Tractrac Chat
Emarginata tractrac
A small, dumpy endearing chat. The color varies from pale gray-brown to nearly white, with a very pale rump that extends onto the outer tail feathers to form a distinctive V-shaped black wedge in the tail. Pairs prefer open flat plains in the Karoo and Namib, prospering in the most barren environments where few other birds persist. In Namibia, the similar race of Karoo Chat is longer-tailed, avoids hyper-arid barren environments, and has a distinctive dark tail with white outer tail feathers that reach the tail tip.
识别特征
The tractrac chat is 14–15 cm long with a weight of 20 g. Its tail is white with a dark inverted “T” at the tip, reminiscent of the pattern shown by several wheatears. The short straight bill and the legs and feet are black. It has a dark eye. The Namib form found on hummock dunes and at the coast has almost white plumage with grey wings and grey tail marking. The south-eastern form, found in gravel plains has brown upperparts with blackish flight feathers and tail markings. Its underparts are white. The sexes are similar, but the juvenile is more mottled than the adult.<p>This species is smaller than the Karoo chat which also has the white of the outer tail feathers extending to the tip. It is paler and greyer than Familiar and sickle-winged chats, both of which have a darker rump.<p>The tractrac chat has a soft fast "tactac" song and a loud chattering territorial defence call.
分类信息
The tractrac chat was illustrated and described by the French naturalist François Levaillant in Volume 4 of his Histoire naturelle des oiseaux d'Afrique published in 1805. He named the bird, "Le tractrac", an onomatopoeia based on its call. The first formal description of the tractrac chat was by the English publisher John Wilkes in 1817 under the binomial name Motacilla tractrac. The species was subsequently placed in the genus Cercomela introduced by Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1856. It was moved to its current genus, Emarginata, after molecular phylogenetic studies published in 2010 and 2012 found that Cercomela was polyphyletic.<p>There are 5 subspecies:
- 学名
- Emarginata tractrac
- 命名信息
- (Wilkes, 1817)
- 目
- Passeriformes
- 科
- Muscicapidae
- 属
- Emarginata
分布与栖息地
- 迁徙
- Resident species
行为
The tractrac chat builds a cup-shaped nest of straw and leaves on the ground, usually under a bush or shrub. It lays two to three red eggs. This species is monogamous, mating for life.<p>It is usually seen singly or in pairs. It forages from the ground for insects including butterflies, bees, wasps, locusts and ants. Prey is typically taking in a short flight.
保护状况
This common species has a large range, with an estimated extent of 1,000,000 km². The population size is believed to be large, and the species is not believed to approach the thresholds for the population decline criterion of the IUCN Red List (i.e. declining more than 30% in ten years or three generations). For these reasons, the species is evaluated as Least Concern.
- 种群趋势
- stable
照片
分布
鸟叫声
其他鸟类
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Handsome, stocky, and generally uncommon “finch” (actually a tanager) of bleak rocky slopes and bogs above timberline in Andes and Tierra del Fuego; southern birds also range to coastal lowlands in winter. Sides of tail white on northern birds, yellow on southern. Male has black throat framed by diagnostic yellow bridle; head and body either blue-gray overall or strongly washed greenish yellow. Female streaky overall, best identified by presence of males, and white (northern) or yellow (southern) edgings to tail feathers.
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A rare, medium-sized honeyeater of foothill forest in northern New Guinea. Fairly uniform, brown plumage with a white ear spot and light mottling below. Forages singly for insects and doesn’t really visit flowering trees. The only other similar species with a white ear spot is Scrub honeyeater which is found more in scrub than forest and is green with an orange gape. Call, an upslurred “weep” is diagnostic.
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