Sittelle à front velours

Identification

The velvet-fronted nuthatch has the typical nuthatch shape, short tail and powerful bill and feet. It is 12.5 cm long. It is violet-blue above, with lavender cheeks, beige underparts, yellow eyes, and a whitish throat. The iris is distinctly pale and yellow. The bill is red, and there is a black patch on the forehead and lores which is well developed in adults and less so in younger birds. Young birds have a dark beak and dark tips to the undertail coverts. Adult males can be told apart by the black superciliary stripe that runs above the eye and over the head, towards the nape.<p>Females lack the supercilium and have a warmer underpart colour. Juveniles are duller versions of the adult lacking the black frontal band. There populations differ in shade and size and the distribution of white on the throat.

Taxonomie

Velvet-fronted nuthatches are closely related to Sitta solangiae, Sitta azurea and Sitta oenochlamys and some authors have placed them in a separate genus Oenositta (proposed by H.E. Wolters in 1979) which would be inappropriate as the clade, although distinct in morphology, is nested within other Sitta species. The complex includes numerous forms which have had a confusing history, for instance oenochlamys has been treated as a subspecies of frontalis in the past. The species was first described validly by Swainson who also created the genus Dendrophila in which he initially placed the species. Hodgson had however used the name Dendrophila for a species of partridge. Swainson used the species name given by Horsfield who had named the bird as Orthorynchus frontalis but Horsfield published only in 1821 giving priority to Swainson as the author.<p>About five populations are widely recognized as subspecies but some may be treated as phylogenetic species:<p>The use of ectoparasites such as Brueelia as a proxy to unravel the phylogeny of the species is unreliable as the nuthatch shares the same Brueelia species with flycatchers (Rhipidura and Ficedula), possibly because these parasites are phoretic, travelling across hosts via blowflies.

Nom scientifique

Sitta frontalis

Autorité

Swainson, 1820

Ordre

Passériformes

Famille

Sittidae

Genre

Sitta

Répartition et habitat

The velvet-fronted nuthatch is a resident breeder of all types of forests from deciduous to evergreen forest. In the Sunderbans, they are found in Sonneratia mangrove forests. They also live within secondary forest and make use of the shade trees in south Indian coffee plantations.<p>Like other nuthatches they have strongly curved claws that allow them to climb down vertical tree trunks, unlike species such as woodpeckers that only work their way upwards. It moves jerkily up and down or around tree branches and trunks. It is an active feeder on insects and spiders, gleaned on the bark of the trunk and branches, and may be found in mixed feeding flocks with other passerines. The insects they disturb are sometimes taken by the racket-tailed drongo in Sri Lanka.<p>This is a noisy bird, often located by its repeated “sit-sit-sit” call.<p>Adults go through a complete postnuptial moult that begins at the end of June in northern India.<p>Plasmodium parasites including Haemoproteus have been detected in their blood. Feather mites of the genus Neodectes are found on the species.

Migration

Resident species

Conservation

Tendance de la population

declining