title: "Steam locomotive" content: uneconomical proposition for a "one-off" locomotive. In the United States, Union Pacific, Chesapeake and Ohio and Norfolk & Western (N&W) railways all built turbine-electric locomotives. The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) also built turbine locomotives, but with a direct-drive gearbox. However, all designs failed due to dust, vibration, design flaws or inefficiency at lower speeds. The final one remaining in service was the N&W's, retired in January 1958. The only truly successful design was the TGOJ MT3, used for hauling iron ore from Grängesberg in Sweden to the ports of Oxelösund. Despite functioning correctly, only three were built. Two of them are


title: "Steam locomotive" content: preserved in working order in museums in Sweden. In a fireless locomotive the boiler is replaced by a steam accumulator, which is charged with steam (actually water at a temperature well above boiling point, 212 °F/100 °C) from a stationary boiler. Fireless locomotives were used where there was a high fire risk (e.g. oil refineries), where cleanliness was important (e.g. food-production plants) or where steam is readily available (e.g. paper mills and power stations where steam is either a by-product or is cheaply available). The water vessel ("boiler") is heavily insulated the same as with a fired locomotive. Until all


title: "Steam locomotive" content: the water has boiled away, the steam pressure does not drop except as the temperature drops. Another class of fireless locomotive is a compressed-air locomotive. Mixed power locomotives, utilising both steam and diesel propulsion, have been produced in Russia, Britain and Italy. Under unusual conditions (lack of coal, abundant hydroelectricity) some locomotives in Switzerland were modified to use electricity to heat the boiler, making them electric-steam locomotives. A steam-electric locomotive is similar in concept to a diesel-electric locomotive, except that a steam engine instead of a diesel engine is used to drive a generator. Three such locomotives were built by


title: "Steam locomotive" content: the French engineer in the 1890s. Steam locomotives are categorised by their wheel arrangement. The two dominant systems for this are the Whyte notation and UIC classification. The Whyte notation, used in most English-speaking and Commonwealth countries, represents each set of wheels with a number. These numbers typically represented the number of un-powered leading wheels, followed by the number of driving wheels (sometimes in several groups), followed by the number of un-powered trailing wheels. For example, a yard engine with only 4 drive wheels would be categorised as a "0-4-0" wheel arrangement. A locomotive with a 4-wheel leading truck, followed


title: "Steam locomotive" content: by 6 drive wheels, and a 2-wheel trailing truck, would be classed as a "4-6-2". Different arrangements were given names which usually reflect the first usage of the arrangement; for instance the "Santa Fe" type (2-10-2) is so called because the first examples were built for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. These names were informally given and varied according to region and even politics. The UIC classification is used mostly in European countries apart from the United Kingdom. It designates consecutive pairs of wheels (informally "axles") with a number for non-driving wheels and a capital letter for driving


title: "Steam locomotive" content: wheels (A=1, B=2, etc.) So a Whyte 4-6-2 designation would be an equivalent to a 2-C-1 UIC designation. On many railroads, locomotives were organised into classes. These broadly represented locomotives which could be substituted for each other in service, but most commonly a class represented a single design. As a rule classes were assigned some sort of code, generally based on the wheel arrangement. Classes also commonly acquired nicknames, such as "Pugs", representing notable (and sometimes uncomplimentary) features of the locomotives. In the steam locomotive era, two measures of locomotive performance were generally applied. At first, locomotives were rated by


title: "Steam locomotive" content: tractive effort, defined as the average force developed during one revolution of the driving wheels at the rail head. This can be roughly calculated by multiplying the total piston area by 85% of the boiler pressure (a rule of thumb reflecting the slightly lower pressure in the steam chest above the cylinder), and dividing by the ratio of the driver diameter over the piston stroke. However, the precise formula is: where is the bore of the cylinder (diameter) in inches, and is a factor that depends on the effective cut-off. In the US, is usually set at 0.85, but lower


title: "Steam locomotive" content: on engines that have maximum cutoff limited to 50–75%. The tractive effort is only the "average" force, as not all effort is constant during the one revolution of the drivers. At some points of the cycle only one piston is exerting turning moment and at other points both pistons are working. Not all boilers deliver full power at starting, and the tractive effort also decreases as the rotating speed increases. Tractive effort is a measure of the heaviest load a locomotive can start or haul at very low speed over the ruling grade in a given territory. However, as the


title: "Steam locomotive" content: pressure grew to run faster goods and heavier passenger trains, tractive effort was seen to be an inadequate measure of performance because it did not take into account speed. Therefore, in the 20th century, locomotives began to be rated by power output. A variety of calculations and formulas were applied, but in general railways used dynamometer cars to measure tractive force at speed in actual road testing. British railway companies have been reluctant to disclose figures for drawbar horsepower and have usually relied on continuous tractive effort instead. Whyte classification is indirectly connected to locomotive performance. Given adequate proportions of


title: "Steam locomotive" content: the rest of the locomotive, power output is determined by the size of the fire, and for a bituminous coal-fuelled locomotive, this is determined by the grate area. Modern non-compound locomotives are typically able to produce about 40 drawbar horsepower per square foot of grate. Tractive force, as noted earlier, is largely determined by the boiler pressure, the cylinder proportions and the size of the driving wheels. However, it is also limited by the weight on the driving wheels (termed "adhesive weight"), which needs to be at least four times the tractive effort. The weight of the locomotive is roughly


title: "Steam locomotive" content: proportional to the power output; the number of axles required is determined by this weight divided by the axleload limit for the trackage where the locomotive is to be used. The number of driving wheels is derived from the adhesive weight in the same manner, leaving the remaining axles to be accounted for by the leading and trailing bogies. Passenger locomotives conventionally had two-axle leading bogies for better guidance at speed; on the other hand, the vast increase in the size of the grate and firebox in the 20th century meant that a trailing bogie was called upon to provide


title: "Steam locomotive" content: support. In Europe, some use was made of several variants of the "Bissel bogie" in which the swivelling movement of a single axle truck controls the lateral displacement of the front driving axle (and in one case the second axle too). This was mostly applied to 8-coupled express and mixed traffic locomotives, and considerably improved their ability to negotiate curves whilst restricting overall locomotive wheelbase and maximising adhesion weight. As a rule, "shunting engines" (US: "switching engines") omitted leading and trailing bogies, both to maximise tractive effort available and to reduce wheelbase. Speed was unimportant; making the smallest engine (and


title: "Steam locomotive" content: therefore smallest fuel consumption) for the tractive effort was paramount. Driving wheels were small and usually supported the firebox as well as the main section of the boiler. Banking engines (US: "helper engines") tended to follow the principles of shunting engines, except that the wheelbase limitation did not apply, so banking engines tended to have more driving wheels. In the US, this process eventually resulted in the Mallet type engine with its many driven wheels, and these tended to acquire leading and then trailing bogies as guidance of the engine became more of an issue. As locomotive types began to


title: "Steam locomotive" content: diverge in the late 19th century, freight engine designs at first emphasised tractive effort, whereas those for passenger engines emphasised speed. Over time, freight locomotive size increased, and the overall number of axles increased accordingly; the leading bogie was usually a single axle, but a trailing truck was added to larger locomotives to support a larger firebox that could no longer fit between or above the driving wheels. Passenger locomotives had leading bogies with two axles, fewer driving axles, and very large driving wheels in order to limit the speed at which the reciprocating parts had to move. In the


title: "Steam locomotive" content: 1920s, the focus in the United States turned to horsepower, epitomised by the "super power" concept promoted by the Lima Locomotive Works, although tractive effort was still the prime consideration after World War I to the end of steam. Goods trains were designed to run faster, while passenger locomotives needed to pull heavier loads at speed. This was achieved by increasing the size of grate and firebox without changes to the rest of the locomotive, requiring the addition of a second axle to the trailing truck. Freight 2-8-2s became 2-8-4s while 2-10-2s became 2-10-4s. Similarly, passenger 4-6-2s became 4-6-4s. In


title: "Steam locomotive" content: the United States this led to a convergence on the dual-purpose 4-8-4 and the 4-6-6-4 articulated configuration, which was used for both freight and passenger service. Mallet locomotives went through a similar transformation, evolving from bank engines into huge mainline locomotives with much larger fireboxes; their driving wheels were also increased in size in order to allow faster running. The most-manufactured single class of steam locomotive in the world is the 0-10-0 Russian locomotive class E steam locomotive with around 11,000 produced both in Russia and other countries such as Czechoslovakia, Germany, Sweden, Hungary and Poland. The Russian locomotive class


title: "Steam locomotive" content: O numbered 9,129 locomotives, built between 1890 and 1928. Around 7,000 units were produced of the German DRB Class 52 2-10-0 Kriegslok. The British GWR 5700 class numbered about 863 units. The DX class of the London and North Western Railway numbered 943 units, including 86 engines built for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. Before the 1923 Grouping Act, production in the UK was mixed. The larger railway companies built locomotives in their own workshops, with the smaller ones and industrial concerns ordering them from outside builders. A large market for outside builders existed due to the home-build policy exercised


title: "Steam locomotive" content: by the main railway companies. An example of a pre-grouping works was the one at Melton Constable, which maintained and built some of the locomotives for the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway. Other works included one at Boston (an early GNR building) and Horwich works. Between 1923 and 1947, the "Big Four" railway companies (the Great Western Railway, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, the London and North Eastern Railway and the Southern Railway) all built most of their own locomotives, only buying locomotives from outside builders when their own works were fully occupied (or as a result of


title: "Steam locomotive" content: government-mandated standardisation during wartime). From 1948, British Railways allowed the former "Big Four" companies (now designated as "Regions") to continue to produce their own designs, but also created a range of standard locomotives which supposedly combined the best features from each region. Although a policy of "dieselisation" was adopted in 1955, BR continued to build new steam locomotives until 1960, with the final engine being named "Evening Star". Some independent manufacturers produced steam locomotives for a few more years, with the last British-built industrial steam locomotive being constructed by Hunslet in 1971. Since then, a few specialised manufacturers have continued


title: "Steam locomotive" content: to produce small locomotives for narrow gauge and miniature railways, but as the prime market for these is the tourist and heritage railway sector, the demand for such locomotives is limited. In November 2008, a new build main line steam locomotive, 60163 "Tornado", was tested on UK mainlines for eventual charter and tour use. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, most Swedish steam locomotives were manufactured in Britain. Later, however, most steam locomotives were built by local factories including NOHAB in Trollhättan and ASJ in Falun. One of the most successful types was the class "B" (4-6-0), inspired by


title: "Steam locomotive" content: the Prussian class P8. Many of the Swedish steam locomotives were preserved during the Cold War in case of war. During the 1990s, these steam locomotives were sold to non-profit associations or abroad, which is why the Swedish class B, class S (2-6-4) and class E2 (2-8-0) locomotives can now be seen in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Canada. Locomotives for American railroads were nearly always built in the United States with very few imports, except in the earliest days of steam engines. This was due to the basic differences of markets in the United States which initially had many


title: "Steam locomotive" content: small markets located large distances apart, in contrast to Europe's higher density of markets. Locomotives that were cheap and rugged and could go large distances over cheaply built and maintained tracks were required. Once the manufacture of engines was established on a wide scale there was very little advantage to buying an engine from overseas that would have to be customised to fit the local requirements and track conditions. Improvements in engine design of both European and US origin were incorporated by manufacturers when they could be justified in a generally very conservative and slow-changing market. With the notable exception


title: "Steam locomotive" content: of the USRA standard locomotives built during World War I, in the United States, steam locomotive manufacture was always semi-customised. Railroads ordered locomotives tailored to their specific requirements, though some basic design features were always present. Railroads developed some specific characteristics; for example, the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Great Northern Railway had a preference for the Belpaire firebox. In the United States, large-scale manufacturers constructed locomotives for nearly all rail companies, although nearly all major railroads had shops capable of heavy repairs and some railroads (for example, the Norfolk and Western Railway and the Pennsylvania Railroad, which had two erecting


title: "Steam locomotive" content: shops) constructed locomotives entirely in their own shops. Companies manufacturing locomotives in the US included Baldwin Locomotive Works, American Locomotive Company (Alco), and Lima Locomotive Works. Altogether, between 1830 and 1950, over 160,000 steam locomotives were built in the United States, with Baldwin alone accounting for a majority, nearly 70,000. Steam locomotives required regular and, compared to a diesel-electric engine, frequent service and overhaul (often at government-regulated intervals in Europe and the US). Alterations and upgrades regularly occurred during overhauls. New appliances were added, unsatisfactory features removed, cylinders improved or replaced. Almost any part of the locomotive, including boilers, was


title: "Steam locomotive" content: replaced or upgraded. When service or upgrades got too expensive the locomotive was traded off or retired. On the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad two 2-10-2 locomotives were dismantled; the boilers were placed onto two new Class T 4-8-2 locomotives and the residual wheel machinery made into a pair of Class U 0-10-0 switchers with new boilers. Union Pacific's fleet of 3-cylinder 4-10-2 engines were converted into two-cylinder engines in 1942, because of high maintenance problems. In Sydney, Clyde Engineering and the workshops in Eveleigh both built steam locomotives for the New South Wales Government Railways. These include the C38 class


title: "Steam locomotive" content: 4-6-2; the first five were built at Clyde with streamlining, the other 25 locomotives were built at Eveleigh (13) and Cardiff Workshops (12) near Newcastle. In Queensland, steam locomotives were locally constructed by Walkers. Similarly the South Australian state government railways also manufactured steam locomotives locally at Islington Railway Workshops in Adelaide. Victorian Railways constructed most of their locomotives at their Newport Workshops and in Bendigo, while in the early days locomotives were built at the Phoenix Foundry in Ballarat. Locomotives constructed at the Newport shops ranged from the nA class 2-6-2T built for the narrow gauge, up to the


title: "Steam locomotive" content: H class 4-8-4 – the largest conventional locomotive ever to operate in Australia, weighing 260 tons. However, the title of largest locomotive ever used in Australia goes to the 263-ton NSWGR AD60 class 4-8-4+4-8-4 Garratt, built by Beyer-Peacock in the United Kingdom. Most steam locomotives used in Western Australia were built in the United Kingdom, though some examples were designed and built locally at the Western Australian Government Railways' Midland Railway Workshops. The 10 WAGR S class locomotives (introduced in 1943) were the only class of steam locomotive to be wholly conceived, designed and built in Western Australia, while the


title: "Steam locomotive" content: Midland workshops notably participated in the Australia-wide construction program of Australian Standard Garratts – these wartime locomotives were built at Midland in Western Australia, Clyde Engineering in New South Wales, Newport in Victoria and Islington in South Australia and saw varying degrees of service in all Australian states. The introduction of electric locomotives around the turn of the 20th century and later diesel-electric locomotives spelled the beginning of a decline in the use of steam locomotives, although it was some time before they were phased out of general use. As diesel power (especially with electric transmission) became more reliable in


title: "Steam locomotive" content: the 1930s, it gained a foothold in North America. The full transition away from steam power in North America took place during the 1950s. In continental Europe, large-scale electrification had replaced steam power by the 1970s. Steam was a familiar technology, adapted well to local facilities, and also consumed a wide variety of fuels; this led to its continued use in many countries until the end of the 20th century. Steam engines have considerably less thermal efficiency than modern diesels, requiring constant maintenance and labour to keep them operational. Water is required at many points throughout a rail network, making


title: "Steam locomotive" content: it a major problem in desert areas, as are found in some regions of the United States, Australia and South Africa. In places where water is available, it may be hard, which can cause "scale" to form, composed mainly of calcium carbonate, magnesium hydroxide and calcium sulfate. Calcium and magnesium carbonates tend to be deposited as off-white solids on the inside the surfaces of pipes and heat exchangers. This precipitation is principally caused by thermal decomposition of bicarbonate ions but also happens in cases where the carbonate ion is at saturation concentration. The resulting build-up of scale restricts the flow


title: "Steam locomotive" content: of water in pipes. In boilers, the deposits impair the flow of heat into the water, reducing the heating efficiency and allowing the metal boiler components to overheat. The reciprocating mechanism on the driving wheels of a two-cylinder single expansion steam locomotive tended to pound the rails (see hammer blow), thus requiring more maintenance. Raising steam from coal took a matter of hours, and created serious pollution problems. Coal-burning locomotives required fire cleaning and ash removal between turns of duty. Diesel or electric locomotives, by comparison, drew benefit from new custom-built servicing facilities. The smoke from steam locomotives was also


title: "Steam locomotive" content: deemed objectionable; the first electric and diesel locomotives were developed in response to smoke abatement requirements, although this did not take into account the high level of less-visible pollution in diesel exhaust smoke, especially when idling. In some countries, however, power for electric locomotives is derived from steam generated in power stations, which are often run by coal. The first diesel locomotive appeared on the Central Railroad of New Jersey in 1925 and on the New York Central in 1927. Since then, diesel locomotives began to appear in mainline service in the United States in the mid-1930s. The diesel engines


title: "Steam locomotive" content: reduced maintenance costs dramatically, while increasing locomotive availability. On the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad the new units delivered over a year, compared with about for a mainline steam locomotive. World War II delayed dieselisation in the US. In 1949 the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad became the first large mainline railroad to convert completely to diesel locomotives, and "Life Magazine" ran an article on 5 December 1949 titled "The GM&O puts all its steam engines to torch, becomes first major US railroad to dieselize 100%". The Susquehanna was one of the earliest railroads in America to fully dieselize


title: "Steam locomotive" content: by 1947 and retiring their steam locomotives by 1949. The final 2-8-4 Berkshire built was Nickle Plate Road's 779 built in 1949. The last steam locomotive manufactured for general service was a Norfolk and Western 0-8-0, built in its Roanoke shops in December, 1953. In Spring of 1960, Norfolk and Western Y6b 2190 and S1290 doused their fires for the last time in a Williamson, West Virginia roundhouse. 1960 is normally considered the final year of regular Class 1 main line standard gauge steam operation in the United States, with operations on the Grand Trunk Western, Illinois Central, Norfolk and


title: "Steam locomotive" content: Western and Duluth Missabe and Iron Range Railroads, as well as Canadian Pacific operations in Maine. However, the Grand Trunk Western used some steam power for regular passenger trains until 1961, the last instance of this occurring unannounced on trains 56 and 21 in the Detroit area on 20 September 1961 with 4-8-4 6323, one day before its flue time expired. The last steam-powered standard-gauge regular freight service by a class 1 railroad was on the isolated Leadville branch of the Colorado and Southern (Burlington Lines) 11 October 1962 with 2-8-0 641. Narrow-gauge steam was used for freight service by


title: "Steam locomotive" content: the Denver and Rio Grande Western on the run from Alamosa, Colorado to Farmington, New Mexico via Durango until service ceased on 6 December 1968. The Union Pacific is the only Class I railroad in the US to have never completely dieselised, at least nominally. It has always had at least one operational steam locomotive, Union Pacific 844, on its roster. Some US shortlines continued steam operations into the 1960s, and the Northwestern Steel and Wire mill in Sterling, Illinois, continued to operate steam locomotives until December 1980. Two surviving sections of the Denver and Rio Grande Western's Alamosa to


title: "Steam locomotive" content: Durango narrow-gauge line mentioned above, now operating separately as the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad and the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, continue to use steam locomotives and operate as tourist railroads. By the end of the 20th century, around 1,800 of the over 160,000 steam locomotives built in the United States between 1830 and 1950 still existed, but with only a few still in operating condition. Trials of diesel locomotives and railcars began in Britain in the 1930s but made only limited progress. One problem was that British diesel locomotives were often seriously under-powered compared with the steam


title: "Steam locomotive" content: locomotives against which they were competing. Moreover, labour and coal were relatively cheap. After 1945, problems associated with post-war reconstruction and the availability of cheap domestic-produced coal kept steam in widespread use throughout the two following decades. However the ready availability of cheap oil led to new dieselisation programmes from 1955, and these began to take full effect from around 1962. Towards the end of the steam era, steam motive power fell into a state of disrepair. The last steam locomotive built for mainline British Railways was BR Standard Class 9F 92220 Evening Star, which was completed in March 1960.


title: "Steam locomotive" content: The last steam-hauled service trains on the British Railways network ran in 1968, but the use of steam locomotives in British industry continued into the 1980s. In June 1975, there were still 41 locations where steam was in regular use, and many more where engines were maintained in reserve in case of diesel failures. Gradually, the decline of the ironstone quarries, steel, coal mining and shipbuilding industries – and the plentiful supply of redundant British Rail diesel shunters as replacements – led to the end of steam power for commercial uses. Several hundred rebuilt and preserved steam locomotives are still


title: "Steam locomotive" content: used on preserved volunteer-run 'heritage' railway lines in the UK. A proportion of the locomotives are regularly used on the national rail network by private operators where they run special excursions and touring trains. A new steam locomotive, the LNER Peppercorn Class A1 60163 Tornado has been built (began service in 2009), and more are in the planning stage. After the Second World War, Germany was divided into the Federal Republic of Germany, with the Deutsche Bundesbahn (founded in 1949) as the new state-owned railway, and the German Democratic Republic (GDR), where railway service continued under the old pre-war name


title: "Steam locomotive" content: Deutsche Reichsbahn. For a short period after the war, both Bundesbahn (DB) and Reichsbahn (DR) still placed orders for new steam locomotives. They needed to renew the rolling stock, mostly with steam locomotives designed for accelerated passenger trains. Many of the existing predecessors of those types of steam locomotives in Germany had been lost in the battles or simply reached the end of their lifetime, such as the famous Prussian P 8. There was no need for new freight train engines, however, because thousands of the Classes 50 and 52 had been built during the Second World War. Because the


title: "Steam locomotive" content: concept of the so-called "Einheitslokomotiven", the standard locomotives built in the 1920s and 1930s, and still in wide use, was already outdated in the pre-war era, a whole new design for the new steam locomotives was developed by DB and DR, called "Neubaudampflokomotiven" (new-build steam locomotives). The steam locomotives made by the DB in West Germany, under the guidance of Friedrich Witte, represented the latest evolution in steam locomotive construction including fully welded frames, high-performance boilers and roller bearings on all moving parts. Although these new DB classes (10, 23, 65, 66 and 82) were said to be among the


title: "Steam locomotive" content: finest and best-performing German steam locomotives ever built, none of them exceeded 25 years in service. The last one, 23 105 (still preserved), went into service in 1959. The Democratic Republic in East Germany began a similar procurement plan, including engines for a narrow gauge. The DR-Neubaudampflokomotiven were the classes 23.10, 25.10, 50.40, 65.10, 83.10, 99.23-24 and 99.77-79. The purchase of new-build steam locomotives by the DR ended in 1960 with 50 4088, the last standard-gauge steam locomotive built in Germany. No locomotive of the classes 25.10 and 83.10 was in service for more than 17 years. The last engines


title: "Steam locomotive" content: of the classes 23.10, 65.10 and 50.40 were retired in the late 1970s, with some units older than 25 years. Some of the narrow-gauge locomotives are still in service for tourism purposes. Later, during the early 1960s, the DR developed a way to reconstruct older locomotives to conform with contemporary requirements. The high-speed locomotive 18 201 and the class 01.5 are examples of designs from that programme. Around 1960, the Bundesbahn in West Germany began to phase out all steam-hauled trains over a period of ten years, but still had about 5,000 of them in running condition. Even though DB


title: "Steam locomotive" content: were very assertive in continuing the electrification on the main lines – in 1963 they reached of electrified routes – and dieselisation with new developed stock, they had not completely removed steam locomotives within the ten-year goal. In 1972, the Hamburg and Frankfurt departments of the DB rail networks became the first to no longer operate steam locomotives in their areas. The remaining steam locomotives began to gather in rail yards in Rheine, Tübingen, Hof, Saarbrücken, Gelsenkirchen-Bismarck and others, which soon became popular with rail enthusiasts. In 1975, DB's last steam express train made its final run on the Emsland-Line


title: "Steam locomotive" content: from Rheine to Norddeich in the upper north of Germany. Two years later, on 26 October 1977, the heavy freight engine 44 903 (computer-based new number 043 903-4) made her final run at the same railway yard. After this date, no regular steam service took place on the network of the DB until their privatisation in 1994. In the GDR, the Reichsbahn continued steam operation until 1988 on standard gauge tracks for economic and political reasons, despite strong efforts to phase out steam being made since the 1970s. The last locomotives in service where of the classes 50.35 and 52.80,


title: "Steam locomotive" content: which hauled goods trains on rural main and branch lines. Unlike the DB, there was never a large concentration of steam locomotives in just a few yards in the East, because throughout the DR network the infrastructure for steam locomotives remained intact until the end of the GDR in 1990. This was also the reason that there was never a strict "final cut" at steam operations, with the DR continuing to use steam locomotives from time to time until they merged with the DB in 1994. On their narrow-gauge lines, however, steam locomotives continued to be used on a daily


title: "Steam locomotive" content: year-round basis, mainly for tourist reasons. The largest of these is the "Harzer Schmalspurbahn" (Harz Narrow Gauge Railways) network in the Harz Mountains, but the lines in Saxony and on the coast of the Baltic Sea are also notable. Even though all former DR narrow-gauge railways have undergone privatisation, steam operations are still commonplace there. In the USSR, although the first mainline diesel-electric locomotive was built in USSR in 1924, the last steam locomotive (, serial number 251) was built in 1956; it is now in the Museum of Railway Machinery at the former Warsaw Rail Terminal, Saint Petersburg. In


title: "Steam locomotive" content: the European part of the USSR, almost all steam locomotives were replaced by diesel and electric locomotives in the 1960s; in Siberia and Central Asia, state records verify that L-class 2-10-0s and LV-class 2-10-2s were not retired until 1985. Until 1994, Russia had at least 1,000 steam locomotives stored in operable condition in case of "national emergencies". China continued to build mainline steam locomotives until the late 20th century, even building a few examples for American tourist operations. China was the last main-line user of steam locomotives, with use ending officially on the Ji-Tong line at the end of 2005.


title: "Steam locomotive" content: Some steam locomotives are still in use in industrial operations in China. Some coal and other mineral operations maintain an active roster of China Railways JS (建设, "Jiànshè") or China Railways SY (上游, "Shàngyóu") steam locomotives bought secondhand from China Railway. The last steam locomotive built in China was 2-8-2 SY 1772, finished in 1999. at least six Chinese steam locomotives exist in the United States – 3 QJs bought by the Rail Development Corporation (Nos. 6988 and 7081 for IAIS and No. 7040 for R.J. Corman), a JS bought by the Boone and Scenic Valley Railroad, and two SYs.


title: "Steam locomotive" content: No. 142 (formerly No. 1647) is owned by the NYSW for tourist operations, re-painted and modified to represent a 1920s-era US locomotive; No. 58 is operated by the Valley Railroad and has been modified to represent New Haven Railroad number 3025. Owing to the destruction of most of the nation's infrastructure during the Second World War, and the cost of electrification and dieselisation, new steam locomotives were built in Japan until 1960. The number of Japanese steam locomotives reached a peak of 5,958 in 1946. With the booming post-war Japanese economy, steam locomotives were gradually withdrawn from main line service


title: "Steam locomotive" content: beginning in the early 1960s, and were replaced with diesel and electric locomotives. They were relegated to branch line and sub-main line services for several more years until the late 1960s, when electrification and dieselisation began to increase. From 1970 onwards, steam locomotion was gradually abolished on the JNR: The last steam passenger train, pulled by a C57-class locomotive built in 1940, departed from Muroran railway station to Iwamizawa on 14 December 1975. It was then officially retired from service, dismantled and sent to the Tokyo Transportation Museum, where it was inaugurated as an exhibit on 14 May 1976. It


title: "Steam locomotive" content: was moved to the Saitama Railway Museum in early 2007. The last Japanese main line steam train, D51-241, a D51-class locomotive built in 1939, left Yubari railway station on 24 December 1975. That same day, all steam main line service ended. D51-241 was retired on 10 March 1976, and destroyed in a depot fire a month later, though some parts were preserved. On 2 March 1976, the only steam locomotive still operating on the JNR, 9600-39679, a 9600-class locomotive built in 1920, made its final journey from Oiwake railway station, ending 104 years of steam locomotion in Japan. The first


title: "Steam locomotive" content: steam locomotive in South Korea (Korea at the time) was the Moga (Mogul) 2-6-0, which first ran on 9 September 1899 on the Gyeong-In Line. Other South Korean steam locomotive classes include the Sata, Pureo, Ame, Sig, Mika (USRA Heavy Mikado), Pasi (USRA Light Pacific), Hyeogi (Narrow gauge), Class 901, Mateo, Sori and Tou. Used until 1967, the Moga is now in the Railroad Museum. New steam locomotives were built in India well into the early 1970s; the last broad-gauge steam locomotive to be manufactured, "Last Star", a WG-class locomotive (No. 10560) was built in June 1970, followed by the


title: "Steam locomotive" content: last meter-gauge locomotive in February 1972. Steam locomotion continued to predominate on Indian Railways through the early 1980s; in fiscal year 1980–81, there were 7,469 steam locomotives in regular service, compared to 2,403 diesels and 1,036 electrics. Subsequently, steam locomotion was gradually phased out from regular service, beginning with the Southern Railway Zone in 1985; the number of diesel and electric locomotives in regular service surpassed the number of steam locomotives in service in 1987–88. All regular broad-gauge steam service in India ended in 1995, with the final run made from Jalandhar to Ferozpur on 6 December. The last meter-gauge


title: "Steam locomotive" content: and narrow-gauge steam locomotives in regular service were retired in 2000. After being withdrawn from service, most steam locomotives were scrapped, though some have been preserved in various railway museums. The only steam locomotives remaining in regular service are on India's heritage lines. In South Africa, the last new steam locomotives purchased were 2-6-2+2-6-2 Garratts from Hunslet Taylor for the gauge lines in 1968. Another class 25NC locomotive, No. 3450, nicknamed the "Red Devil" because of its colour scheme, received modifications including a prominent set of double side-by-side exhaust stacks. In southern Natal, two former South African Railway gauge NGG16


title: "Steam locomotive" content: Garratts operating on the privatised Port Shepstone and Alfred County Railway (ACR) received some L.D. Porta modifications in 1990, becoming a new NGG16A class. By 1994 almost all commercial steam locomotives were put out of service, although many of them are preserved in museums or at railway stations for public viewing. Today only a few privately owned steam locomotives are still operating in South Africa, including the ones being used by the 5-star luxury train Rovos Rail, and the tourist trains "Outeniqua Tjoe Choo", "Apple Express" and (until 2008) "Banana Express". In other countries, the dates for conversion from steam


title: "Steam locomotive" content: to diesel and electric power varied. On the contiguous North American standard gauge network across Canada, Mexico and the United States, the use of standard gauge main line steam locomotion using 4-8-4s built in 1946 for handling freight between Mexico City and Irapuato lasted until 1968. The Mexican Pacific line, a standard gauge short line in the state of Sinaloa, was reported in August 1987 to still be using steam, with a roster of one 4-6-0, two 2-6-2s and one 2-8-2. By March 1973 in Australia, steam was no longer used for industrial purposes. Diesel locomotives were more efficient and


title: "Steam locomotive" content: the demand for manual labour for service and repairs was less than for steam. Cheap oil also had cost advantages over coal. Regular scheduled steam services operated from 1998 until 2004 on the West Coast Railway. In New Zealand's North Island, steam traction ended in 1968 when A 832 (now stored at the Glenbrook Vintage Railway, Auckland, but owned by MOTAT) hauled a Farmers Trading Company "Santa Special" from Frankton Junction to Claudelands. In the South Island, due to the inability of the new D class diesel locomotives to provide in-train steam heating, steam operations continued using the J and


title: "Steam locomotive" content: J class 4-8-2 tender locomotives on the overnight Christchurch-Invercargill expresses, Trains 189/190, until 1971. By this time sufficient F steam-heating vans were available, thus allowing the last steam locomotives to be withdrawn. Two A class 4-6-2 tender locomotives, A 778 and A 795, were retained at Lyttelton to steam-heat the coaches for the Boat Trains between Christchurch and Lyttelton, until they were restored for the Kingston Flyer tourist train in 1972. In Finland, the first diesels were introduced in the mid-1950s, superseding steam locomotives by the early 1960s. State railways (VR) operated steam locomotives until 1975. In the Netherlands, the


title: "Steam locomotive" content: first electric trains appeared in 1908, making the trip from Rotterdam to The Hague. The first diesels were introduced in 1934. As electric and diesel trains performed so well, the decline of steam started just after World War II, with steam traction ending in 1958. In Poland, on non-electrified tracks, steam locomotives were superseded almost entirely by diesels by the 1990s. A few steam locomotives, however, operate in the regular scheduled service from Wolsztyn. After ceasing on 31 March 2014, regular service resumed out of Wolsztyn on 15 May 2017 with weekday runs to Leszno. This operation is maintained as


title: "Steam locomotive" content: a means of preserving railway heritage and as a tourist attraction. Apart from that, numerous railway museums and heritage railways (mostly narrow gauge) own steam locomotives in working condition. In France, steam locomotives have not been used for commercial services since 24 September 1975. In Spain, the first electric trains were introduced en 1911, and the first diesels in 1935, just one year before the Spanish Civil War. National railway company (Renfe) operated steam locomotives until 9 June 1975. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, some steam locomotives are still used for industrial purposes, for example at the coal mine in Banovići


title: "Steam locomotive" content: and ArcelorMittal factory in Zenica. In Paraguay, wood-burning steam locomotives operated until 1999. In Thailand, all steam locomotives were withdrawn from service between the late 1960s and early 1970s. Most were scrapped in 1980. However, there are about 20 to 30 locomotives preserved for exhibit in important or end-of-the-line stations throughout the country. During the late 1980s, six locomotives were restored to running condition. Most are JNR-built 4-6-2 steam locomotives with the exception of a single 2-8-2. Indonesia has also used steam locomotives since 1876. The last batch of E10 0-10-0 rack tank locomotives were purchased in 1967 (Kautzor, 2010)


title: "Steam locomotive" content: from Nippon Sharyo. The last locomotives – the D 52 class, manufactured by the German firm Krupp in 1954 – operated until 1994, when they were replaced by diesel locomotives. Indonesia also purchased the last batch of mallet locomotives from Nippon Sharyo, to be used on the Aceh Railway. In Sumatra Barat (West Sumatra) and Ambarawa some rack railways (with a maximum gradient of 6% in mountainous areas) are now operated for tourism only. There are two rail museums in Indonesia, Taman Mini and Ambarawa (Ambarawa Railway Museum). Pakistan Railways still has a regular steam locomotive service; a line operates


title: "Steam locomotive" content: in the North-West Frontier Province and in Sindh. It has been preserved as a "nostalgia" service for tourism in exotic locales, and is specifically advertised as being for "steam buffs". In Sri Lanka, one steam locomotive is maintained for private service to power the "Viceroy Special". Dramatic increases in the cost of diesel fuel prompted several initiatives to revive steam power. However none of these has progressed to the point of production and, as of the early 21st century, steam locomotives operate only in a few isolated regions of the world and in tourist operations. Several heritage railways in the


title: "Steam locomotive" content: UK have built new steam locomotives in the 1990s and early 21st century. These include the narrow-gauge Ffestiniog and Corris railways in Wales. The Hunslet Engine Company was revived in 2005, and began building steam locomotives on a commercial basis. A standard-gauge LNER Peppercorn Pacific "Tornado" was completed at Hopetown Works, Darlington, and made its first run on 1 August 2008. It entered main line service later in 2008, to great public acclaim. Demonstration trips in France and Germany have been planned. over half-a-dozen projects to build working replicas of extinct steam engines are going ahead, in many cases using


title: "Steam locomotive" content: existing parts from other types to build them. Examples include BR Class 6MT "Hengist", BR Class 3MT No. 82045, BR Class 2MT No. 84030, Brighton Atlantic "Beachy Head", the LMS "Patriot 45551 The Unknown Warrior" project, GWR "47xx 4709, BR" Class 6 72010 Hengist, GWR "Saint" 2999 Lady of Legend, 1014 "County" of Glamorgan and 6880 Betton "Grange" projects. These United Kingdom based new build projects are further complimented by the new build Pennsylvania Railroad T1 class No. 5550 project in the United States, which will attempt to surpass the speed record held by the LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard


title: "Steam locomotive" content: when completed. In 1980, American financier Ross Rowland established American Coal Enterprises to develop a modernised coal-fired steam locomotive. His ACE 3000 concept attracted considerable attention, but was never built. In 1998, in his book "The Red Devil and Other Tales from the Age of Steam", David Wardale put forward the concept of a high-speed high-efficiency "Super Class 5 4-6-0" locomotive for future steam haulage of tour trains on British main lines. The idea was formalised in 2001 by the formation of 5AT Project dedicated to developing and building the 5AT Advanced Technology Steam Locomotive, but it never received any


title: "Steam locomotive" content: major railway backing. Locations where new builds are taking place include: In 2012, the Coalition for Sustainable Rail project was started in the US with the goal of creating a modern higher-speed steam locomotive, incorporating the improvements proposed by Livio Dante Porta and others, and using torrefied biomass as solid fuel. The fuel has been recently developed by the University of Minnesota in a collaboration between the university's Institute on the Environment (IonE) and Sustainable Rail International (SRI), an organisation set up to explore the use of steam traction in a modern railway setup. The group have received the last


title: "Steam locomotive" content: surviving (but non-running) ATSF 3460 class steam locomotive (No. 3463) via donation from its previous owner in Kansas, the Great Overland Station Museum. They hope to use it as a platform for developing "the world's cleanest, most powerful passenger locomotive", capable of speeds up to . Named "Project 130", it aims to break the world steam-train speed record set by LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard in the UK at . However, any demonstration of the project's claims is yet to be seen. In Germany, a small number of fireless steam locomotives are still working in industrial service, e.g. at power


title: "Steam locomotive" content: stations, where an on-site supply of steam is readily available. The Swiss company Dampflokomotiv- und Maschinenfabrik DLM AG delivered eight steam locomotives to rack railways in Switzerland and Austria between 1992 and 1996. Four of them are now the main traction on the Brienz Rothorn Bahn; the four others were built for the Schafbergbahn in Austria, where they run 90% of the trains. The same company also rebuilt a German 2-10-0 locomotive to new standards with modifications such as roller bearings, light oil firing and boiler insulation. Steam locomotives have been present in popular culture since the 19th century. Folk


title: "Steam locomotive" content: songs from that period including "I've Been Working on the Railroad" and the "Ballad of John Henry" are a mainstay of American music and culture. Many steam locomotive toys have been made, and railway modelling is a popular hobby. Steam locomotives are often portrayed in fictional works, notably "The Railway Series" by the Rev W. V. Awdry, "The Little Engine That Could" by Watty Piper, "The Polar Express" by Chris Van Allsburg, and the Hogwarts Express from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. They have also been featured in many children's television shows, such as "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends",


title: "Steam locomotive" content: based on characters from the books by Awdry, and "Ivor the Engine" created by Oliver Postgate. The Hogwarts Express also appears in the Harry Potter series of films, portrayed by GWR 4900 Class 5972 Olton Hall in a special Hogwarts livery. The Polar Express appears in the animated movie of the same name. An elaborate, themed funicular Hogwarts Express ride is featured in the Universal Orlando Resort in Florida, connecting the Harry Potter section of Universal Studios with the Islands of Adventure theme park. The Polar Express is recreated on many heritage railroads in the United States, including the North


title: "Steam locomotive" content: Pole Express pulled by the Pere Marquette 1225 locomotive, which is operated by the Steam Railroading Institute in Owosso, Michigan. According to author Van Allsburg, this locomotive was the inspiration for the story and it was used in the production of the movie. A number of computer and video games feature steam locomotives. "Railroad Tycoon" produced in 1990, was as "one of the best computer games of the year". There are two notable examples of steam locomotives used as charges on heraldic coats of arms. One is that of Darlington, which displays "Locomotion No. 1". The other is the original


title: "Steam locomotive" content: coat of arms of Swindon, not currently in use, which displays a basic steam locomotive. Steam locomotives are a popular topic for coin collectors. The 1950 Silver 5 Peso coin of Mexico has a steam locomotive on its reverse as the prominent feature. The 20 euro Biedermeier Period coin, minted 11 June 2003, shows on the obverse an early model steam locomotive (the "Ajax") on Austria's first railway line, the Kaiser Ferdinands-Nordbahn. The "Ajax" can still be seen today in the Technisches Museum Wien. As part of the 50 State Quarters program, the quarter representing the US state of Utah


title: "Steam locomotive" content: depicts the ceremony where the two halves of the First Transcontinental Railroad met at Promontory Summit in 1869. The coin recreates a popular image from the ceremony with steam locomotives from each company facing each other while the golden spike is being driven. Steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a type of railway locomotive that produces its pulling power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning combustible material – usually coal, wood, or oil – to produce steam in a boiler. The steam moves reciprocating pistons which are mechanically connected to the locomotive's main wheels (drivers). Both


title: "Device independent file format" content: width. In contrast, opcode 0xF7 (decimal 247), pre (the preamble, which must be the first opcode in the DVI file), takes at least fourteen bytes of parameters, plus an optional comment of up to 255 bytes. In a broader sense, a DVI file consists of a preamble, one or more pages, and a postamble. Six state variables are maintained as a tuple of signed, 32-bit integers: formula_1. "h" and "v" are the current horizontal and vertical offsets from the upper-left corner (increasing "v" moves down the page), "w" and "x" hold horizontal space values, "y" and "z", vertical. These variables


title: "Sand martin" content: Sand martin The sand martin ("Riparia riparia") or European sand martin, bank swallow in the Americas, and collared sand martin in the Indian Subcontinent, is a migratory passerine bird in the swallow family. It has a wide range in summer, embracing practically the whole of Europe and the Mediterranean countries, part of northern Asia and also North America. It winters in eastern and southern Africa, South America and the Indian Subcontinent. This species was first described by Linnaeus in his "Systema naturae" in 1758, and originally named "Hirundo riparia"; the description consisted of the simple "H[irundo] cinerea, gula abdomineque albis"—"an


title: "Sand martin" content: ash-grey swallow, with white throat and belly"—and the type locality was simply given as "Europa". The specific name means "of the riverbank"; it is derived from the Latin "ripa" "riverbank". The pale martin of northern India and southeastern China is now usually split as a separate species Riparia diluta. It has paler grey-brown upperparts and a less distinct breast band. It winters in Pakistan and southern India. The long sand martin is brown above, white below with a narrow brown band on the breast; the bill is black, the legs brown. The young have rufous tips to the coverts and


title: "Sand martin" content: margins to the secondaries. Its brown back, white throat, small size and quick jerky flight separate it at once from similar swallows, such as the common house martin ("Delichon urbicum"), the American cliff swallow ("Petrochelidon pyrrhonota") or other species of "Riparia". Only the banded martin ("R. cincta") of sub-Saharan Africa is similar, but the sand martin only occurs there in (the northern) winter. The sand martin's twittering song is continuous when the birds are on the wing and becomes a conversational undertone after they have settled in the roost. The harsh alarm is heard when a passing falcon, crow or


title: "Sand martin" content: other suspected predator requires combined action to drive it away. Linnaeus already remarked on this species' breeding habits: "Habitat in Europae collibus arenosis abruptis, foramine serpentino"—"it lives in Europe, in winding holes in sheer sandy hills". It has been observed that sand martins favour loess as a particular type of ground to nest in. Sand martins are generally found near larger bodies of water, such as rivers, lakes or even the ocean, throughout the year. The sand martin appears on its breeding grounds as the first of its family, starting towards the end of March, just in advance of the


title: "Sand martin" content: barn swallow. In northern Ohio, they arrive in numbers by mid-April, about 10 days earlier than they did 100 years ago. At first, they flit over the larger bodies of water alone, in search of early flies. Later parties accompany other swallow species, but for a time, varying according to weather, the birds remain at these large waters and do not visit their nesting haunts. The sand martin departs early, at any rate from its more northerly haunts. In August, the gatherings at the nightly roost increase enormously, though the advent and departure of passage birds causes great irregularity in


title: "Sand martin" content: numbers. They are essentially gone from their breeding range by the end of September. The food consists of small insects, mostly gnats and other flies whose early stages are aquatic. The sand martin is sociable in its nesting habits; from a dozen to many hundred pairs will nest close together, according to available space. The nests are at the end of tunnels of from a few inches to three or four feet in length, bored in sand or gravel. The actual nest is a litter of straw and feathers in a chamber at the end of the burrow; it soon


title: "Sand martin" content: becomes a hotbed of parasites. Four or five white eggs are laid about mid-late May, and a second brood is usual in all but the most northernly breeding sites. This is not a rare bird, and it is classified as a species of Least Concern by the IUCN. It does have some local protections, as certain populations have declined or face threats from habitat loss and fragmentation. They are considered threatened in California, where populations exist in the Sacramento Valley and at two coastal sites, Ano Nuevo and Fort Funston. Sand martin The sand martin ("Riparia riparia") or European sand


title: "Rock dove" content: iris is orange, red, or golden with a paler inner ring, and the bare skin round the eye is bluish-grey. The bill is grey-black with a conspicuous off-white cere, and the feet are purplish-red. Among standard measurements, the wing chord is typically around , the tail is , the bill is around , and the tarsus is . The adult female is almost identical to the male, but the iridescence on her neck is less intense and more restricted to the rear and sides, while that on the breast is often very obscure. The white lower back of the pure


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: Great spotted woodpecker The great spotted woodpecker ("Dendrocopos major") is a medium-sized woodpecker with pied black and white plumage and a red patch on the lower belly. Males and young birds also have red markings on the neck or head. This species is found across Eurasia and parts of North Africa. Across most of its range it is resident, but in the north some will migrate if the conifer cone crop fails. Some individuals have a tendency to wander, leading to the recent recolonisation of Ireland and to vagrancy to North America. Great spotted woodpeckers chisel into trees to find


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: food or excavate nest holes, and also drum for contact and territorial advertisement; they have anatomical adaptations to manage the physical stresses from the hammering action. It is similar to the less common lesser spotted woodpecker. The great spotted woodpecker occurs in all types of woodlands and is catholic in its diet, being capable of extracting seeds from pine cones, insect larvae from inside trees or eggs and chicks of other birds from their nests. It breeds in holes excavated in living or dead trees, unlined apart from wood chips. The typical clutch is four to six glossy white eggs.


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: Both parents incubate the eggs, feed the chicks and keep the nest clean. When the young fledge they are fed by the adults for about ten days, each parent taking responsibility for feeding part of the brood. The great spotted woodpecker is closely related to some other members of its genus. It has a number of subspecies, some of which are distinctive enough to be potential new species. It has a huge range and large population, with no widespread threats, so it is classed as a species of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: woodpeckers are an ancient bird family consisting of three subfamilies, the wrynecks, the piculets and the true woodpeckers, Picinae. The largest of the six tribes within the Picinae is the pied woodpeckers, a group which includes the great spotted woodpecker. Within the large genus "Dendrocopus" the great spotted woodpecker's closest relatives are the Himalayan, Sind, Syrian and white-winged woodpeckers and possibly the Darjeeling woodpecker. The great spotted woodpecker has been recorded as hybridising with the Syrian woodpecker. The great spotted woodpecker was described by Linnaeus in his 1758 "Systema Naturae" as "Picus major". It was moved to its current genus,


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: "Dendrocopus", by the German naturalist Carl Ludwig Koch in 1816. The genus name "Dendrocopus" is a combination of the Greek words "dendron ", "tree", and "kopos", "striking ". The specific "major" is from Latin "maior", "greater". The number of subspecies of the great spotted woodpecker recognised by different authors varies widely from as few as 14 to nearly 30. This is largely because changes are clinal with many intermediate forms. However, mitochondrial DNA data suggests that the Caspian Sea region's "Dendrocopus major poelzami", Japanese "D. m. japonicus" and Chinese "D. m. cabanisi" may all merit full species status. Despite its


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: distinctive appearance, "D. m. canariensis" from Tenerife in the Canary Islands appears to be closely related to the nominate subspecies "D. m. major". The fossil subspecies "D. m. submajor" lived during the Middle Pleistocene Riss glaciation (250,000 to 300,000 years ago) when it was found in Europe south of the ice sheet. It is sometimes treated as a distinct species, but did not differ significantly from the extant great spotted woodpecker, whose European subspecies are probably its direct descendants. The adult great spotted woodpecker is long, weighs and has a wingspan. The upperparts are glossy blue-black, with white on the


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: sides of the face and neck. Black lines run from the shoulder to the nape, the base of the bill and about halfway across the breast. There is a large white shoulder patch and the flight feathers are barred with black and white, as is the tail. The underparts are white other than a scarlet lower belly and undertail. The bill is slate-black, the legs greenish-grey and the eye is deep red. Males have a crimson patch on the nape, which is absent from the otherwise similar females. Juvenile birds are less glossy than adults and have a brown tinge


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: to their upperparts and dirty white underparts. Their markings are less well-defined than the adult's and the lower belly is pink rather than red. The crown of the juvenile's head is red, less extensively in young females than males. The various subspecies differ in plumage, the general pattern being that northern forms are larger, heavier-billed and whiter beneath, as predicted by Bergmann's rule, so north Eurasian "D. m. major" and "D. m. kamtschaticus" are large and strikingly white, whereas "D. m. hispanicus" in Iberia and "D. m. harterti" in Corsica and Sardinia are somewhat smaller and have darker underparts. "D.


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: m. canariensis" and "D. m. thanneri" in the Canary Islands are similar to the Iberian race but have contrasting white flanks. In Morocco, "D. m. mauritanus" is pale below with red in the centre of its breast, and birds breeding at higher altitudes are larger and darker than those lower in the hills. "D. m. numidus" in Algeria and Tunisia is very distinctive, with a breast band of red-tipped black feathers. Caspian "D. m. poelzami" is small, relatively long-billed and has brown underparts. "D. m. japonicus" of Japan has less white on its shoulders but more in its wings. The


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: two Chinese forms, "D. m. cabanisi" and "D. m. stresemanni", have brownish heads and underparts, and often some red on the breast. Both races have increasingly dark underparts towards the south of their respective ranges. The great spotted woodpecker is similar to some other species in its genus. The Syrian woodpecker lacks its relative's black cheek bar and has whiter underparts and paler red underparts, although juvenile great spotted woodpeckers often have an incomplete cheek bar, so can potentially be misidentified as Syrian. The white-winged woodpecker has a far more extensive white wing patch than the great spotted woodpecker. The


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: Sind woodpecker is very similar to the Syrian species, and can be distinguished from great spotted woodpecker in the same way. Adult great spotted woodpeckers have a complete moult after the breeding season which takes about 120 days. Northern "D. m. major" starts its moult from mid-June to late July and finishes in October or November, temperate races like "D. m. pinetorum" are earlier, commencing in early June to mid-July and completing in mid-September to late October, and southern "D. m. hispanicus" starts late May or June and finishes as early as August. Juveniles have a partial moult, retaining some


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: of the wing coverts but replacing body, tail and primary feathers. This moult to near-adult plumage starts from late May to early August and finishes from mid-September to late November, timing varying with latitude as with the adults. The call of the great spotted woodpecker is a sharp "kik", which may be repeated as a wooden rattling "krrarraarr" if the bird is disturbed. The courtship call, "gwig", is mostly given in the display flight. The great spotted woodpecker drums on dead trees and branches, and sometimes suitable man-made structures, to maintain contact between paired adults and to advertise ownership of


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: territory. Both sexes drum, although the male does so much more often, mostly from mid-January until the young are fledged. The far-carrying drumming is faster than for any other woodpecker in its range at around 10–16 strikes per second, typically in one-second bursts, although repeated frequently. As late as the early twentieth century it was thought that the drumming might be a vocalisation, and it was not until 1943 that it was finally proved to be purely mechanical. The great spotted woodpecker occurs in Eurasia from the British Isles to Japan, and in North Africa from Morocco to Tunisia, and


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: it is absent only from those areas too cold or dry to have suitable woodland habitat. It is found in a wide variety of woodlands, broadleaf, coniferous or mixed, and in modified habitats like parks, gardens and olive groves. It occurs from sea-level to the tree line, up to in Europe, in Morocco and in Central Asia. The great spotted woodpecker is mainly resident year-round, but sizeable movements can occur when there are shortages of pine and spruce cones in the north of the range. Highland populations often descend to lower altitudes in winter. Juveniles also have a tendency to


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: wander some distance from where they were hatched, often as far as , sometimes up to . Vagrants have reached the Faroe Islands, Hong Kong and Iceland, and there are several sightings from North America in at least the Aleutian Islands, Pribilof Islands and Alaska. The great spotted woodpecker became extinct in the island of Ireland in the seventeenth century, but the island was naturally recolonised by this species, with the first proven nesting in County Down in 2007. Its expansion in range is continuing, with breeding proven or suspected in at least 10 counties by 2013, with the main


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: concentration in Down and County Wicklow. Genetic evidence shows the birds to be of British, rather than Scandinavian, ancestry, with the populations in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic having separate origins. The great spotted woodpecker spends much of its time climbing trees, and has adaptations to this lifestyle, many of which are shared by other woodpecker species. These include the zygodactyl arrangement of the foot, with two toes facing forward and two back, and the stiff tail feathers that are used as a prop against the trunk. In most birds the bones of the tail diminish in size towards


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: its end, but this does not occur in woodpeckers, and the final vertebra, the pygostyle, is very large to anchor the strong tail muscles. The hammering of woodpeckers when drumming or feeding creates great forces which are potentially damaging to the birds. In the great spotted woodpecker and most of its relatives, the hinge where the front of the skull connects with the upper mandible is folded inwards, tensioned by a muscle that braces it against the shock of the impact when the bill is hammering on hard wood. The outer layer of the upper mandible is significantly longer than


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: the more rigid lower mandible and absorbs much of the concussive force. Skeletal adaptations and strengthening also help to absorb the shock, and narrow nostrils protect against flying debris. As well as using holes for breeding, great spotted woodpeckers roost at night, and sometimes during the day, in old nest cavities, excavated by other woodpeckers. They will occasionally make a new roosting hole or use an artificial site such as a nest box. Great spotted woodpeckers are strongly territorial, typically occupying areas of about year-round, which are defended mainly by the male, a behaviour which attracts females. Pairs are monogamous


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: during the breeding period, but often change partners before the next season. The great spotted woodpecker is sexually mature when aged one year, and starts its courtship behaviour in the following December. It has a fluttering flight display in which the male flies with shallow wingbeats and a spread tail. He calls in flight and may land at a prospective nest-site. The pair excavate a new hole at least above the ground and usually lower than , although sometimes much higher. The chosen site is normally a tree, alive or dead, occasionally a utility pole or nest box. Old holes


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: are rarely re-used, although the same tree may be used for nesting for several years. The nest cavity is deep with an entrance hole wide. It is excavated by both sexes, the male doing most of the chiselling. As with other woodpeckers, the hole is unlined, although wood chips from the excavation may cover the base of the cavity. Trees chosen for nest holes have soft heartwood and tough sapwood, the former often due to parasites or diseases that weaken the tree's core. It is not certain how suitable trees are selected, although it may be by drumming, since woods


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: with differing elastic modulus and density may transmit sound at different speeds. A Japanese study found nests in trees from many families; these included grey alder, Japanese white birch, Japanese hop-hornbeam, Japanese tree lilac, willows, Japanese larch and Sargent's cherry. The Mongolian oak and prickly castor-oil tree were rarely if ever used. The typical clutch is four to six glossy white eggs that measure and weigh about , of which 7% is shell. They are laid from mid-April to June, the later dates being for birds breeding in the north of the range or at altitude. The eggs are incubated


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: by either adult during the day and by the male at night, for 10–12 days before hatching. Both birds brood and feed the altricial naked chicks and keep the nest clean. The young fledge in 20–23 days from hatching. Each parent then takes responsibility for feeding part of the brood for about ten days, during which time they normally remain close to the nest tree. Great spotted woodpeckers have only one brood a year. The survival rates for adults and young are unknown, as is the average lifespan, but the maximum known age for a great spotted woodpecker is just


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: over 11 years. The great spotted woodpecker is omnivorous. It digs beetle larvae from trees and also takes many other invertebrates including adult beetles, ants and spiders. The bird also digs for Lepidoptera larvae like "Acronicta rumicis". Crustaceans, molluscs and carrion may be eaten, and bird feeders are visited for suet and domestic scraps. The nests of other cavity-nesting birds, such as tits, may be raided for their eggs and chicks; nest boxes may be similarly attacked, holes being pecked to admit entrance by the woodpecker where necessary. House martin colonies can be destroyed in repeated visits. Fat-rich plant products


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: such as nuts and conifer seeds are particularly important as winter food in the north of the woodpecker's range, and can then supply more than 30% of the bird's energy requirements. Other plant items consumed include buds, berries and tree sap, the latter obtained by drilling rings of holes around a tree trunk. The great spotted woodpecker feeds at all levels of a tree, usually alone, but sometimes as a pair. It will use an "anvil" on which to hammer hard items, particularly pine, spruce and larch cones, but also fruit, nuts and hard-bodied insects. Easily accessible items are picked


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: off the tree surface or from fissures in the bark, but larvae are extracted by chiselling holes up to deep and trapping the soft insect with the tongue, which can extend to beyond the bill, and is covered with bristles and sticky saliva to trap the prey. The woodpecker is able to extend its tongue so far because the hyoid bone to which it is attached has long flexible "horns" that wind around the skull and can move forward when required. Great spotted woodpeckers are hunted by woodland birds of prey such as the Eurasian sparrowhawk and the northern goshawk.


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: This woodpecker is a host of the blood-feeding fly "Carnus hemapterus", and its internal parasites may include the spiny-headed worm "Prosthorhynchus transversus". Protozoans also occur, including the potentially fatal "Toxoplasma gondii", which causes toxoplasmosis. The great spotted woodpecker is the favoured host of the tapeworm "Anomotaenia brevis". The total population for the great spotted woodpecker is estimated at 73.7–110.3 million individuals, with 35% of the population in Europe. The breeding range is estimated as , and the population is considered overall to be large and apparently stable or slightly increasing, especially in Britain, where the population has recently overspilled into


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: Ireland. For this reason the great spotted woodpecker is evaluated as a species of least concern by the IUCN. Breeding densities have been recorded as between 0.1–6.6 pairs/10 ha (0.04–2.7 pairs/10 acres), with the greatest densities in mature forest growing on alluvium. Numbers have increased in Europe due to the planting of forests, which provides breeding habitat, and more available dead wood, and this species has profited from its flexibility with regard to types of woodland and its ability to thrive in proximity to humans. Harsh winters are a problem, and fragmentation of woodland can cause local difficulties. The Canary


title: "Great spotted woodpecker" content: Islands populations of "D. m. canariensis" on Tenerife and "D. m. thanneri" on Gran Canaria face a potential threat from exploitation of the local pine forests. Great spotted woodpecker The great spotted woodpecker ("Dendrocopos major") is a medium-sized woodpecker with pied black and white plumage and a red patch on the lower belly. Males and young birds also have red markings on the neck or head. This species is found across Eurasia and parts of North Africa. Across most of its range it is resident, but in the north some will migrate if the conifer cone crop fails. Some individuals


title: "George Canning" content: this he was successful. He helped guarantee the independence of Brazil and the Spanish colonies, thereby acting in support of the Monroe Doctrine and aiding British merchants open new markets across South and Central America. Britain had a strong interest in ensuring the demise of Spanish colonialism, and to open the newly independent Latin American colonies to its trade. The Latin Americans received a certain amount of unofficial aid – arms and volunteers – from outside, but no outside official help at any stage from Britain or any other power. Britain refused to aid Spain and opposed any outside intervention


title: "Stock swap" content: given 2.885 shares of RRI for every share of Mirant that they owned. This stock swap helped facilitate the takeover by making the Mirant shareholders an attractive offer, thus convincing Mirant's board of directors to allow the takeover. In 2014, South Korean Internet giant Daum Communications merged with Kakao Corp to form Daum Kakao in a stock swap deal. The merger ratio was approximately 1.14 so it is regarded as backdoor listing for Kakao. In 2017, Disney announced it will acquire most of 21st Century Fox assets in an all-stock deal valued at $52 Billion ($66 Billion if debt is


title: Dzogchen content: Indian saints. They were codified into a canon of eighteen texts which were referred to as "mind oriented" ("sems phyogs"), and later became known as "mind series" (sems de"). The mind series reflect the teachings of early Dzogchen, which rejected all forms of practice, and asserted that striving for liberation would simply create more delusion. One has simply to recognize the nature of one's own mind, which is naturally empty ("stong pa"), luminous ("'od gsal ba"), and pure. According to Germano, its characteristic language, which is marked by naturalism and negation, is already pronounced in some Indian tantras. Nevertheless, these


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: Red-winged blackbird The red-winged blackbird ("Agelaius phoeniceus") is a passerine bird of the family Icteridae found in most of North America and much of Central America. It breeds from Alaska and Newfoundland south to Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico, and Guatemala, with isolated populations in western El Salvador, northwestern Honduras, and northwestern Costa Rica. It may winter as far north as Pennsylvania and British Columbia, but northern populations are generally migratory, moving south to Mexico and the southern United States. Claims have been made that it is the most abundant living land bird in North America, as bird-counting censuses


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: of wintering red-winged blackbirds sometimes show that loose flocks can number in excess of a million birds per flock and the full number of breeding pairs across North and Central America may exceed 250 million in peak years. It also ranks among the best-studied wild bird species in the world. The red-winged blackbird is sexually dimorphic; the male is all black with a red shoulder and yellow wing bar, while the female is a nondescript dark brown. Seeds and insects make up the bulk of the red-winged blackbird's diet. The red-winged blackbird is one of 11 species in the genus


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: "Agelaius" and is included in the family Icteridae, which is made up of passerine birds found in North and South America. The red-winged blackbird was originally described as "Oriolus phoeniceus" by Linnaeus in his 18th-century work, "Systema Naturae", but was later moved with the other American blackbirds to the genus "Agelaius" (Vieillot, 1816). The genus name is Latin derived from Ancient Greek, "agelaios", meaning "belonging to a flock". The specific epithet, "phoeniceus", is from the Latin word meaning "deep red". There are a number of subspecies, some of doubtful status, which are mostly quite similar in appearance. However, there are


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: two isolated populations of bicolored blackbirds that are quite distinctive: "A. p. californicus" of California and "A. p. gubernator" of central Mexico. The taxonomy of these forms is little understood, and the relationships between these two populations and between them and red-winged blackbirds is still unclear. Despite the similar names, the red-winged blackbird is in a different family from the European redwing and the Old World common blackbird, which are thrushes (Turdidae). The common name for the red-winged blackbird is taken from the mainly black adult male's distinctive red shoulder patches, or "epaulets", which are visible when the bird is


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: flying or displaying. At rest, the male also shows a pale yellow wingbar. The female is blackish-brown and paler below. The female is smaller than the male, at long and weighing , against his length of and weight of . The smallest females may weigh as little as whereas the largest males can weigh up to . Each wing can range from , the tail measures , the culmen measures and the tarsus measures . The males of the bicolored subspecies lack the yellow wing patch of the nominate race, and the females are much darker than the female nominate.


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: Young birds resemble the female, but are paler below and have buff feather fringes. Both sexes have a sharply pointed bill. The tail is of medium length and is rounded. The eyes, bill, and feet are all black. The male is unmistakable except in the far west of the US, where the tricolored blackbird occurs. Males of that species have a darker red epaulet edged with white, not yellow. Females of tricolored, bicolored, red-shouldered and red-winged blackbirds can be difficult to identify in areas where more than one form occurs. In flight, when the field marks are not easily seen,


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: red-winged can be distinguished from less closely related Icterids such as common grackle and brown-headed cowbird by its different silhouette and undulating flight. The range of the red-winged blackbird stretches from southern Alaska to the Yucatan peninsula in the south, and from the western coast of California and Canada to the east coast of the continent. Red-winged blackbirds in the northern reaches of the range are migratory, spending winters in the southern United States and Central America. Migration begins in September or October, but occasionally as early as August. In western and Central America, populations are generally non-migratory. The red-winged


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: blackbird inhabits open grassy areas. It generally prefers wetlands, and inhabits both freshwater and saltwater marshes, particularly if cattail is present. It is also found in dry upland areas, where it inhabits meadows, prairies, and old fields. The calls of the red-winged blackbird are a throaty "check" and a high slurred whistle, "terrr-eeee". The male's song, accompanied by a display of his red shoulder patches, is a scratchy "oak-a-lee", except that in many western birds, including bicolored blackbirds, it is "ooPREEEEEom". The female also sings, typically a scolding chatter "chit chit chit chit chit chit cheer teer teer teerr". Virtually


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: all of North America's raptors take adult or young red-winged blackbirds, even barn owls, which usually only take small mammals, and northern saw-whet owls, which are scarcely larger than a male red-winged. "Accipiter" hawks are among their most prolific predators and, locally, they are one of the preferred prey species of short-tailed hawks. Crows, ravens, magpies and herons are occasionally predators of blackbird nests. Additional predators of blackbirds of all ages and their eggs include raccoons, mink, foxes and snakes, especially the rat snake. Marsh wrens destroy the eggs, at least sometimes drinking from them, and peck the nestlings to


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: death. The red-winged blackbird aggressively defends its territory from other animals. It will attack much larger birds. Males have been known to swoop at humans who encroach upon their nesting territory during breeding season. The maximum longevity of the red-winged blackbird in the wild is 15.8 years. The red-winged blackbird is omnivorous. It feeds primarily on plant materials, including seeds from weeds and waste grain such as corn and rice, but about a quarter of its diet consists of insects and other small animals, and considerably more so during breeding season. It prefers insects, such as dragonflies, damselflies, butterflies, moths,


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: and flies, but also consumes snails, frogs, eggs, carrion, worms, spiders, mollusks. The red-winged blackbird forages for insects by picking them from plants, or by catching them in flight. In season, it eats blueberries, blackberries, and other fruit. These birds can be lured to backyard bird feeders by bread and seed mixtures and suet. In late summer and in autumn, the red-winged blackbird will feed in open fields, mixed with grackles, cowbirds, and starlings in flocks which can number in the thousands. The red-winged blackbird nests in loose colonies. The nest is built in cattails, rushes, grasses, sedge, or in


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: alder or willow bushes. The nest is constructed entirely by the female over the course of three to six days. It is a basket of grasses, sedge, and mosses, lined with mud, and bound to surrounding grasses or branches. It is located to above water. A clutch consists of three or four, rarely five, eggs. Eggs are oval, smooth and slightly glossy, and measure . They are pale bluish green, marked with brown, purple, and/or black, with most markings around the larger end of the egg. These are incubated by the female alone, and hatch in 11 to 12 days.


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: Red-winged blackbirds are hatched blind and naked, but are ready to leave the nest 11 to 14 days after hatching. Red-winged blackbirds are polygynous, with territorial males defending up to 10 females. However, females frequently copulate with males other than their social mate and often lay clutches of mixed paternity. Pairs raise two or three clutches per season, in a new nest for each clutch. Predation of eggs and nestlings is quite common. Nest predators include snakes, mink, raccoons, and other birds, even as small as marsh wrens. The red-winged blackbird is occasionally a victim of brood parasites, particularly brown-headed


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: cowbirds. Since nest predation is common, several adaptations have evolved in this species. Group nesting is one such trait which reduces the risk of individual predation by increasing the number of alert parents. Nesting over water reduces the likelihood of predation, as do alarm calls. Nests, in particular, offer a strategic advantage over predators in that they are often well concealed in thick, waterside reeds and positioned at a height of one to two meters. Males often act as sentinels, employing a variety of calls to denote the kind and severity of danger. Mobbing, especially by males, is also used


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: to scare off unwanted predators, although mobbing often targets large animals and man-made devices by mistake. The brownish coloration of the female may also serve as an anti-predator trait in that it may provide camouflage for her and her nest while she is incubating. Adults are vulnerable to a multitude of raptorial birds, at least 16 species have hunted them in North America, including all "Accipiter" hawks and falcons as well as most species of "Buteo" hawk and any owls that hunt in open or wetland habitats. Red-winged blackbirds that breed in the northern part of their range, i.e., Canada


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: and border states in the United States, migrate south for the winter. However, populations near the Pacific and Gulf coasts of North America and those of Middle America are year-round resident. Red-winged blackbirds live in both Northern U.S. and Canada, ranging from Yucatan Peninsula in the south to the southern part of Alaska. These extensions account for the majority of the continent stretching from California’s Pacific coast and Canada to the eastern seaboard. Much of the populations within Middle America are non-migratory During the fall, populations begin migrating towards Southern U.S. Movement of red-winged blackbirds can begin as early as


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: August through October. Spring migration begins anywhere between mid-February to mid-May. Numerous birds from northern parts of the U.S., particularly the Great lakes, migrate nearly 1,200 km between their breeding season and winter Winter territorial areas differ based on geographic location Other populations that migrate year-round include those located in Middle America or in the western U.S. and Gulf Coast. Females typically migrate longer distances than males. These female populations located near the Great Lakes migrate nearly 230 km farther. Yearly-traveled females also migrate further than adult males, while also moving roughly the same distance as other adult females. Red-winged


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: blackbirds migrate primarily during daytime. In general, males’ migration flocks arrive prior to females in the spring and after females in the fall. Male red-winged blackbirds exhibit important territorial behaviors, most of which provides them with the necessary fidelity for many years to come. A few important factors for male red-winged blackbirds’ adherence to territories included food, hiding spaces from predators, types of neighbors, and reactions towards predators. Additionally, a study was done on site fidelity and movement patterns by Les D. Beletsky and Gordon H. Orians in 1987 which explained much of the males’ territorial behaviors once migrated and


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: settled onto a territory of their own. Sufficient evidence had shown that males are committed to staying in their territory over a long period of time and are not more likely to change territories at a younger age due to limited experience of knowledge for success. Studies also showed that most of the males that were first-time movers to a new territory were between two and three years old. The majority of males that moved were young and inexperienced. Later on they had moved towards more available territories. If males had chosen to leave their territory for reproductive success, as


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: an example, they would do so within a short distance. Males who moved shorter distances were more successful in reproducing than those who moved longer distances. Further studies showed that when males moved further away from their territories there was a decrease in probability of successfully fledging In winter, the species forage away from marshes, taking seeds and grain from open fields and agricultural areas. It is sometimes considered an agricultural pest. Farmers have been known to use pesticides—such as parathion—in illegal attempts to control their populations. In the United States, such efforts are illegal because no pesticide can be


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: used on non-target organisms, or for any use not explicitly listed on the pesticide's label. However, the USDA has deliberately poisoned this species: in 2009, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service reported poisoning over 950,000 red-winged blackbirds in Texas and Louisiana. This poisoning has been implicated as a potential cause of the decline of the rusty blackbird, a once abundant species that has declined 99% since the 1960s and has been recently listed as Threatened on the IUCN Red List. Like English, the indigenous languages of the bird's range describe it by its physical characteristics. In the Anishinaabe languages,


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: an indigenous language group spoken throughout much of the bird's northeastern range, this bird's names are diverse. In the Oji-Cree language, the northernmost of the Anishinaabe languages, it is called "jachakanoob", while the Ojibwa language spoken in Northwestern Ontario and into Manitoba ranging immediately south of the Oji-Cree's range, the bird is called "jachakanoo" (with the cognates "cahcahkaniw" (Swampy Cree), "cahcahkaluw" (coastal Southern East Cree), "cahcahkayuw" (inland Southern East Cree), "cahcahkayow" (Plains Cree)); the northern Algonquian languages classify the red-winged blackbird as a type of a junco or grackle, deriving the bird's name from their word for "spotted" or "marked".


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: In the vast majority of the other Ojibwa language dialects, the bird is called "memiskondinimaanganeshiinh", literally meaning "a bird with a very red damn-little shoulder-blade". However, in the Odawa language, an Anishinaabe language in southwestern Ontario and in Michigan, the bird is instead called either "memeskoniinisi" ("bird with a red [patch on its wing]") or "memiskonigwiigaans" ("[bird with a] wing of small and very red [patch]"). In N'syilxcn (Colville-Okanagan, Interior Salish language) the bird is known as ƛ̓kƛ̓aʕkək. In the Great Plains, the Lakota language, another indigenous language spoken throughout much of the bird's range, the bird is called "wabloša"


title: "Red-winged blackbird" content: ("wings of red"). Its songs are described in Lakota as "tōke, mat'ā nī" ("oh! that I might die"), as "nakun miyē" ("...and me"), as "miš eyā" ("me too!"), and as "cap'cehlī" ("a beaver's running sore"). And its name in nahuatl the Aztec idiom is "acolchichilli" that literally means "red shoulder". Red-winged blackbird The red-winged blackbird ("Agelaius phoeniceus") is a passerine bird of the family Icteridae found in most of North America and much of Central America. It breeds from Alaska and Newfoundland south to Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico, and Guatemala, with isolated populations in western El Salvador, northwestern


title: "Hooded crow" content: Hooded crow The hooded crow ("Corvus cornix") (also called hoodie) is a Eurasian bird species in the "Corvus" genus. Widely distributed, it is also known locally as Scotch crow and Danish crow. In Ireland, it is called "caróg liath" or grey crow, just as in the Slavic languages and in Danish. In German, it is called "mist crow" ("Nebelkrähe"). Found across Northern, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, as well as parts of the Middle East, it is an ashy grey bird with black head, throat, wings, tail, and thigh feathers, as well as a black bill, eyes, and feet. Like other


title: "Hooded crow" content: corvids, it is an omnivorous and opportunistic forager and feeder. It is so similar in morphology and habits to the carrion crow ("Corvus corone"), for many years they were considered by most authorities to be geographical races of one species. Hybridization observed where their ranges overlapped added weight to this view. However, since 2002, the hooded crow has been elevated to full species status after closer observation; the hybridisation was less than expected and hybrids had decreased vigour. Within the hooded crow species, four subspecies are recognized, with one, the Mesopotamian crow, possibly distinct enough to warrant species status itself.


title: "Hooded crow" content: The hooded crow was one of the many species originally described by Linnaeus in his 18th-century work "Systema Naturae" and it bears its original name of "Corvus cornix". The binomial name is derived from the Latin words "Corvus", "raven", and "cornix", "crow". It was subsequently considered a subspecies of the carrion crow for many years, hence known as "Corvus corone cornix", due to similarities in structure and habits. It is locally known as a hoodie in Scotland and as a grey crow in Northern Ireland. Four subspecies of the hooded crow are now recognised; previously, all were considered subspecies of


title: "Hooded crow" content: "Corvus corone". A fifth, "C. c. sardonius" (Trischitta, 1939) has been listed though it has been alternately partitioned between "C. c. sharpii" (most populations), "C. c. cornix" (Corsican population), and the Middle Eastern "C. c. pallescens". The hooded crow ("Corvus cornix") and carrion crow ("Corvus corone") are two closely related species whose geographical distribution across Europe is illustrated in the accompanying diagram. It is believed that this distribution might have resulted from the glaciation cycles during the Pleistocene, which caused the parent population to split into isolates which subsequently re-expanded their ranges when the climate warmed causing secondary contact. Poelstra


title: "Hooded crow" content: and coworkers sequenced almost the entire genomes of both species in populations at varying distances from the contact zone to find that the two species were genetically identical, both in their DNA and in its expression (in the form of "m"RNA), except for the "lack of expression" of a small portion (<0.28%) of the genome (situated on avian chromosome 18) in the hooded crow, which imparts the lighter plumage colouration on its torso. Thus the two species can viably hybridize, and occasionally do so at the contact zone, but the all-black carrion crows on the one side of the contact


title: "Hooded crow" content: zone mate almost exclusively with other all-black carrion crows, while the same occurs among the hooded crows on the other side of the contact zone. It is therefore clear that it is only the outward appearance of the two species that inhibits hybridization. The authors attribute this to assortative mating (rather than to ecological selection), the advantage of which is not clear, and it would lead to the rapid appearance of streams of new lineages, and possibly even species, through mutual attraction between mutants. Unnikrishnan and Akhila propose, instead, that koinophilia is a more parsimonious explanation for the resistance to


title: "Hooded crow" content: hybridization across the contact zone, despite the absence of physiological, anatomical or genetic barriers to such hybridization. Except for the head, throat, wings, tail, and thigh feathers, which are black and mostly glossy, the plumage is ash-grey, the dark shafts giving it a streaky appearance. The bill and legs are black; the iris dark brown. Only one moult occurs, in autumn, as in other crow species. The male is the larger bird, otherwise the sexes are alike. Their flight is slow and heavy and usually straight. Their length varies from . When first hatched, the young are much blacker than


title: "Hooded crow" content: the parents. Juveniles have duller plumage with bluish or greyish eyes and initially a red mouth. Wingspan is and weight is on average 510 g. The hooded crow, with its contrasted greys and blacks, cannot be confused with either the carrion crow or rook, but the call notes of the two are almost indistinguishable. The hooded crow breeds in northern and eastern Europe, and closely allied forms inhabit southern Europe and western Asia. Where its range overlaps with carrion crow, as in northern Britain, Germany, Denmark, northern Italy, and Siberia, their hybrids are fertile. However, the hybrids are less well-adapted


title: "Hooded crow" content: than purebred birds, and this is one of the reasons this species was split from the carrion crow. Little or no interbreeding occurs in some areas, such as Iran and central Russia. In the British Isles, the hooded crow breeds regularly in Scotland, the Isle of Man, and the Scottish Islands. It also breeds widely in Ireland. In autumn, some migratory birds arrive on the east coast of Britain. In the past, this was a more common visitor. The hooded crow is omnivorous, with a diet similar to that of the carrion crow, and is a constant scavenger. It drops


title: "Hooded crow" content: molluscs and crabs to break them after the manner of the carrion crow, and an old Scottish name for empty sea urchin shells was "crow's cups". On coastal cliffs, the eggs of gulls, cormorants, and other birds are stolen when their owners are absent, and this crow will enter the burrow of the puffin to steal eggs. It will also feed on small mammals, scraps, smaller birds, and carrion. The crow has the habit of hiding food, especially meat or nuts, in places such as rain gutters, flower pots, or in the earth under bushes, to feed on it later,


title: "Hooded crow" content: sometimes on the insects that have meanwhile developed on it. Other crows often watch if another one hides food and then search this place later when the other crow has left. Nesting occurs later in colder regions: mid-May to mid-June in northwest Russia, Shetland, and the Faroe Islands, and late February in the Persian Gulf region. In warmer parts of the British Isles, the clutch is laid in April. The bulky stick nest is normally placed in a tall tree, but cliff ledges, old buildings, and pylons may be used. Nests are occasionally placed on or near the ground. The