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
Nendo Whistler
Pachycephala ornata
Brightly-colored male has a bright golden belly, a black chest band and head, and a clean white throat. He appears to have a black “shawl” with golden wings and a black tail. Female is considerably duller, being olive-brownish above and yellow below, with a pale throat and brown breast. Endemic to a handful of islands in the southeastern Solomons, where it is found in most island habitats, though avoids villages. Voice includes a sequence of sparsely spaced, thin, uninspired whistles. Formerly grouped with Vanikoro Whistler and Utupua Whistler under “Temotu Whistler.”
Red-billed Curassow
Crax blumenbachii
Very large terrestrial species. Males are mostly black with a curly crest and a white belly and vent. Note the red bill knob with a small wattle. Females have black-and-chestnut bars on their wings and a rufous belly. Inhabits humid primary forests with dense understory where it normally forages in pair or small family groups.
Orange-banded Thrush
Geokichla peronii
An unmistakable thrush with a “tiger-striped” face pattern, a white throat, a broad orange chest band, orange flanks, a white belly, and extensive bold white wing markings. Juveniles show rusty wing spots, pale streaking, a black and buff breast band, and black flank spots. Forages singly or in pairs on the ground and in trees, in forests and wooded patches within lowlands and hills. Confined to the eastern Lesser Sundas. Gives a rich, musical song characteristic of thrushes, with sequences of fluty upslurred and downslurred whistled notes comprising repeated phrases mixed with softer, chuckling sounds and thin, high-pitched notes.
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