Shikra
Tachyspiza badia
A common, widespread resident across Asia and Africa. Adult males have a reddish iris, blue gray upperparts and fine brownish-orange barring on underparts. Females have a yellowish iris and brownish gray upperparts. Both have narrow dark barring on the tail. Juveniles are browner with a prominent moustachial stripe and streaked underparts. It hunts for a wide variety of prey in woodland, savannah, and even suburban gardens, dashing out from perches within vegetation to grab its prey.
Identification
The shikra is a small raptor (26–30 cm long) and like most other Accipiter hawks, this species has short rounded wings and a narrow and somewhat long tail. Adults are whitish on the underside with fine rufous bars while the upperparts are grey. The lower belly is less barred and the thighs are whitish. Males have a red iris while the females have a less red (yellowish orange) iris and brownish upperparts apart from heavier barring on the underparts. The females are slightly larger. The mesial stripe on the throat is dark but narrow. In flight the male seen from below shows a light wing lining (underwing coverts) and has blackish wing tips. When seen from above the tail bands are faintly marked on the lateral tail feathers and not as strongly marked as in the Eurasian sparrowhawk. The central tail feathers are unbanded and only have a dark terminal band. Juveniles have dark streaks and spots on the upper breast and the wing is narrowly barred while the tail has dark but narrow bands. A post juvenile transitional plumage is found with very strong barring on the contour feathers of the underside. The call is pee-wee, the first note being higher and the second being longer. In flight the calls are shorter and sharper kik-ki ... kik-ki. The Chinese sparrowhawk is somewhat similar in appearance but has swollen bright orange ceres and yellow legs with the wing tips entirely black.<p>Subspecies cenchroides is larger and paler and found in Turkestan, Afghanistan and eastern Iran. The Indian population dussumieri is resident on the plains and lower hills (up to 1400 m in the Himalayas). The nominate form is found in Sri Lanka and has somewhat darker grey upperparts. The Burmese shikra A. b. poliopsis may represent a distinct species. The population on the island of Car Nicobar, earlier treated as a subspecies butleri and that on Katchal Island, obsoletus are now treated as a sub-species within a full species, the Nicobar sparrowhawk (Accipiter butleri). The west African population A. b. sphenurus is migratory while the southern African A. b. polyzonoides is more nomadic in its movements. In Asia only A. b. cenchroides is migratory.
Taxonomy
The shikra was formally described in 1788/1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the eagles, hawks and relatives in the genus Falco and coined the binomial name Falco badius. Gmelin description was based on the "brown hawk" from Ceylon that had been described and illustrated in 1776 by the English naturalist Peter Brown. The shikra is now one of 49 species placed in the genus Accipiter that was introduced in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson. The genus name is Latin for "hawk", from accipere, "to grasp". The specific epithet badius is Latin for "chestnut-coloured" or "brown".<p>Six subspecies are recognised:
- Scientific name
- Tachyspiza badia
- Authority
- (Gmelin, JF, 1788)
- Order
- Accipitriformes
- Family
- Accipitridae
- Genus
- Tachyspiza
Range and habitat
- Migration
- Complete migrants
Behavior
Migration pattern: Complete migrants.
Conservation
Population trend: stable.
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
Parasitic Jaeger
Stercorarius parasiticus
Slender gull-like seabird; the middle-sized of the three jaegers. Breeds on Arctic tundra; spends the rest of the year at sea. Difficult to separate from other jaegers. Breeding adults have a long pointed tail (not as long as Long-tailed Jaeger). Plumage varies from entirely dark blackish-brown to paler with white belly and yellowish on the side of the neck. Immature birds are variable but usually warm brown with cinnamon barring on wings. Barring on underwing and undertail is weaker than on Pomarine Jaeger. Shape and flight style are intermediate between Pomarine and Long-tailed. Typically shows white shafts on four to six outermost wing feathers, more than Long-tailed, but less than Pomarine. Bill is relatively long and slender. All jaegers chase other birds and steal their food.
Indian Blackbird
Turdus simillimus
Dark thrush with a bright orange bill. Male is slightly darker than the female. Plumage varies slightly throughout range, Sri Lanka birds being midnight-black and central Indian “Black-capped” birds being brown with a black head and wings. Note the small teardrop-shaped patch of bare orange skin around the eye. Beautiful fluting song often heard from foothill forests, forest edge, and orchards; winters at lower altitudes, often in closer proximity to people, though typically not in outright urban areas like Chinese and Eurasian Blackbirds.
Rock-loving Cisticola
Cisticola aberrans
Large, plain, long-tailed cisticola. Note the pale eye stripe, which is lacking in most similarly plain cisticolas. Varies geographically: the crown can be rufous or brown, and the underparts buffy or gray. Found on rocky slopes in grassland and savanna. Often cocks up the tail like a wren or prinia. Calls include squeaks, bleats, and dry rattles. As with all cisticolas, habitat and voice are important cues in identification.
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