title: Secretarybird content: suggested that these characteristics are primitive features within the family. In spite of their age, it is not thought that the two species are ancestral to the secretary bird. Though strongly convergent with the modern secretarybird, the extinct raptor "Apatosagittarius" is thought to be an accipitrid. Its common name is popularly thought to derive from the crest of long quill-like feathers, lending the bird the appearance of a secretary with quill pens tucked behind their ear, as was once common practice. A more recent hypothesis is that "secretary" is borrowed from a French corruption of the Arabic "saqr-et-tair" or "hunter-bird".


title: Secretarybird content: The generic name "Sagittarius" is Latin for "archer", perhaps likening the secretary bird's "quills" to a quiver of arrows, and the specific epithet "serpentarius" recalls the bird's skill as a hunter of reptiles. The secretary bird is instantly recognizable as a very large bird with an eagle-like body on crane-like legs which increases the bird’s height to as much as tall. This bird has an eagle-like head with a hooked bill, but has rounded wings. Height can range from . Total length from and the wingspan is . Body mass can range from with 20 birds from southern Africa found


title: Secretarybird content: to weigh an average of . Other attempts to estimate the mean weight range for secretary birds correspondingly lie between . The tarsus of the secretary bird averages and the tail is , both factor into making them both taller and longer than any other species of raptor since these features are not as long in any other living raptor. The neck is not especially long, and can only be lowered down to the inter-tarsal joint, so birds reaching down to the ground or drinking must stoop to do so. From a distance or in flight it resembles a crane


title: Secretarybird content: more than a bird of prey. The tail has two elongated central feathers that extend beyond the feet during flight, as well as long flat plumage creating a posterior crest. Secretary bird flight feathers and thighs are black, while most of the coverts are grey with some being white. Sexes look similar to one another as the species exhibits very little sexual dimorphism, although the male has longer head plumes and tail feathers. Adults have a featherless red face as opposed to the yellow facial skin of the young. Secretary birds are endemic to Sub-Saharan Africa and are non-migratory, though


title: Secretarybird content: they may follow food sources. Their range extends from Mauritania to Somalia and south to the Cape of Good Hope. These birds are also found at a variety of elevations, from the coastal plains to the highlands. Secretary birds prefer open grasslands and savannas rather than forests and dense shrubbery which may impede their cursorial existence. While the birds roost on the local "Acacia" trees at night, they spend much of the day on the ground, returning to roosting sites just before dark. Unlike most birds of prey, the secretary bird is largely terrestrial, hunting its prey on foot. Adults


title: Secretarybird content: hunt in pairs and sometimes as loose familial flocks, stalking through the habitat with long strides. Prey may consist of insects, mammals ranging in size from mice to hares and mongoose, crabs, lizards, snakes, tortoises, small birds, bird eggs, and sometimes dead animals killed in grass or bush fires. Larger herbivores are not generally hunted, although there are some reports of secretary birds killing young gazelles and cheetah cubs. The importance of snakes in the diet has been exaggerated in the past, although they can be locally important and venomous species such as adders and cobras are regularly among the


title: Secretarybird content: types of snake preyed upon. Secretarybirds are kept as pest controllers by farmers to rid of snakes. Prey is often flushed out of tall grass by the birds stomping on the surrounding vegetation. It also waits near fires, eating anything it can that is trying to escape. They can either catch prey by chasing it and striking with the bill and swallowing (usually with small prey), or stamping on prey until it is rendered stunned or unconscious enough to swallow. Larger or dangerous prey, such as venomous snakes, are instead stunned or killed by the bird jumping onto their backs,


title: Secretarybird content: at which point they will try to snap their necks or backs. There are some reports that, when capturing snakes, the secretary birds will take flight with their prey and then drop them to their death, although this has not been verified. Even with larger prey, food is generally swallowed whole through the birds' considerable gape. Occasionally, like other raptors, they will tear apart prey with their feet before consuming it. Young are fed liquefied and regurgitated insects directly by the male or female parent and are eventually weaned to small mammals and reptile fragments regurgitated onto the nest itself.


title: Secretarybird content: The above foodstuffs are originally stored in the crop of the adults. The secretarybird has a relatively short digestive tract in comparison to other large African birds such as the kori bustard. As the foregut is specialized for digesting large amounts of meat in a short amount of time, there is little need for the physical breakdown of food within the digestive tract over extended time spans. The crop of the secretarybird is dilated and the gizzard is nonmuscular in comparison to other birds. The large intestine lacks a cecum as there is little need for fermentative digestion of plant


title: Secretarybird content: material. In hunting and feeding on small animals and arthropods on the ground and in tall grass or scrub, secretarybirds occupy an ecological niche similar to that occupied by peafowl in South and Southeast Asia, roadrunners in North and Central America and seriemas in South America. Secretarybirds associate in monogamous pairs. During courtship, they exhibit a nuptial display by soaring high with undulating flight patterns and calling with guttural croaking. Males and females can also perform a grounded display by chasing each other with their wings up and back, much like the way they chase prey. They usually mate on


title: Secretarybird content: the ground, although some do so in "Acacia" trees. Secretarybirds will stay close to their mate even if their chick has already left. Nests are built at a height of on "Acacia" trees. Both the male and female visit the nest site for almost half a year before egg laying takes place. The nest is around 2.5 m (eight feet) wide and 30 cm (one foot) deep, and is constructed as a relatively flat basin of sticks. Secretary birds lay two to three oval, pale-green eggs over the course of two to three days, although the third egg is most


title: Secretarybird content: often unfertilised. These eggs are incubated primarily by the female for 45 days until they hatch. The secretarybirds are facultatively fratricidal. There are conflicting opinions on this phenomenon also called cainism—"No evidence [exists] of sibling aggression, but youngest in brood of 3 almost always dies of starvation..." The downy young can feed autonomously after 40 days, although the parents still feed the young after that time. Both the parents feed the young. At 60 days, the young start to flap their wings, and by day 65–80 are able to fledge. Fledging is accomplished by jumping out of the nest or


title: Secretarybird content: using a semi-controlled fall via fervent wing flapping to the ground. After this time, the young are quickly taught how to hunt through expeditions with their parents and are considered independent soon after. Secretarybirds specialize in stomping their prey until the prey is killed or immobilized. This method of hunting is commonly applied to lizards or snakes. An adult male trained to strike at a rubber snake on a force plate was found to hit with a force equal to 5 times its own body weight, with a contact period of only 10–15 ms. This short time of contact suggests


title: Secretarybird content: that the secretarybird relies on superior visual targeting to determine the precise location of the prey's head. Although little is known about its visual field, it is assumed that it is large, frontal and binocular. As secretarybirds are anatomically similar (but apparently not closely related) to the extinct Phorusrhacidae, it has been hypothesized that these birds may have employed a similar hunting technique. Secretarybirds have unusually long legs (nearly twice as long as other ground birds of the same body mass), which is thought to be an adaptation for the bird’s unique stomping/striking hunting method. However, these long limbs appear


title: Secretarybird content: to also lower its running efficiency. The first successful rearing of a secretarybird in captivity occurred in 1986 at the Oklahoma City Zoo. Although secretarybirds build their nests in the trees in the wild, the captive birds at the Oklahoma City Zoo built theirs on the ground, which left their eggs open to depredation by local wild mammals. Therefore, zoo staff removed the eggs from the nest each time they were laid to be incubated and hatched at a safer location. The species now successfully breeds in captivity around the world, including in the San Diego Zoo and the Toronto


title: Secretarybird content: Zoo. The secretary bird has traditionally been admired in Africa for its striking appearance and ability to deal with pests and snakes. Africans sometimes call it the Devil's Horse. As such it has often not been disturbed, although this is changing as traditional observances have declined. The secretary bird is the emblem of Sudan as well as a prominent feature on the coat of arms of South Africa. In Sudan, it is featured in the middle white strip of the Presidential Flag; it is the main object on the Presidential Seal, and features heavily in Sudanese military insignia. The secretarybird


title: Secretarybird content: on the Presidential Flag and Seal has its head turned to the right, with its distinctive crest clearly visible and its wings spread out with a white banner between its outstretched wings reading "Victory Is Ours". The secretary bird has been a common motif for African countries on postage stamps: over a hundred stamps from 36 issuers are known, including some from stamp-issuing entities such as Ajman, Manama, the Maldives and the United Nations where the bird does not exist. The young are preyed upon by crows, ravens, hornbills, large owls and kites as they are vulnerable in "Acacia" tree


title: Secretarybird content: tops, with no known incidents of predation on adults. As a population, the secretary bird is mainly threatened by loss of habitat and deforestation. In 1968 the species became protected under the Africa Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Loss of grassland to bush encroachment driven by rising CO levels has also been implicated, as has a susceptibility to power line collisions. Nevertheless, the species is still widespread across Africa, and has adapted well to arable land where prey animals such as rodents are more common than in traditional habitat. The species is well represented in protected


title: Secretarybird content: areas as well. They are assessed as vulnerable by the IUCN due to a recent rapid decline across their entire range. Secretarybird The secretarybird or secretary bird ("Sagittarius serpentarius") is a very large, mostly terrestrial bird of prey. Endemic to Africa, it is usually found in the open grasslands and savannah of the sub-Saharan region. Although a member of the order Accipitriformes, which also includes many other diurnal raptors such as kites, hawks, vultures, and harriers, it is given its own family, Sagittariidae. It appears on the coats of arms of Sudan and South Africa. In 1769 Vosmaer was the


title: "Rail (bird)" content: Rail (bird) The rails, or Rallidae, are a large cosmopolitan family of small- to medium-sized, ground-living birds. The family exhibits considerable diversity and includes the crakes, coots, and gallinules. Many species are associated with wetlands, although the family is found in every terrestrial habitat except dry deserts, polar regions, and alpine areas above the snow line. Members of the Rallidae occur on every continent except Antarctica. Numerous island species are known. The most common rail habitats are marshland and dense forest. They are especially fond of dense vegetation. "Rail" is derived from French "râle", from Old French "rasle". It is


title: "Rail (bird)" content: named from its harsh cry, in Vulgar Latin *"rascula", from Latin "rādere" ('to scrape'). The rails are a family of small to medium-sized, ground-living birds. They vary in length from and in weight from . Some species have long necks and in many cases are laterally compressed. The bill is the most variable feature within the family. In some species, it is longer than the head (like the clapper rail of the Americas); in others, it may be short and wide (as in the coots), or massive (as in the purple gallinules). A few coots and gallinules have a frontal


title: "Rail (bird)" content: shield, which is a fleshy, rearward extension of the upper bill. The most complex frontal shield is found in the horned coot. Rails exhibit very little sexual dimorphism in either plumage or size. The wings of all rails are short and rounded. The flight of those Rallidae able to fly, while not powerful, can be sustained for long periods of time, and many species migrate annually. The weakness of their flight, however, means they are easily blown off course, thus are common vagrants, a characteristic that has led them to colonize many isolated oceanic islands. Furthermore, these birds often prefer


title: "Rail (bird)" content: to run rather than fly, especially in dense habitat. Some are also flightless at some time during their moult periods. Flightlessness in rails is one of the best examples of parallel evolution in the animal kingdom. Of the roughly 150 historically known rail species, 31 extant or recently extinct species evolved flightlessness from volant (flying) ancestors. This process created the endemic populations of flightless rails seen on Pacific islands today. Many island rails are flightless because small island habitats without mammalian predators eliminate the need to fly or move long distances. Flight makes intense demands, with the keel and flight


title: "Rail (bird)" content: muscles taking up to a quarter of a bird's weight in flying Rallidae species. Reducing the flight muscles, with a corresponding lowering of metabolic demands, reduces the flightless rail's energy expenditures. For this reason, flightlessness makes it easier to survive and colonize an island where resources may be limited. This also allows for the evolution of multiple sizes of flightless rails on the same island as the birds diversify to find niches. In addition to energy conservation, certain morphological traits also affect rail evolution. Rails have relatively shortened wings to begin with, which in combination with their terrestrial habits and


title: "Rail (bird)" content: behavioral flightlessness, lends speed to the evolution of flightlessness, making it remarkably fast; as few as 125,000 years were needed for the Laysan rail to lose the power of flight and evolve the reduced, stubby wings only useful to keep balance when running quickly. Indeed, some argue that measuring the evolution of flightlessness in rails in generations rather than millennia might be possible. Another factor that contributes to the occurrence of the flightless state is a climate that does not necessitate seasonal long-distance migration; this is evidenced by the tendency to evolve flightlessness at a much greater occurrence in tropical


title: "Rail (bird)" content: islands than in temperate or polar islands. It is paradoxical, since rails appear loath to fly, that the evolution of flightless rails would necessitate high dispersal to isolated islands. Nonetheless, three species of small-massed rails, "Gallirallus philippensis", "Porphyrio porphyrio", and "Porzana tabuensis", exhibit a persistently high ability to disperse long distances among tropic Pacific islands, though only the latter two gave rise to flightless endemic species throughout the Pacific Basin. In examining the phylogeny of "G. philippensis", although the species is clearly polyphyletic, it is not the ancestor of most of its flightless descendants, revealing that the flightless condition evolved


title: "Rail (bird)" content: in rails before speciation was complete. A consequence of lowered energy expenditure in flightless island rails has also been associated with evolution of their "tolerance" and "approachability". For example, the (non-Rallidae) Corsican blue tits exhibit lower aggression and reduced territorial defense behaviors than do their mainland European counterparts, but this tolerance may be limited to close relatives. The resulting kin-selecting altruistic phenomena reallocate resources to produce fewer young that are more competitive and would benefit the population as an entirety, rather than many young that would exhibit less fitness. Unfortunately, with the human occupation of most islands in the past


title: "Rail (bird)" content: 5,000 to 35,000 years, selection has undoubtedly reversed the tolerance into a wariness of humans and predators, causing species unequipped for the change to become susceptible to extinction. In general, members of the Rallidae are omnivorous generalists. Many species eat invertebrates, as well as fruit or seedlings. A few species are primarily herbivorous. The calls of Rallidae species vary and are often quite loud. Some are whistle-like or squeak-like, while others seem unbirdlike. Loud calls are useful in dense vegetation, or at night where seeing another member of the species is difficult. Some calls are territorial. The most typical family


title: "Rail (bird)" content: members occupy dense vegetation in damp environments near lakes, swamps, or rivers. Reed beds are a particularly favoured habitat. They are omnivorous, and those that migrate do so at night. Most nest in dense vegetation. In general, they are shy, secretive, and difficult to observe. Most species walk and run vigorously on strong legs, and have long toes that are well adapted to soft, uneven surfaces. They tend to have short, rounded wings, and although they are generally weak fliers, they are, nevertheless, capable of covering long distances. Island species often become flightless, and many of them are now extinct


title: "Rail (bird)" content: following the introduction of terrestrial predators such as cats, rats, and pigs. Many reedbed species are secretive (apart from loud calls), crepuscular, and have laterally flattened bodies. In the Old World, long-billed species tend to be called rails and short-billed species crakes. North American species are normally called rails irrespective of bill length. The smallest of these is Swinhoe's rail, at and 25 g. The larger species are also sometimes given other names. The black coots are more adapted to open water than their relatives, and some other large species are called gallinules and swamphens. The largest of this group


title: "Rail (bird)" content: is the takahe, at and . The rails have suffered disproportionally from human changes to the environment, and an estimated several hundred species of island rails have become extinct because of this. Several island species of rails remain endangered, and conservation organisations and governments continue to work to prevent their extinction. The breeding behaviors of many Rallidae species are poorly understood or unknown. Most are thought to be monogamous, although polygyny and polyandry have been reported. Most often, they lay five to 10 eggs. Clutches as small as one or as large as 15 eggs are known. Egg clutches may


title: "Rail (bird)" content: not always hatch at the same time. Chicks become mobile after a few days. They often depend on their parents until fledging, which happens around 1 month old. Some larger, more abundant rails are hunted and their eggs collected for food. The Wake Island rail was hunted to extinction by the starving Japanese garrison after the island was cut off from supply during World War II. At least two species, the common moorhen and the American purple gallinule, have been considered pests. Due to their tendencies towards flightlessness, many island species have been unable to cope with introduced species. The


title: "Rail (bird)" content: most dramatic human-caused extinctions occurred in the Pacific Ocean as people colonised the islands of Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia, during which an estimated 750–1800 species of birds became extinct, half of which were rails. Some species that came close to extinction, such as the Lord Howe woodhen, and the takahe, have made modest recoveries due to the efforts of conservation organisations. The Guam rail came perilously close to extinction when brown tree snakes were introduced to Guam, but some of the last remaining individuals were taken into captivity and are breeding well, though attempts at reintroduction have met with mixed


title: "Rail (bird)" content: results. The family Rallidae was introduced (as Rallia) by the French polymath Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1815. The family has traditionally been grouped with two families of larger birds, the cranes and bustards, as well as several smaller families of usually "primitive" midsized amphibious birds, to make up the order Gruiformes. The alternative Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, which has been widely accepted in America, raises the family to ordinal level as the Ralliformes. Given uncertainty about gruiform monophyly, this may or may not be correct; it certainly seems more justified than most of the Sibley-Ahlquist proposals. However, such a group would probably


title: "Rail (bird)" content: also include the Heliornithidae (finfoots and sungrebes), an exclusively tropical group that is somewhat convergent with grebes, and usually united with the rails in the Ralli. Additionally, many prehistoric rails of extant genera are known only from fossil or subfossil remains, such as the Ibiza rail ("Rallus eivissensis"). These have not been listed here; see the genus accounts and the articles on fossil and Late Quaternary prehistoric birds for these species. The Rallidae based on the work by John Boyd: The undescribed Fernando de Noronha rail, genus and species undetermined, survived to historic times. and see genus accounts Fossil species


title: "Rail (bird)" content: of long-extinct prehistoric rails are richly documented from the well-researched formations of Europe and North America, as well from the less comprehensively studied strata elsewhere: These taxa may or may not have been rails: The presumed scolopacid wader "Limosa gypsorum" (Montmartre Late Eocene of France) is sometimes considered a rail and then placed in the genus "Montirallus". Rail (bird) The rails, or Rallidae, are a large cosmopolitan family of small- to medium-sized, ground-living birds. The family exhibits considerable diversity and includes the crakes, coots, and gallinules. Many species are associated with wetlands, although the family is found in every terrestrial


title: "Garsington Manor" content: Garsington" some four years in advance of "Crome Yellow", and wittier than Huxley according to Mansfield's biographer Antony Alpers. Published in The New Age of 24 May 1917, it was not reprinted until 1984 in Alper's collection of her short stories. Five young gentlemen are having a drawing-room argument, observed by Isobel and Marigold: "Aren't men extraordinary" says Marigold. The Morrells moved out in 1928. The house was then owned by Sir John Wheeler-Bennett until it was sold in 1981 to Leonard and Rosalind Ingrams and their family. Garsington Manor Garsington Manor, in the village of Garsington, near Oxford, England,


title: "Durham Cathedral" content: but the central tower was damaged by lightning and replaced in two stages in the 15th century, the master masons being Thomas Barton and John Bell. The Shrine of Saint Cuthbert was located in the eastern apsidal end of the cathedral. The location of the inner wall of the apse is marked on the pavement and Cuthbert's tomb is covered by a simple slab. However, an unknown monk wrote in 1593: Cuthbert's tomb was destroyed on the orders of King Henry VIII in 1538, and the monastery's wealth handed over to the king. The body of the saint was exhumed,


title: Sandgrouse content: Sandgrouse Sandgrouse is the common name for Pteroclidae, a family of sixteen species of bird, members of the order Pterocliformes. They are traditionally placed in two genera. The two central Asian species are classified as "Syrrhaptes" and the other fourteen species, from Africa and Asia, are placed in the genus "Pterocles". They are ground dwelling birds restricted to treeless, open country, such as plains, savannahs and semi-deserts. They are distributed across northern, southern and eastern Africa, Madagascar, the Middle East and India through to central Asia. The ranges of the black-bellied sandgrouse and the pin-tailed sandgrouse extend into the Iberian


title: Sandgrouse content: Peninsula and France, and Pallas's sandgrouse occasionally breaks out in large numbers from its normal range in Asia. Sandgrouse have small, pigeon-like heads and necks and sturdy compact bodies. They range in size from in length and from in weight. The adults are sexually dimorphic with the males being slightly larger and more brightly colored than the females. They have eleven strong primary feathers and long pointed wings giving them a fast direct flight. The muscles of the wings are powerful and the birds are capable of rapid take off and sustained flight. In some species, the central feathers in


title: Sandgrouse content: the tail are extended into long points. The legs are short and members of the genus "Syrrhaptes" have feathers growing on both the legs and toes and no hind toes, while members of the genus "Pterocles" have legs feathered just at the front, no feathers on the toes and rudimentary hind toes raised off the ground. The plumage is cryptic, generally being in shades of sandy brown, grey and buff, variously mottled and barred, enabling the birds to merge into the dusty landscape. There is a dense layer of under down which helps insulate the bird from extremes of heat


title: Sandgrouse content: and cold. The feathers of the belly are specially adapted for absorbing water and retaining it, allowing adults, particularly males, to carry water to chicks that may be many miles away from watering holes. The amount of water that can be carried in this way is 15 to 20 millilitres (0.5 to 0.7 fluid ounce). Members of the genus "Syrrhaptes" are found in the steppes of central Asia. Their range extends from the Caspian Sea through southern Siberia, Tibet and Mongolia to northern and central China. They are normally resident, but Pallas's sandgrouse can be locally migratory and very occasionally


title: Sandgrouse content: is irruptive, appearing in areas well outside its normal range. This happened in 1863 and 1888, and a major irruption took place in 1908 when many birds were seen as far afield as Ireland and the United Kingdom where they bred in Yorkshire and Moray. Members of the genus "Pterocles" are mainly found in the drier parts of northern, eastern and southern Africa though the range of some species extends into the Middle East and western Asia. The Madagascar sandgrouse is restricted to Madagascar. The black-bellied sandgrouse and the pin-tailed sandgrouse also occur in Spain, Portugal and southern France. Most


title: Sandgrouse content: species are sedentary though some make local migrations, typically to lower altitudes in winter. Sandgrouse are principally seed eaters. Other food items eaten include green shoots and leaves, bulbs and berries. Insect food such as ants and termites may be eaten especially during the breeding season. The diet of many sandgrouse is highly specialised, with the seeds of a small number of plant species being dominant. This may depend on local availability but in other cases it reflects actual selection of favoured seeds over others by the sandgrouse. Seeds of leguminous plants are usually an important part of the diet.


title: Sandgrouse content: In agricultural areas oats and other grain are readily taken. Seeds are either collected from the ground or directly from the plants. Foraging techniques vary between species that coexist which reduces competition; in Namibia, double-banded sandgrouse feed slowly and methodically whilst Namaqua sandgrouse feed rapidly, exploring loose soil with their beaks and flicking it away sideways. Grit is also swallowed to help grind up food in the gizzard. Sandgrouse are gregarious, feeding in flocks of up to 100 birds. As a consequence of their dry diet, they need to visit water sources regularly. Drinking times vary among the species. Ten


title: Sandgrouse content: species drink at dawn, four at dusk and two at indeterminate times. When drinking, water is sucked into the beak which is then raised to let the water flow down into the crop. By repeating this procedure rapidly, enough water to last twenty four hours can be swallowed in a few seconds. As they travel to water holes, they call to members of their own species and many hundreds or thousands synchronise their arrival at the drinking site despite converging from many different locations scattered over hundreds of square miles (kilometres) of territory. They are vulnerable to attack while watering


title: Sandgrouse content: but with a large number of birds milling about, predators find it difficult to select a target bird and are likely to have been spotted before they can get close to the flock. The choice of a watering site is influenced by the topography of the nearby ground. The sandgrouse tend to avoid sites with cover for mammalian predators and their greatest risk is usually from predatory birds. Sandgrouse travel tens of miles to their traditional water holes and tend to disregard temporary water sources which may appear periodically. This probably has a survival value because a dried up water


title: Sandgrouse content: source in an arid region could result in dehydration and death. The Burchell's sandgrouse in the Kalahari Desert sometimes travels over daily to reach a water source. Not all species need to drink every day, and the Tibetan sandgrouse does not need to travel to drink because of the abundance of water from melting snowfields in its habitat. Sandgrouse are monogamous. The breeding season usually coincides with a crop of seeds after the local rainy season and at this time, the feeding flocks tend to break up into pairs. The nesting site is a slight depression in the ground, sometimes


title: Sandgrouse content: lined with a few pieces of dry foliage. Most typically, three cryptic eggs are laid, though occasionally there may be two or four. Incubation duties are shared and in most species, the males incubate at night while the females sit on the eggs during the day. The eggs usually hatch after 20–25 days. The precocial chicks are covered with down and leave the nest as soon as the last hatchling has dried out. The parents do not provide them with food and they learn, with parental guidance, what is edible and what is not. The chicks obtain their water from


title: Sandgrouse content: the soaked downy feathers on the adults breasts. At first the chicks are too small and young to thermoregulate, and are provided with shade during the hottest part of the day and brooded at night. They remain with their parents, as a family group, for several months. The Pteroclidae was formerly included in the Galliformes due to the similarities the family shares with the true grouse. However, it was later discovered that these similarities are superficial and a result of convergent evolution. Sandgrouse were later placed near the Columbiformes largely due to their reported ability to drink by the "sucking"


title: Sandgrouse content: or "pumping" action of peristalsis of the esophagus, an unusual characteristic. More recently, it has been reported that they cannot suck up water in this way, and they are now treated separately in the order Pterocliformes. They have been considered near passerine birds and are considered by some to be closer to the shorebirds (Charadriiformes). In the DNA-study by Fain and Houde (2004) they were included in the Metaves, together with the Columbiformes. In the larger study by Hackett et al. (2008) they were once again positioned close to the Columbiformes, in Columbimorphae, but also with the Mesites. The intricately


title: Sandgrouse content: patterned, precocial downy young and egg colouration (though not shape) closely resemble those of many Charadriiformes. Eggs are near elliptical. Living Pterocliformes based on the work by John Boyd. Sandgrouse have little interaction with people, primarily because most species live in arid unpopulated areas and at low densities. They are not generally sought after as game birds as they are not especially palatable, although they have on occasion been taken in great numbers at water holes. An attempt to introduce them into Nevada failed but they have been introduced to Hawaii. No species is considered to be threatened although there


title: Sandgrouse content: have been some localised range contractions, particularly in Europe. A subspecies of the chestnut-bellied sandgrouse, "P. e. floweri", was last seen in the Nile Valley of Egypt in 1979. It is thought to be extinct, but the reasons for this are unknown. Sandgrouse Sandgrouse is the common name for Pteroclidae, a family of sixteen species of bird, members of the order Pterocliformes. They are traditionally placed in two genera. The two central Asian species are classified as "Syrrhaptes" and the other fourteen species, from Africa and Asia, are placed in the genus "Pterocles". They are ground dwelling birds restricted to


title: "Alouette 1" content: to determine the satellite's orientation only by readings from a magnetometer and from temperature sensors on the upper and lower heat shields. The orientation determinations obtained this way were only accurate to within 10 degrees. It is likely that gravitational gradients had caused the longest antenna to point towards the Earth. "Alouette"s mission lasted for 10 years before the satellite was deliberately switched off on 30 September 1972. The satellite remains in orbit; in 1966 it was estimated that "Alouette 1" would remain in orbit for 1000 years. Two satellites were built for redundancy in case of a malfunction; if


title: "Nikolai Kibalchich" content: or at least to receive a written answer from the experts who have examined my design, also no longer than tomorrow. I also ask your Excellency for permission for me, before I die, to meet with all my comrades in the trial or at least with Zhelyabov and Perovskaya." All the requests were ignored. At 7:50 am on the sunny spring morning of April 3 two “chariots of shame” with the condemned prisoners rode out of the house of the detention to Shpalernaya Street. Zhelyabov was in the first, and by his side was Rysakov, who had tossed the first


title: Denali content: Denali Denali () (also known as Mount McKinley, its former official name) is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of above sea level. With a topographic prominence of and a topographic isolation of , Denali is the third most prominent and third most isolated peak on Earth, after Mount Everest and Aconcagua. Located in the Alaska Range in the interior of the U.S. state of Alaska, Denali is the centerpiece of Denali National Park and Preserve. The Koyukon people who inhabit the area around the mountain have referred to the peak as "Denali" for centuries.


title: Denali content: In 1896, a gold prospector named it "Mount McKinley" in support of then-presidential candidate William McKinley; that name was the official name recognized by the Federal government of the United States from 1917 until 2015. In August 2015, following the 1975 lead of the State of Alaska, the United States Department of the Interior announced the change of the official name of the mountain to Denali. In 1903, James Wickersham recorded the first attempt at climbing Denali, which was unsuccessful. In 1906, Frederick Cook claimed the first ascent, which was later proven to be false. The first verifiable ascent to


title: Denali content: Denali's summit was achieved on June 7, 1913, by climbers Hudson Stuck, Harry Karstens, Walter Harper, and Robert Tatum, who went by the South Summit. In 1951, Bradford Washburn pioneered the West Buttress route, considered to be the safest and easiest route, and therefore the most popular currently in use. On September 2, 2015, the U.S. Geological Survey announced that the mountain is high, not , as measured in 1952 using photogrammetry. Denali is a granitic pluton lifted by tectonic pressure from the subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the North American Plate; at the same time, the sedimentary material


title: Denali content: above and around the mountain was stripped away by erosion. The forces that lifted Denali also cause many deep earthquakes in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. The Pacific Plate is seismically active beneath Denali, a tectonic region that is known as the "McKinley cluster". Denali has a summit elevation of above sea level, making it the highest peak in North America and the northernmost mountain above 6,000 meters elevation in the world. Measured from base to peak at some , it is among the largest mountains situated entirely above sea level (although some Asian mountains i.e. Rakaposhi, Dhaulagiri and Nanga


title: Denali content: Parbat are even larger in this regard ). Denali rises from a sloping plain with elevations from , for a base-to-peak height of . By comparison, Mount Everest rises from the Tibetan Plateau at a much higher base elevation. Base elevations for Everest range from on the south side to on the Tibetan Plateau, for a base-to-peak height in the range of . Denali's base-to-peak height is little more than half the of the volcano Mauna Kea, which lies mostly under water. Denali has two significant summits: the South Summit is the higher one, while the North Summit has an


title: Denali content: elevation of and a prominence of approximately . The North Summit is sometimes counted as a separate peak (see e.g., fourteener) and sometimes not; it is rarely climbed, except by those doing routes on the north side of the massif. Five large glaciers flow off the slopes of the mountain. The Peters Glacier lies on the northwest side of the massif, while the Muldrow Glacier falls from its northeast slopes. Just to the east of the Muldrow, and abutting the eastern side of the massif, is the Traleika Glacier. The Ruth Glacier lies to the southeast of the mountain, and


title: Denali content: the Kahiltna Glacier leads up to the southwest side of the mountain. With a length of , the Kahiltna Glacier is the longest glacier in the Alaska Range. The Koyukon Athabaskans who inhabit the area around the mountain have for centuries referred to the peak as "Dinale" or "Denali". The name is based on a Koyukon word for "high" or "tall". During the Russian ownership of Alaska, the common name for the mountain was "Bolshaya Gora" (, "bolshaya" = Russian for "big"; "gora" = Russian for "mountain"), which is the Russian translation of "Denali". It was briefly called Densmore's Mountain


title: Denali content: in the late 1880s and early 1890s after Frank Densmore, an Alaskan prospector who was the first European to reach the base of the mountain. In 1896, a gold prospector named it "McKinley" as political support for then-presidential candidate William McKinley, who became president the following year. The United States formally recognized the name Mount McKinley after President Wilson signed the Mount McKinley National Park Act of February 26, 1917. In 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson declared the north and south peaks of the mountain the "Churchill Peaks", in honor of British statesman Winston Churchill. The Alaska Board of Geographic Names


title: Denali content: changed the name of the mountain to "Denali" in 1975, which was how it is called locally. However, a request in 1975 from the Alaska state legislature to the United States Board on Geographic Names to do the same at the federal level was blocked by Ohio congressman Ralph Regula, whose district included McKinley's hometown of Canton. On August 30, 2015, just ahead of a presidential visit to Alaska, the Barack Obama administration announced the name "Denali" would be restored in line with the Alaska Geographic Board's designation. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell issued the order changing the


title: Denali content: name to Denali on August 28, 2015, effective immediately. Jewell said the change had been "a long time coming". The renaming of the mountain received praise from Alaska's senior U.S. senator, Lisa Murkowski, who had previously introduced legislation to accomplish the name change, but it drew criticism from several politicians from President McKinley's home state of Ohio, such as Governor John Kasich, U.S. Senator Rob Portman, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, and Representative Bob Gibbs, who described Obama's action as "constitutional overreach" because he said an act of Congress is required to rename the mountain. The "Alaska Dispatch News" reported


title: Denali content: that the Secretary of the Interior has authority under federal law to change geographic names when the Board of Geographic Names does not act on a naming request within a "reasonable" period of time. Jewell told the "Alaska Dispatch News" that "I think any of us would think that 40 years is an unreasonable amount of time." Indigenous names for Denali can be found in seven different Alaskan languages. The names fall into two categories. To the south of the Alaska Range in the Dena'ina and Ahtna languages the mountain is known by names that are translated as "big mountain".


title: Denali content: To the north of the Alaska Range in the Lower Tanana, Koyukon, Upper Kuskokwim, Holikachuk, and Deg Xinag languages the mountain is known by names that are translated as "the high one", "the tall one" (Koyukon, Lower and Middle Tanana, Upper Kuskokwim, Deg Xinag, and Holikachuk), or "big mountain" (Ahtna and Dena'ina). Asked about the importance of the mountain and its name, Will Mayo, former president of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, an organization that represents 42 Athabaskan tribes in the Alaskan interior, said "It’s not one homogeneous belief structure around the mountain, but we all agree that we’re all deeply


title: Denali content: gratified by the acknowledgment of the importance of Denali to Alaska’s people." The following table lists the Alaskan Athabascan names for Denali. The Koyukon Athabaskans, living in the Yukon, Tanana and Kuskokwim basins, were the first Native Americans with access to the flanks of the mountain. A British naval captain and explorer, George Vancouver, is the first European on record to have sighted Denali, when he noted "distant stupendous mountains" while surveying the Knik Arm of the Cook Inlet on May 6, 1794. The Russian explorer Lavrenty Zagoskin explored the Tanana and Kuskokwim rivers in 1843 and 1844, and was


title: Denali content: likely the first European to sight the mountain from the other side. William Dickey, a New Hampshire-born resident of Seattle, Washington who had been digging for gold in the sands of the Susitna River, wrote, after his returning from Alaska, an account in the "New York Sun" that appeared on January 24, 1897. His report drew attention with the sentence "We have no doubt that this peak is the highest in North America, and estimate that it is over high." Until then, Mount Logan in Canada's Yukon Territory was believed to be the continent’s highest point. Though later praised for


title: Denali content: his estimate, Dickey admitted that other prospector parties had also guessed the mountain to be over . On November 5, 2012, the United States Mint released a twenty-five cent piece depicting Denali National Park. It is the fifteenth of the America the Beautiful Quarters series. The reverse features a Dall sheep with the peak of Denali in the background. The first recorded attempt to climb Denali was by Judge James Wickersham in 1903, via the Peters Glacier and the North Face, now known as the Wickersham Wall. Because of the route's history of avalanche danger, it was not successfully climbed


title: Denali content: until 1963. Famed explorer Dr. Frederick Cook claimed the first ascent of the mountain in 1906. His claim was regarded with some suspicion from the start, but was also widely believed. It was later proved false, with some crucial evidence provided by Bradford Washburn when he was sketched on a lower peak. In 1910, four area locals – Tom Lloyd, Peter Anderson, Billy Taylor, and Charles McGonagall – known as the Sourdough Expedition, attempted to climb Denali despite a lack of climbing experience. The group spent approximately three months on the mountain. Their purported summit ascent day included carrying a


title: Denali content: bag of doughnuts each, a thermos of hot chocolate, and a 14-foot (4.2 m) spruce pole. Two of them reached the North Summit, the lower of the two, and erected the pole near the top. According to the group, the time they took to reach the summit was a total of 18 hours. Until the first ascent in 1913, their claims were disbelieved, in part due to false claims they had climbed both summits. In 1912, the Parker-Browne expedition nearly reached the summit, turning back within just a few hundred yards of it due to harsh weather. The day after


title: Denali content: their descent, the Great Earthquake of 1912 shattered the glacier they had ascended. The first ascent of the main summit of Denali came on June 7, 1913, by a party led by Hudson Stuck and Harry Karstens. The first man to reach the summit was Walter Harper, an Alaska Native. Robert Tatum also made the summit. Using the mountain's contemporary name, Tatum later commented, "The view from the top of Mount McKinley is like looking out the windows of Heaven!" They ascended the Muldrow Glacier route pioneered by the earlier expeditions, which is still often climbed today. Stuck confirmed, via


title: Denali content: binoculars, the presence of a large pole near the North Summit; this report confirmed the Sourdough ascent, and today it is widely believed that the Sourdoughs did succeed on the North Summit. However, the pole was never seen before or since, so there is still some doubt. Stuck also discovered that the Parker-Browne party were only about 200 feet (61 m) of elevation short of the true summit when they turned back. The mountain is regularly climbed today. In 2003, around 58% of climbers reached the top. But by 2003, the mountain had claimed the lives of nearly 100 mountaineers


title: Denali content: over time. The vast majority of climbers use the West Buttress Route, pioneered in 1951 by Bradford Washburn, after an extensive aerial photographic analysis of the mountain. Climbers typically take two to four weeks to ascend Denali. It is one of the Seven Summits; summiting all of them is a challenge for mountaineers. On August 4, 2018, 5 people died in the K2 Aviation de Havilland Beaver (DHC-2) crash near Denali. The Japan Alpine Club installed a meteorological station on a ridge near the summit of Denali at an altitude of in 1990. In 1998, this weather station was donated


title: Denali content: to the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. In June 2002, a weather station was placed at the level. This weather station was designed to transmit data in real-time for use by the climbing public and the science community. Since its establishment, annual upgrades to the equipment have been performed with instrumentation custom built for the extreme weather and altitude conditions. This weather station is the third-highest weather station in the world. The weather station recorded a temperature of on December 1, 2003. On the previous day of November 30, 2003, a temperature of combined with


title: Denali content: a wind speed of to produce a North American record windchill of . Even in July, this weather station has recorded temperatures as low as and windchills as low as . The mountain is characterized by extremely cold weather. Temperatures as low as and wind chills as low as have been recorded by an automated weather station located at . According to the National Park Service, in 1932 the -Lindley expedition recovered a self-recording minimum thermometer left near Browne's Tower, at about , on Denali by the Stuck-Karstens party in 1913. The spirit thermometer was calibrated down to , and


title: Denali content: the lowest recorded temperature was below that point. Harry J. Lek took the thermometer back to Washington, D.C. where it was tested by the United States Weather Bureau and found to be accurate. The lowest temperature that it had recorded was found to be approximately . Another thermometer was placed at the level by the U.S. Army Natick Laboratory, and was there from 1950 to 1969. The coldest temperature recorded during that period was also . Besides the North Summit mentioned above, other features on the massif which are sometimes included as separate peaks are: Nearby peaks include: Denali Denali


title: "Sweden Finns" content: usage isn't quite embraced in Sweden. According to the latest research by Radio of Sweden (Sveriges Radio), there are almost 470,000 people who speak or understand Finnish or "Meänkieli", which is about 5.2% of the population of Sweden. In the Swedish mindset, the term "Sweden Finns" historically denominated primarily the (previously) un-assimilated indigenous minority of ethnic Finns who ended up on the Swedish side of the border when Sweden was partitioned in 1809, after the Finnish War, and the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland was created. These "Finnish-speaking Swedes" are chiefly categorized as either Tornedalians originating at the Finnish–Swedish border


title: Tinamou content: Tinamou Tinamous form an order of birds (Tinamiformes), comprising a single family (Tinamidae) with two distinct subfamilies, containing 47 species found in Mexico, Central America, and South America. The word "tinamou" comes from the Galibi term for these birds, "tinamu". Tinamous have traditionally been regarded as the sister group of the flightless ratites, but recent work places them well within the ratite radiation, implying basal ratites could fly. Tinamous first appear in the fossil record in the Miocene epoch. They are generally sedentary, ground-dwelling and, though not flightless, when possible avoid flight in favour of hiding or running away from


title: Tinamou content: danger. They are found in a variety of habitats, ranging from semi-arid alpine grasslands to tropical rainforests. The two subfamilies are broadly divided by habitat, with the Nothurinae referred to as steppe or open country tinamous, and the Tinaminae known as forest tinamous. Although some species are quite common, tinamous are shy and secretive birds. They are active during the day, retiring to roosts at night. They generally have cryptic plumage, with males and females similar in appearance, though the females are usually larger. They are opportunistic and omnivorous feeders, consuming a wide variety of plant and animal food from


title: Tinamou content: fruits and seeds to worms, insects and small vertebrates. They will dust-bathe as well as wash themselves by standing in heavy rain. They are heard more often than seen, communicating with each other by a variety of frequently given, characteristic calls, especially during the breeding season. With occasional exceptions, a male tinamou maintains a territory and a nesting site during the breeding season which a succession of females will visit, laying their eggs in the same nest. Females will wander through several territories mating with, and laying eggs in the nests of, the resident males. Nests are always on the


title: Tinamou content: ground, concealed in vegetation or among rocks. Eggs are relatively large and glossy, often brightly colored when laid, and are incubated by the males for a period of 2–3 weeks. The chicks can run soon after hatching and are largely self-sufficient at three weeks old. Tinamous and their eggs have many natural predators, from falcons and vampire bats to jaguars. They have also been extensively hunted by humans and sometimes persecuted as agricultural pests. However, the main threat to their populations is from habitat destruction through land clearing and agricultural development. Seven species are listed as vulnerable and another seven


title: Tinamou content: as near-threatened. They feature in the mythology of the indigenous peoples of their range. Often translocated and easily bred in captivity, they have never been successfully domesticated. The tinamou family consists of about 47 species in nine genera. The two subfamilies are the Nothurinae (also known as the Rhyncotinae), the steppe tinamous, and the Tinaminae, the forest tinamous. ""Tinamidae"" was defined as by Gauthier and de Queiroz (2001): ""Tinamidae" refers to the crown clade stemming from the most recent common ancestor of "Tetrao" ["Tinamus"] "major" Gmelin 1789 and all extant birds sharing a more recent ancestor with that species than


title: Tinamou content: with "Struthio camelus" Linnaeus 1758 and "Vultur gryphus" Linnaeus 1758." Their similarity to other ground-dwelling birds such as partridges and megapodes is a result of convergence and symplesiomorphy rather than shared evolutionary innovations. Of Gondwanan origin, tinamous are allied to the flightless ratites, together comprising the Palaeognathae ("old jaws"), while all other living birds are members of Neognathae ("new jaws"). Unlike other palaeognaths, tinamous do have a keeled sternum, but like the other palaeognaths, they have a distinctive palate. It was formerly believed that the Tinamiformes separated from the ratites early on due to their retention of a keeled sternum.


title: Tinamou content: The tinamous' possession of powder-down feathers and preen glands, which the ratites lack, was another source of confusion in evaluating their taxonomy. The tinamou family has been shown to be monophyletic. Phylogenomic studies have placed it as the sister group to extant Australasian and Oceanian ratites (i.e. the cassowaries, emus, and kiwis), thus locating it well within the ratite phylogenetic tree, with the South American rheas and African ostriches as successive outgroups. Research published starting in 2010 has found that tinamous are actually closest to the extinct moa of New Zealand; moa are more distantly related to the geographically proximate


title: Tinamou content: kiwis, emus and cassowaries than had been previously supposed. These findings imply that evolution of flightlessness occurred independently multiple times in ratite evolution. Flight-capable lithornithids from the Paleocene and Eocene epochs appear to have been structurally the most similar precursors to the tinamous, and may have been ancestral to them as well as to the ratites, though their precise relationships are unclear. The earliest unequivocally Tinamiforme fossil material dates from the Miocene, but flightless ratite-like taxa from the Paleocene may belong to this group. Several tinamou fossils have been found in the 16–17 Mya Early-Middle Miocene Santa Cruz Formation and


title: Tinamou content: the contemporary, or slightly older, Pinturas Formation, in Santa Cruz Province of Argentinian Patagonia, including a tinaminid, "Crypturellus reai". Associated fossils indicate that the local palaeoenvironment at the beginning of this period was characterised by a humid, subtropical climate, with forest vegetation, becoming drier and more open with time. Some of the tinamou fossil material appears to be intermediate between the two subfamilies, suggesting that the period coincides with the origins of the radiation of the Nothurinae into the expanding open-country habitats. Nothurine fossils referrable to "Eudromia" and "Nothura" have been found in the Late Miocene Cerro Azul Formation from


title: Tinamou content: the Pampean region of central-southern Argentina. Tinamous described from Pliocene material include "Eudromia olsoni" Tambussi & Tonni, 1985, "Nothura parvulus" Rovereto, 1914, and "Nothura padulosa" Mercerat, 1897. The Pliocene fossil genera "Cayetornis" Brodkorb and "Tinamisornis" Rovereto have been synonymized with "Nothura" and "Eudromia" respectively. Fossils having affinities with several extant genera have been found in Pleistocene deposits. Cladogram of tinamou genera based on a combination of morphological and molecular data analysed by Bertelli & Porzecanski (2004) Conservation status key: Order Tinamiformes [Crypturi ; Dromaeomorphae ] Family Tinamidae Tinamous are plump, compact birds with slender necks, small heads and, usually, short,


title: Tinamou content: decurved bills, though a few have long bills. Females are usually larger than the males. The smallest species, the dwarf tinamou, weighs about with a length of . Females of the largest, the grey tinamou, weigh up to with a length of up to . Their feet have three forward-facing toes; a hind toe is either higher and retrogressed, or absent. The back of the tarsus is covered with scales, the color of which may aid in identification. Tinamous have a pneumaticized skeleton with a sternal keel, 16–18 cervical vertebrae, and fused thoracic vertebrae. They have poor circulation, evidenced by


title: Tinamou content: a greenish tint to the skin. They also have relatively the smallest hearts and lungs of all birds, comprising only 1.6–3.1% of their body weight, whereas the equivalent in a domestic chicken is 12%. Despite their poor flying ability, the percentage of their body mass that is muscle is 28.6–40%, which is similar to that of hummingbirds. The preen gland is small and tufted. The male has a corkscrew shaped penis, similar to those of the ratites and to the hemipenis of some reptiles. The female has a small phallic organ in the cloaca which becomes larger during the breeding


title: Tinamou content: season. The plumage of the family is cryptic, as is usual with ground birds, with typical colors ranging through dark brown, rufous, buff, yellow and grey. Plumage does not usually differ between sexes, but in a few species females are brighter. The forest dwellers tend to be darker and more uniform, whereas the steppe species are paler with more barring, speckling, or streaking. Tinamous have well-developed powder down feathers; these grow continuously and disintegrate at the tips into a powder that is spread through the rest of the feathers by preening. This gives the plumage a glossy appearance as well


title: Tinamou content: as waterproofing it. Their tails are short, sometimes hidden behind the coverts, and possibly indicative of an ability to sacrifice feathers to a predator in order to escape when grasped. Some tinamous have crests. Members of "Eudromia" have the most developed crests and, when excited, will direct them forward. Tinamous are rarely seen but often heard within their range and have a wide variety of calls. They are among the most characteristic bird vocalizations of South America and Central America, often resembling sounds made by a flute or a whistle. Some calls are uniform and monotone, while others have multiple


title: Tinamou content: phrases. They vary in intensity and can often be heard from afar. Trying to locate a bird by its call is not easy. Plains-dwelling tinamous have higher-pitched, more delicate voices. They can also be less melodic, sometimes resembling the chirps of crickets. Forest species tend to have deep, loud calls, suitable for penetrating the vegetation. The male highland tinamou can be heard several kilometres distant through dense forest. When calling, a tinamou extends its neck vertically, tilts its head at an angle, and opens its bill wide. A bird, when flushed, will utter a sharp trill. Identification of tinamous is


title: Tinamou content: not an easy task; utilizing their calls as a tool is integral. Each species has its own unique call or calls. The solitary tinamou has 11 different vocalizations. In most species both sexes call; some have different calls for males and females. Females tend to have deeper voices. Some species, in particular members of "Crypturellus", have regional dialects. Male slaty-breasted tinamous have calls unique enough to be individually recognized by humans. Calls are typically heard more frequently during the breeding season. However, the time of day can differ amongst species, as some are more vocal in the morning, others in


title: Tinamou content: the evening, and some are more vocal during the heat of midday. Some will call at night from their roosts. Frequency can vary between species and between individuals. One male brushland tinamou called every few minutes from dawn until dusk (over 500 calls daily). Some, in particular "Crypturellus" species, use regular call sites. Only a few possess an alarm call. Tinamous are exclusively neotropical and all 47 species live in South America, Mexico, and Central America. The range of the northernmost species extends to Mexico but not much further north than the Tropic of Cancer. Chilean tinamous have been introduced


title: Tinamou content: to Easter Island. The greatest concentration of species is in the tropics, and in particular the Amazon Basin. In the north, they tend to be forest or woodland birds, while in the south they prefer open habitats. Tinamous form the dominant group of terrestrial birds in South America, where they largely replace the Galliformes ecologically, with no other bird family there having comparable diversity, distribution, or suite of habitat adaptations. Rheas are only found in open country, curassows and guans are generally limited to forests, and the pheasant family is only represented by a few species in the north of


title: Tinamou content: the region. They occur in a wide range of habitats. Members of the genera "Tinamus", "Nothocercus", and "Crypturellus" live in dense forests, with "Nothocercus" preferring high altitude, and members of most other genera in grassland, puna, montane forest, and savanna. "Tinamotis" and "Nothoprocta" prefer high altitude habitats, up to , whereas the other steppe tinamous have a wide altitude range. Tinamous inhabit most parts of South and Central America, as well as the tropical regions of Mexico, with the exception of aquatic, snow-covered, and true desert habitats, and the southernmost tip of Patagonia. Behavioral and ecological separation of tinamou species


title: Tinamou content: is evident where their ranges overlap through the utilization of different food sources and occupation of limited micro-habitats. These micro-habitats are not always easy to identify, and are highly vulnerable to environmental changes. Some species, such as the red-winged tinamou, utilize multiple habitats such as the open savannas of Amazonia and the dry valleys of the Andes. Similarly, brown tinamous occur in both the Amazon basin and the humid montane forests on the Andean slope. Panama provides examples of ecological separation. The highland tinamou occupies the highlands throughout the country. The great tinamou prefers the rainforests on the slopes. The


title: Tinamou content: Choco tinamou also likes the rainforest, but is limited to the south-east of the country. Finally, the little tinamou is found in dense secondary forest on either the Pacific or Atlantic slope above . Size difference allows the red-winged tinamou and the spotted nothura to coexist, as they both occupy the same habitat of Brazil, the tropical savanna. The former prefers long grass pastures, while the latter prefers short grass. Further examples of such diversity are found in the Andes, where a small subspecies of Darwin's nothura, "Nothura darwinii boliviana", occurs in grassland at about above sea level. Here also


title: Tinamou content: are the red-winged tinamou which prefers open ground with some scrub, and the Andean tinamou which prefers dense vegetation beside streams. Their habitat extends upslope through the "Polylepis" woodlands into puna grassland. In the puna is another subspecies of Darwin's nothura, "Nothura darwinii agassizii", which prefers tussock grassland. Also in the puna is the ornate tinamou which frequents the rocky slopes and cliffs of tola heath. Higher in the puna is the puna tinamou, living just below the snowline at as well as in the semi-deserts of the southern Altiplano. Tinamous are largely sedentary birds. Forest-dwelling tinamous will move short


title: Tinamou content: distances if climatic conditions, such as intense rain, flooding or drought force them to. Most Amazonian species will move between the varzea forests and dry land depending on water levels. The puna tinamou occupies high ridges in the Andes but, in bad weather, will move down to the valley floors. Forest species, such as the slaty-breasted tinamou, maintain large home ranges through which they move in apparently random patterns. The male brushland tinamou maintains a home territory of , but will occasionally wander outside it into those of his neighbors. Females will wander throughout multiple males' territories. The ornate tinamou


title: Tinamou content: lives mainly upslope in hilly puna grassland but will move each morning to the bottom of the slopes to feed and drink. Granivorous species will move daily into grain fields with some, such as Darwin's nothura, remaining in the fields until there is no food left. Open country and southern species maintain territories only during the breeding season and at other times seem to wander at random. Tinamous form one of the most terrestrial groups of flying birds, spending virtually all of their time on the ground. They walk silently, pausing frequently in mid-stride. When a potential threat is detected,


title: Tinamou content: a tinamou will typically freeze in one of two positions, either crouched or with its neck extended upwards. As far as possible, they will avoid resorting to flight by stealthy walking or running away from danger as well as by concealment in dense vegetation. They may then pause to observe the cause of their alarm from cover. They also hide in burrows. Their cryptic behavior has allowed them to survive or even thrive in areas where guans have been extirpated. Unlike the related ratites, tinamous can fly, though poorly and reluctantly, preferring to walk or run. When forced to take


title: Tinamou content: to the air, they do so only for short distances at high speed. Their small wings give them a high wing loading. They take off with rapid and noisy wing beats, until they have gained sufficient altitude, then glide while slipping sideways, with an occasional further burst of flapping. Due to their near lack of a tail to serve as rudder or counterweight, tinamous are notoriously poor at steering. They regularly crash into objects on attempting to take off, sometimes with fatal consequences. They rarely fly more than and typically do so downslope where the terrain allows. They land in


title: Tinamou content: an upright position with upstretched neck. Some species will land running. The brushland tinamou will perform a sharp 90° turn immediately before touching down. Although tinamous are diurnal, many species become less active in the middle of the day. They rest or feed during this period, while during the night they will cease all activity. They are wary of the dark; they roost at night and have been known to roost during solar eclipses. Roosting of the larger forest species, such as those in "Tinamus", occurs in trees. They prefer horizontal branches approximately off the ground, choosing sites with good


title: Tinamou content: views and clear exits. In order to minimize the effort involved in ascending to their roosts, in hilly terrain they will access them from uphill and, when threatened, will fly downhill to gain more distance from the threat. Tinamous prefer thick branches on which to roost as they do not clutch the branch with their toes, but rest on it with folded legs. They will reuse the same locations and avoid defecating nearby to avoid advertising the roost site to predators. The smaller forest species, along with the steppe tinamous, will roost on the ground, sometimes in the shelter of


title: Tinamou content: a bush. They will also use the same location repeatedly; known examples are the elegant crested and ornate tinamous. Tinamous, depending on the species, may be solitary or social and gather in groups. Gregariousness also varies by season. Forest species tend to be solitary and may only approach other birds during the breeding season. Some live as mated pairs throughout the year. Steppe or grassland species tend to live in groups, though with little obvious group interaction apart from an occasional contact call. Group size may vary by season; in winter, aggregations of elegant crested tinamous may approach 100 birds.


title: Tinamou content: Both steppe and forest species are territorial, though territoriality varies between species from being characteristic only during the breeding season, to being territorial throughout the year. When defending their territories from conspecifics, tinamous are highly vocal, creating a cacophony of sound. When an intruder is noticed, birds of the same sex will confront it. This may lead to conflict, with feet and wings being used in attack. Both males and females will defend their territories; however, in each species only one sex is fiercely territorial. In most tinamou species, the males practice simultaneous polygyny and the females sequential polyandry. This


title: Tinamou content: is not invariable; ornate tinamous form stable pairs, and spotted nothuras are monogamous when young and polygamous when older. There are larger numbers of females than males; for example, the variegated tinamou has a female to male ratio of 4:1. The breeding season varies from species to species; those that live in tropical forests, where there is little seasonal change, may breed at any time, though there is usually a preferred period. In areas with a marked seasonal fluctuation, tinamous generally breed when food is most abundant, which is usually summer. Studies have shown that it is not day length


title: Tinamou content: that determines the onset of breeding, but the amount of light, through cloud cover. The courtship process starts with the male vocally advertising his abilities with continuous calling. He will try to attract multiple females. In "Tinamus" species the male will lower his chest to the ground, stretch his neck forward, and fluff up his back to appear larger than normal. When observed head on, all of the bird's back is in view while the under-tail coverts are exposed, a pose similar to that used by the rhea. The female will scratch her feet on the ground as part of


title: Tinamou content: the ritual. Tinamous always nest on the ground; in open areas, near a bush; in scrub, in a dense patch of grass; in forest, at the base of a tree trunk between the buttresses. The highland tinamou is unique in that it sites its nest in a cavity or under an overhanging rock on a steep slope. Many species do not build a nest, choosing to lay their eggs on a thin bed of leaves. Other species do construct nests and are meticulous in doing so. The nest of the ornate tinamou is circular and made of grass on a


title: Tinamou content: turf surface. The male brushland tinamou starts to scrape out a nest once copulation has occurred; several may be constructed though only one is used. A tinamou female lays several eggs which the male incubates while the female departs to seek another mate. Large species will lay one egg every 3–4 days, while the smaller ones lay on consecutive days. The females lay eggs in multiple nests throughout the nesting season. There may be as many as 16 eggs in a clutch, a consequence of several females laying in the same nest. The more mature male will attract more females


title: Tinamou content: and may have the eggs of up to four females under him. The variegated and ornate tinamous have single-female nests, and consequently only one or two eggs per nest. This may result from food shortage in their ranges and the consequent ability to care for only one or two chicks. The eggs are fairly deeply colored, usually in a single color, and have a hard porcelain-like gloss. Colors vary with species, ranging through green, purple, violet, turquoise, steel grey, chocolate and lemon-yellow. White is rare, but does occur. Though the eggs are bright and colorful when laid, over time they


title: Tinamou content: fade and become duller. For example, the egg of the red-winged tinamou dulls from purple to leaden. Most tinamou eggs are solid colored, without spots or speckling; however, the eggs of "Tinamotis" species may exhibit small white speckles. The benefit of laying brightly colored eggs is unknown, but is not detrimental as most tinamou predators hunt at night. Eggs are relatively large compared to the mass of the female, though even the largest birds produce eggs very similar in size to the smallest of species. Their shapes are either spherical or elliptical; the two ends are similar in shape, and


title: Tinamou content: difficult to distinguish. The shells are thin enough to see the embryos within. Incubation takes about 16 days in "Crypturellus", which contains the smallest species, and 19–20 days in "Tinamus" and "Eudromia". During this period the male is typically silent; if he does call, he does so away from the nest. As he incubates, he will leave the nest to feed, and he may be gone from 45 minutes to five hours, covering the eggs when he leaves. While incubating, he is mainly motionless and reluctant to move, even from potential danger. It is possible for a human observer to


title: Tinamou content: approach and touch the incubating male without eliciting an overt response. Some species will flatten themselves against the ground, stretch out their necks, and raise their backs to the air. This posture causes them to resemble a plant; however, if it is overdone, the eggs become visible from behind. If the male becomes alarmed enough to leave the nest, he will attempt a distraction display. This usually involves a fake injury display, similar to that of the killdeer. To do this, he will hop on one leg and attempt to fly, always falling down. He will perform this display if


title: Tinamou content: the eggs have not hatched or the chicks are still too young to fly. It is generally believed that tinamous are not as effective at distraction displays as other birds. Chicks hatch synchronously with a dense downy coat. The coloring is white, grey or yellow, with dark spots to aid in camouflage. The young are precocial, and can run almost as soon as they hatch. Soon after hatching the eggs, the male will leave the nest and call the chicks to him with a soft contact call. If threatened, he will freeze and attempt to hide the chicks under his


title: Tinamou content: wings or belly. There have been documented cases of females caring for the young; it is thought that this occurs when the male has been killed. Young chicks can feed themselves within the first few days, but the male will bring the food and drop it on the ground in front of them. The chicks have a high initial mortality rate. However, within a few days they are chasing insects on their own and, at 1–3 weeks, they can fly to branches a metre from the ground. They are self-sufficient within 20 days. By 20 days, the young slaty-breasted tinamou


title: Tinamou content: has gained adult size, though not adult weight. The spotted nothura will go from 10% of adult weight to 90% within 85 days, and the red-winged tinamou will do so in 108 days. Sexual maturity comes at the age of one year, although some species may be physiologically mature by 57 days. However, some behavior may need to be learned before the birds can breed successfully. Once done with the brood the male, if still within the breeding season, will seek out another female and initiate the cycle again. Studies have shown that 54–62% of breeding female spotted nothura are


title: Tinamou content: first-year birds. Tinamous are opportunistic feeders and eat a wide range of foods, though each species varies in proportional dietary makeup. Tinamou genera can be roughly divided into three groups based on the vegetable component of their diets. "Tinamus", "Nothocercus" and "Crypturellus" focus on fleshy fruit. "Nothura", "Nothoprocta" and "Eudromia", comprising open country birds, eat mainly seeds and other soft vegetative matter. High-altitude genera living in harsh environments, such as "Tinamotis", will eat most of the plant, not just the succulent parts. Most species eat a mixture of plant and animal products, though some are mainly herbivorous and others predominantly


title: Tinamou content: insectivorous or carnivorous. Diet may also vary seasonally; red-winged tinamous eat mostly animal food in the summer and plant matter in the winter. Chicks eat more insects than their parents, probably for their growth needs. Consumed plant material includes fruit (either fallen or on the tree), seeds, green shoots, tender leavers, buds, flowers, tender stems, roots, and tubers. Much of the animal food consists of insects, including ants, termites, beetles, grasshoppers, hemiptera, and lepidopteran larvae, as well as gastropods, mollusks, worms, and small vertebrates, such as amphibians and reptiles. Larger species will eat small mammals. Food is taken mainly off


title: Tinamou content: the ground but also off the vine. The birds may jump for fruit or, as with the "Crypturellus" species, jump up to a metre in height for insects. The main foraging technique is a slow walk with head down, pecking at the ground and looking up occasionally. Small animals are eaten whole, larger ones are beaten against the ground or pecked. Bills rather than feet are used to probe leaf litter and sift through soil deep. The most frequent diggers are "Rhynchotus", "Nothura" and "Nothoprocta" species, which are open country birds. They have their nostrils positioned at the base of


title: Tinamou content: the bills, a feature thought to be an adaptation to their digging. As with most birds, they swallow grit to aid their gizzards in digestion. Some species follow army ants, eating from the disturbance created. Others feed in the company of antbirds, formicariids, and ovenbirds. "Nothura" species, in particular, will follow livestock and eat the ticks that fall off them as well as the insects knocked off bushes as they pass. Water is required by most tinamou species, with some needing a good source within their home territory. Solitary tinamous can withstand an extended period without water by eating more


title: Tinamou content: succulent plants. However, species that live in arid or semi-arid climates rarely need any water additional to that ingested with their diet. When tinamous drink, unlike most other birds, they do so by sucking and swallowing, instead of lifting their heads and letting gravity do the work. Tinamous are avid bathers. During heavy rain they may stand erect with their bill pointing skyward allowing the rain to wash over them. They will dust-bathe at regular intervals, and have been known to dust-bathe often enough to tint themselves the same color as the soil. They also sunbathe, and will do so


title: Tinamou content: while resting on one leg with an outstretched wing. Defecation for a tinamou is a slightly involved task as it must move aside the dense plumage that surrounds the cloaca to avoid soiling itself. Captive tinamous defecate once daily. There are over 240 species of bird lice that infest tinamous, with one individual bird recorded as hosting nine species. Blood parasites include louse flies, leeches, nematodes, cestodes, armadillo ticks, mites, and trematodes. Darwin's nothura may carry a malarial plasmodium. Tinamou predators include cats, foxes, raccoons, weasels, tayras, and opossums. Legend speaks of jaguars that imitate the call to trick and


title: Tinamou content: catch them. Nests are vulnerable to snakes, monkeys and opossums. Giant anteaters have been seen on Marajo Island breaking tinamou eggs. Forest falcons and orange-breasted falcons have been seen hunting them, and vampire bats lap their blood. Tinamous have established themselves in the folklore and histories of the indigenous people of South America and Central America. Forest tribes of Brazil and Colombia believe the jaguar imitates the call of the great tinamou in order to track and eat it. A tale from the Guahibo Indians tells of a young man traveling by canoe who tried to locate a calling tinamou.


title: Tinamou content: As he approached the bank he became suspicious at the harshness of the call and backed away just as a jaguar burst out of the vegetation. Panamanian tradition states that after the "Great Flood", the great tinamou grew frightened of the bright colors in the rainbow. He flew away from the rainbow, the ark, and the rest of the animals, heading for the darkest part of the forest, where he has remained ever since. A Brazilian legend explains of the separation of the red-winged tinamou and the undulated tinamou. The story starts off with how inseparable the two birds were,


title: Tinamou content: as they did everything together. One day they got into an argument and split up. The undulated tinamou went into the deepest dark of the forest, and the red-winged tinamou wanting to be different went to the grassy plains. One day, the undulated tinamou was feeling sad and lonely, went to the forest's edge and called his old friend. "Shall we make up?" he cries. The red-winged tinamou responds with "What me, never again". This story is meant to show that they are often heard but seldom seen. During the 20th century there were numerous attempts to introduce or reintroduce


title: Tinamou content: tinamous to various parts of the world. The red-winged tinamou has been reintroduced to the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where its wild population was hunted to extermination at the turn of the 20th century. France, Germany, and Hungary have all, unsuccessfully, attempted to introduce them into their countryside. There have been several unsuccessful attempts to introduce tinamous to the United States. In Oregon, between 1966–1974, 473 ornate tinamou and 110 red-winged tinamou were brought in. In 1966 and 1971, Florida introduced 128 spotted nothura. In 1969, 47 and 136 spotted nothura were introduced to Alabama and Texas. 1970


title: Tinamou content: saw Colorado and Oklahoma introducing 164 and 100 Darwin's nothura respectively. In 1971, Nebraska brought 256 elegant crested tinamou, and California introduced 217 in 1969, and 1200 between 1971 and 1977. The 1885 introduction of Chilean tinamou to Easter Island was successful, though the population has not prospered since Chimango caracaras were introduced in 1928. No tinamou species has been successfully domesticated so far, despite their ability to breed well in captivity. The red-winged tinamou has been bred on farms in France, Great Britain, Belgium, and Denmark. They, along with some of the "Crypturellus" species, are being bred in Rio


title: Tinamou content: Grande do Sul to boost numbers for hunting. Hybridization can occur. Many South American zoos hold tinamous, as do some private estates. Examples of captive breeding are small-billed tinamou in Minas Gerais and red-winged tinamou in Rio Grande do Sul. The small-billed tinamou has looked promising for domestication as the birds can raise 3–4 broods per year and are resistant to diseases that affect domestic chickens. Several species have adapted to agricultural systems and will enter grain fields after the harvest to glean the ground; they will also enter the fields during the growing season, to the dismay of the


title: Tinamou content: farmers. Some, in particular the ornate and Andean tinamous, will dig up tubers such as potatoes, while red-winged tinamous create similar problems in peanut plantations. However, some members of "Nothoprocta" will prey on insect pests without damaging the crops. Spotted nothuras have been documented eating weeds and, of the 28 animals they were recorded as eating, 26 were considered to be pests. The Tinamiformes are one of the least studied orders of birds despite tinamous exhibiting rare and little understood behavioral patterns. They have male parental care which is not always associated with polyandry or sex-role reversal. Their varied mating


title: Tinamou content: systems and diverse habitats have the potential, through comparative studies, to explain how ecological differences affect mating strategies. In some species, females cooperate in assembling clutches of eggs for different males. However, methodological difficulties have hampered behavioral research, especially on the forest dwelling species, because their secretive behavior and cryptic coloration make them difficult to follow for continuous observation. It was not until 2003 that the first scientific symposium on tinamous was organized at the VIIth Neotropical Ornithological Congress, held at Termas de Puyehue, Chile. The status of the family is not easy to determine as many species live in


title: Tinamou content: the Amazon Basin or the far reaches of the Andes and attract little attention, even from ornithologists. Moreover, their cryptic coloration and behavior means that their presence often remains unnoticed. A large proportion of the species are Amazonian, with the majority of these decreasing in range. Most, however, are surviving well enough so far to avoid being classified as threatened. Major threats are habitat fragmentation and destruction. Although they are hunted throughout their range, it generally has little or only localized impact on the populations of the more widespread and common species. Pesticides are a problem throughout the grasslands and


title: Tinamou content: farmlands. The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies seven tinamou species as vulnerable and seven as near threatened. The solitary tinamou is listed under Appendix I of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). The major threat for the forest tinamous is deforestation. Neotropical forests are badly affected, with large tracts being clearcut for cropping, pasture or timber plantations. Much of this land is poor in nutrients, so is abandoned after a few years for newly cleared land. Forest species are consequently forced to adapt, relocate, or die out. As well as


title: Tinamou content: the forests, most types of habitat in Middle and South America, apart from the high Andes and Patagonia, are under threat. There is controversy over the vegetative history with speculation that what is now high-altitude grassland in the Andes was once elfin forest. The dwarf tinamou is a resident of the open plains of eastern Brazil, though there are fewer than 15,000 birds left. It has disappeared from its former range on the grasslands of Argentina. In the cerrado grasslands of Brazil the population of the lesser nothura has also decreased to fewer than 15,000 individuals because of agricultural and


title: Tinamou content: economic development. The practice of burning the fields is particularly detrimental to grassland tinamous. For example, the dwarf tinamou becomes intoxicated with the smoke and vulnerable to predators. Moreover, if the burning occurs during the nesting season, the eggs or chicks are roasted. The solitary tinamou, limited to the Atlantic forests of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, is threatened by habitat destruction and hunting. In the cloud forests of northern South America, there are fewer than 10,000 black tinamous left. The tepui tinamou's range is limited to the tops of a handful of plateaus in the cloud forests of Venezuela, making


title: Tinamou content: it highly vulnerable to any threat. Tinamous have been popular game birds for many years in South America and Central America, so much so that some species' numbers have dropped. The steppe birds are more popular to hunt because they can be flushed into flight, rather than the forest birds that run to cover and hide. In the late 19th and early 20th century hunting was responsible for mass killing within the family, with the elegant crested tinamou and spotted nothura popular targets. In 1921, Argentina urged the control of commercial hunting of several bird species, including tinamou. Between 1890


title: Tinamou content: and 1899, in Buenos Aires alone, 18 million tinamou were sold in meat markets. They were also marketed in North America as "South American partridge". One shipment alone comprised 360,000 birds. Frank Chapman of the American Museum of Natural History helped raised awareness about the rate of exploitation and its potential impact on the populations of the species. Eventually, the USA banned the importation of the birds. Hunting pressures remain, though at a reduced level. For example, 25,000–40,000 spotted nothura are killed annually through legal hunting, not counting poaching. Although some grassland species have increased in both range and numbers,


title: Tinamou content: they remain vulnerable to hunting with the use of dogs to flush them. Native peoples also are involved in the killing tinamou for meat, catching them in nooses or traps after imitating their calls. A family of seven in Ceará will consume 60 nothura per year. Tinamou species are among the most commonly harvested birds by subsistence hunting in the Americas. Some species are highly vulnerable to illegal hunting, or poaching. In Brazil, illegal hunts take place at night by torchlight. The use of flutes to imitate the calls during the breeding season to lure the birds into the open


title: Tinamou content: can result in local extermination. Overall, there is a lack of adequate controls in place to ensure sustainable hunting, as well as insufficient resources and determination to enforce existing regulations. Tinamou Tinamous form an order of birds (Tinamiformes), comprising a single family (Tinamidae) with two distinct subfamilies, containing 47 species found in Mexico, Central America, and South America. The word "tinamou" comes from the Galibi term for these birds, "tinamu". Tinamous have traditionally been regarded as the sister group of the flightless ratites, but recent work places them well within the ratite radiation, implying basal ratites could fly. Tinamous first


title: "Dick Turpin" content: of his belongings. With a further bounty of £100 on their heads they continued their activities through the latter half of 1735. In August they robbed five people accompanying a coach on Barnes Common, and shortly after that they attacked another coach party, between Putney and Kingston Hill. On 20 August the pair relieved a Mr Godfrey of six guineas and a pocket book, on Hounslow Heath. Fearing capture, they moved on to Blackheath in Hertfordshire, and then back to London. On 5 December the two were seen near Winchester, but in late December, following the capture of John Jones,


title: "Common cuckoo" content: Common cuckoo The common cuckoo ("Cuculus canorus") is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, "Cuculiformes", which includes the roadrunners, the anis and the coucals. This species is a widespread summer migrant to Europe and Asia, and winters in Africa. It is a brood parasite, which means it lays eggs in the nests of other bird species, particularly of dunnocks, meadow pipits, and reed warblers. Although its eggs are larger than those of its hosts, the eggs in each type of host nest resemble the host's eggs. The adult too is a mimic, in its case of the sparrowhawk;


title: "Common cuckoo" content: since that species is a predator, the mimicry gives the female time to lay her eggs without being seen to do so. The species' binomial name is derived from the Latin "cuculus" (the cuckoo) and "canorus" (melodious; from "canere", meaning to sing). The cuckoo family gets its common name and genus name by onomatopoeia for the call of the male common cuckoo. The English word "cuckoo" comes from the Old French "cucu" and it first appears about 1240 in the poem "Sumer Is Icumen In" - "Summer has come in / Loudly sing, Cuckoo!" in modern English. The scientific name


title: "Common cuckoo" content: is from Latin. "Cuculus" is "cuckoo" and "canorus", "melodious ". There are four subspecies worldwide: Although the common cuckoo's global population appears to be declining, it is classified of being of Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It is estimated that the species numbers between 25 million and 100 million individuals worldwide, with around 12.6 million to 25.8 million of those birds breeding in Europe. The maximum recorded lifespan of a common cuckoo in the United Kingdom is 6 years, 11 months and 2 days. The common cuckoo is long from bill to tail (with a


title: "Common cuckoo" content: tail of and a wingspan of . The legs are short. It is greyish with a slender body and long tail and can be mistaken for a falcon in flight, where the wingbeats are regular. During the breeding season, common cuckoos often settle on an open perch with drooped wings and raised tail. There is a rufous colour morph, which occurs occasionally in adult females but more often in juveniles. All adult males are slate-grey; the grey throat extends well down the bird's breast with a sharp demarcation to the barred underparts. The iris, orbital ring, the base of the


title: "Common cuckoo" content: bill and feet are yellow. Grey adult females have a pinkish-buff or buff background to the barring and neck sides, and sometimes small rufous spots on the median and greater coverts and the outer webs of the secondary feathers. Rufous morph adult females have reddish-brown upperparts with dark grey or black bars. The black upperpart bars are narrower than the rufous bars, as opposed to rufous juvenile birds, where the black bars are broader. Common cuckoos in their first autumn have variable plumage. Some have strongly-barred chestnut-brown upperparts, while others are plain grey. Rufous-brown birds have heavily barred upperparts with


title: "Common cuckoo" content: some feathers edged with creamy-white. All have whitish edges to the upper wing-coverts and primaries. The secondaries and greater coverts have chestnut bars or spots. In spring, birds hatched in the previous year may retain some barred secondaries and wing-coverts. The most obvious identification features of juvenile common cuckoos are the white nape patch and white feather fringes. Common cuckoos moult twice a year: a partial moult in summer and a complete moult in winter. Males weigh around and females . The common cuckoo looks very similar to the Oriental cuckoo, which is slightly shorter-winged on average. A study using


title: "Common cuckoo" content: stuffed bird models found that small birds are less likely to approach common cuckoos that have barred underparts similar to the Eurasian sparrowhawk, a predatory bird. Eurasian reed warblers were found more aggressive to cuckoos that looked less hawk-like, meaning that the resemblance to the hawk helps the cuckoo to access the nests of potential hosts. Other small birds, great tits and blue tits, showed alarm and avoided attending feeders on seeing either (mounted) sparrowhawks or cuckoos; this implies that the cuckoo's hawklike appearance functions as protective mimicry, whether to reduce attacks by hawks or to make brood parasitism easier.


title: "Common cuckoo" content: Hosts attack cuckoos more when they see neighbors mobbing cuckoos. The existence of the two plumage morphs in females may be due to frequency-dependent selection if this learning applies only to the morph that hosts see neighbors mob. In an experiment with dummy cuckoos of each morph and a sparrowhawk, reed warblers were more likely to attack both cuckoo morphs than the sparrowhawk, and even more likely to mob a certain cuckoo morph when they saw neighbors mobbing that morph, decreasing the reproductive success of that morph and selecting for the less common morph. The male's song, "goo-ko", is usually


title: "Common cuckoo" content: given from an open perch. During the breeding season the male typically gives this vocalisation with intervals of 1–1.5 seconds, in groups of 10–20 with a rest of a few seconds between groups. The female has a loud bubbling call. The song starts as a descending minor third early in the year in April, and the interval gets wider, through a major third to a fourth as the season progresses, and in June the cuckoo "forgets its tune" and may make other calls such as ascending intervals. Also the cuckoo seems to have a form of absolute pitch as it


title: "Common cuckoo" content: tends to sing in the key of C. The wings are drooped when calling intensely and when in the vicinity of a potential female, the male often wags its tail from side to side or the body may pivot from side to side. Essentially a bird of open land, the common cuckoo is a widespread summer migrant to Europe and Asia, and winters in Africa. Birds arrive in Europe in April and leave in September. The common cuckoo has also occurred as a vagrant in countries including Barbados, the United States, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Indonesia, Palau, Seychelles, Taiwan


title: "Common cuckoo" content: and China. The common cuckoo's diet consists of insects, with hairy caterpillars, which are distasteful to many birds, being a specialty of preference. It also occasionally eats eggs and chicks. The common cuckoo is an obligate brood parasite; it lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. At the appropriate moment, the hen cuckoo flies down to the host's nest, pushes one egg out of the nest, lays an egg and flies off. The whole process takes about 10 seconds. A female may visit up to 50 nests during a breeding season. Common cuckoos first breed at the age


title: "Common cuckoo" content: of two years. More than 100 host species have been recorded: meadow pipit, dunnock and Eurasian reed warbler are the most common hosts in northern Europe; garden warbler, meadow pipit, pied wagtail and European robin in central Europe; brambling and common redstart in Finland; and great reed warbler in Hungary. Female common cuckoos are divided into gentes – groups of females favouring a particular host species' nest and laying eggs that match those of that species in color and pattern. Evidence from mitochondrial DNA analyses suggest that each gene may have multiple independent origins due to parasitism of specific hosts