African Rail
Rallus caerulescens
Classic, mid-sized rail. Note the brown back, gray head and chest, barred belly, and reddish bill and legs. Found in wetlands ranging from flooded grassland to deep swamps. Especially favors cattail marshes. Fairly reclusive but walks out into the open more often than most rails. Usually detected by call, a loud, accelerating series of notes that descend the scale. Shares a similar color pattern with African Crake, but African Rail has a longer bill and an unspotted back.
识别特征
Adults are 27–28 cm (11–11 in) long, and have mainly brown upperparts and blue-grey underparts, with black-and-white barring on the flanks and undertail. The sexes have similar plumage but the female is smaller. This is the only Rallus species with a plain back. The body is flattened laterally to allow easier passage through the reeds. They have long toes, a short tail and a long slim dull red bill. The legs are red. Immature birds are similar to the adults, but the blue-grey is replaced by buff.<p>They are noisy birds, with a trilled whistled treee-tee-tee-tee-tee call.
分类信息
The African rail was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the other rails in the genus Rallus and coined the binomial name Rallus caerulescens. Gmelin based his description on the "blue necked rail" from the Cape of Good Hope that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his book A General Synopsis of Birds. The naturalist Joseph Banks had provided Latham with a water-colour drawing of the rail by Georg Forster who had accompanied James Cook on his second voyage to the Pacific Ocean. The picture was painted in 1773 at the Cape of Good Hope. It is now the holotype for the species and is held by the Natural History Museum in London. The specific epithet caerulescens is from Latin and means "bluish". The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
- 学名
- Rallus caerulescens
- 命名信息
- Gmelin, JF, 1789
- 目
- Gruiformes
- 科
- Rallidae
- 属
- Rallus
分布与栖息地
Its breeding habitat is marshes and reedbeds across eastern and southern Africa from Ethiopia to South Africa. Many birds are permanent residents, but some undertake seasonal movements in response to the availability of wetland.
- 迁徙
- Resident species
行为
The African rail nests in a dry location in marsh vegetation, both sexes building the cup nest. The typical clutch is 2–6 heavily spotted creamy-white eggs, which are incubated by both sexes for about 20 days to hatching. The precocial downy chicks are black, as with all rails.<p>These birds probe with their bill in mud or shallow water, also picking up food by sight. They mainly eat insects, crabs and other small aquatic animals.
保护状况
- 种群趋势
- unknown
照片
分布
鸟叫声
其他鸟类
Bushy-crested Hornbill
Anorrhinus galeritus
Plain, medium-sized dark hornbill. Glossy black with a bicolored tail and pale patches of bare facial skin. Male has an all-dark ebony bill, while female’s bill has a pale brown tip. Quite social; forages in medium-sized groups. Can be quite vocal, giving garrulous yelps, barks, and squawks. Found in lowland to foothill forests, usually in dense areas, but can often be seen in breaks in the foliage, such as clearings or riversides.
Striped Crake
Aenigmatolimnas marginalis
Small brown crake with conspicuous striping on the back. The underparts are brown in the male and gray in the female. Both sexes show a buff patch under the tail. Found in marsh and seasonally flooded grassland. Shy, inconspicuous, and generally scarce. Unlikely to be seen by those not expressly looking for it. The call is a long, dry, high-pitched trill.
Velvet-fronted Euphonia
Euphonia concinna
Uncommon within restricted range of the Magdalena Valley of central Colombia, from around 200 to 1,000 m. Occurs in open woodlands. Males are dark steely-blue above and rich yellow below, with a yellow forecrown. Note entirely dark throat and dark underside of tail. Female is dull grayish olive above and yellow below. Note yellow forecrown on female. Could be confused with Orange-bellied Euphonia; male Orange-bellied has white underside of tail and females are grayer below.
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