibrary.org ).
    12. Adolf von Jordans: New races of birds from the Balearic Islands . In: Falco: magazine that appears irregularly after the work “Berajah, Zoographia infinita” . tape 19 , special issue, 1923, p. 1-5 ( archive.org ).
    13. ^ Antonino Trischitta: Altre nuove forme di uccelli italiani . Arti grafiche "Solunto", Bagheria 1939, p. 3 .
    14. Bezzel, p. 299.
    15. a b Bezzel, p. 298.
    16. ↑ The number of German bird species on the global red list doubles. In: nabu.de . Naturschutzbund Deutschland e. V., October 29, 2015, accessed on October 13, 2019.
    17. Christoph Grüneberg, Hans-Günther Bauer, Heiko Haupt, Ommo Hüppop, Torsten Ryslavy, Peter Südbeck: Red List of Germany's Breeding Birds , 5 version . In: German Council for Bird Protection (Hrsg.): Reports on bird protection . tape 52 , November 30, 2015.
    18. Turtledove. In: vogelwarte.ch . Swiss Ornithological Institute in Sempach, accessed on October 13, 2019.
    19. Fewer birds in agriculture. In: science.orf.at. Österreichischer Rundfunk , July 12, 2010, accessed on October 13, 2019.
    20. Bird trapping and bird hunting in Spain. In: komitee.de . Committee against Bird Murder e. V., accessed on October 13, 2019.
    21. ^ Stephanie Lahrtz: The illegal spring hunt begins. In: nzz.ch . Neue Zürcher Zeitung , April 9, 2015, accessed on October 13, 2019.
    22. Evaluation of the ring finds of lovebirds. In: myScience.ch . October 27, 2016, accessed October 13, 2019.
    23. Illegal hunting kills millions of birds. In: merkur.de . Münchner Merkur , August 21, 2015, accessed on October 13, 2019.
    24. Trapped and shot. In: nabu.de . Naturschutzbund Deutschland e. V., August 21, 2015, accessed on October 13, 2019.