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Clamator
''Clamator'' is a genus of large brood-parasitic cuckoos with crests and graduated tails. The genus was erected by German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup in 1829 with the great spotted cuckoo (''Clamator glandarius'') as the type species. The name ''Clamator'' is Latin for "shouter" from ''clamare'', "to shout". There are four species: ''Clamator'' cuckoos are found in warmer parts of southern Europe and Asia, and in Africa south of the Sahara Desert. These are birds of warm open scrubby habitats, but some species are at least partially migratory, leaving for warmer and wetter areas in winter. These are large cuckoos, all at least long, with broad chestnut wings and long narrow tails. They are strikingly patterned with black, white and brown plumage. The sexes are similar but the juvenile plumages are distinctive. The two African species each also have two distinct colour morphs, light and dark. All the ''Clamator'' cuckoos are brood parasites, which lay a single egg i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacobin Cuckoo
The Jacobin cuckoo (''Clamator jacobinus''), also pied cuckoo or pied crested cuckoo, is a member of the cuckoo order of birds that is found in Africa and Asia. It is partially migratory and in India, it has been considered a harbinger of the monsoon rains due to the timing of its arrival. It has been associated with a bird in Indian mythology and poetry, known as the ''chataka'' (Sanskrit: चातक) represented as a bird with a beak on its head that waits for rains to quench its thirst. Taxonomy The Jacobin cuckoo was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his ''Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux'' in 1780. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the ''Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle''. This was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clamator Glandarius - Great Spotted Cuckoo
''Clamator'' is a genus of large brood-parasitic cuckoos with crests and graduated tails. The genus was erected by German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup in 1829 with the great spotted cuckoo (''Clamator glandarius'') as the type species. The name ''Clamator'' is Latin for "shouter" from ''clamare'', "to shout". There are four species: ''Clamator'' cuckoos are found in warmer parts of southern Europe and Asia, and in Africa south of the Sahara Desert. These are birds of warm open scrubby habitats, but some species are at least partially migratory, leaving for warmer and wetter areas in winter. These are large cuckoos, all at least long, with broad chestnut wings and long narrow tails. They are strikingly patterned with black, white and brown plumage. The sexes are similar but the juvenile plumages are distinctive. The two African species each also have two distinct colour morphs, light and dark. All the ''Clamator'' cuckoos are brood parasites, which lay a single egg in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Spotted Cuckoo
The great spotted cuckoo (''Clamator glandarius'') is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, the Cuculiformes, which also includes the roadrunners, the anis and the coucals. It is widely spread throughout Africa and the Mediterranean Basin. It is a brood parasite that lays its eggs in the nests of corvids, in particular the Eurasian magpie. Taxonomy In 1747 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the great spotted cuckoo in the second volume of his ''A Natural History of Uncommon Birds''. He used the English name "The Great Spotted Cuckow". Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on a specimen that had been shot in Gibraltar and sent to the English naturalist Mark Catesby in London. When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his ''Systema Naturae'' for the tenth edition, he placed the great spotted cuckoo with the other cuckoos in the genus ''Cuculus''. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name ''C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Spotted Cuckoo
The great spotted cuckoo (''Clamator glandarius'') is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, the Cuculiformes, which also includes the roadrunners, the anis and the coucals. It is widely spread throughout Africa and the Mediterranean Basin. It is a brood parasite that lays its eggs in the nests of corvids, in particular the Eurasian magpie. Taxonomy In 1747 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the great spotted cuckoo in the second volume of his ''A Natural History of Uncommon Birds''. He used the English name "The Great Spotted Cuckow". Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on a specimen that had been shot in Gibraltar and sent to the English naturalist Mark Catesby in London. When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his ''Systema Naturae'' for the tenth edition, he placed the great spotted cuckoo with the other cuckoos in the genus ''Cuculus''. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name ''C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chestnut-winged Cuckoo
The chestnut-winged cuckoo or red-winged crested cuckoo (''Clamator coromandus'') is a cuckoo found in Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia. It has dark glossy upperparts, a black head with long crest chestnut wings, a long graduated glossy black tail, rufous throat dusky underside and a narrow white nuchal half collar. They breed along the Himalayas and migrate south in winter to Sri Lanka, southern India and tropical Southeast Asia including parts of Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. It is about 47 cm long. Description This dark and crested cuckoo has chestnut wings, a glossy black crest and a graduated tail (the feathers shortening in steps from the center outwards) whose terminal edges are white and inconspicuous unlike the white tips of the Jacobin cuckoo which is found in parts of its range. The black capping on the head is broken from black of the back by a white collar that extends to the sides of the neck. The lower parts are rufous turning to dark grey tow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Levaillant's Cuckoo
Levaillant's cuckoo (''Clamator levaillantii'') is a cuckoo which is a resident breeding species in Africa south of the Sahara. It is found in bushy habitats. It is a brood parasite, using the nests of bulbuls and babblers. It was named in honour of the French explorer, collector and ornithologist, François Le Vaillant François () is a French masculine given name and surname, equivalent to the English name Francis. People with the given name * Francis I of France, King of France (), known as "the Father and Restorer of Letters" * Francis II of France, Kin .... Description left, 180px, View of upperparts The cuckoo is 37.5 cm (15 in) long, longer tailed than pied cuckoo, and with a more heavily streaked throat. There are two colour morphs. The light morph is black above, faintly glossed bluish or greenish. The throat streaking may extend on to the sides. The primaries and rectrix tips are white. The dark morph is black except for the white primary patc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cuckoo
Cuckoos are birds in the Cuculidae family, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes . The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals and anis. The coucals and anis are sometimes separated as distinct families, the Centropodidae and Crotophagidae respectively. The cuckoo order Cuculiformes is one of three that make up the Otidimorphae, the other two being the turacos and the bustards. The family Cuculidae contains 150 species which are divided into 33 genera. The cuckoos are generally medium-sized slender birds. Most species live in trees, though a sizeable minority are ground-dwelling. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution; the majority of species are tropical. Some species are migratory. The cuckoos feed on insects, insect larvae and a variety of other animals, as well as fruit. Some species are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other species and giving rise to the metaphor ''cuckoo's egg'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brood Parasite
Brood parasites are animals that rely on others to raise their young. The strategy appears among birds, insects and fish. The brood parasite manipulates a host, either of the same or of another species, to raise its young as if it were its own, usually using egg mimicry, with eggs that resemble the host's. The evolutionary strategy relieves the parasitic parents from the investment of rearing young. This benefit comes at the cost of provoking an evolutionary arms race between parasite and host as they coevolve: many hosts have developed strong defenses against brood parasitism, such as recognizing and ejecting parasitic eggs, or abandoning parasitized nests and starting over. It is less obvious why most hosts do care for parasite nestlings, given that for example cuckoo chicks differ markedly from host chicks in size and appearance. One explanation, the mafia hypothesis, proposes that parasitic adults retaliate by destroying host nests where rejection has occurred; there is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird Egg
Bird eggs are laid by the females and range in quantity from one (as in condors) to up to seventeen (the grey partridge). Clutch size may vary latitudinally within a species. Some birds lay eggs even when the eggs have not been fertilized; it is not uncommon for pet owners to find their lone bird nesting on a clutch of infertile eggs, which are sometimes called wind-eggs. Anatomy All bird eggs contain the following components: * The embryo is the immature developing chick * The amnion is a membrane that initially covers the embryo and eventually fills with amniotic fluid, provides the embryo with protection against shock from movement * The allantois helps the embryo obtain oxygen and handles metabolic waste * The chorion, together with the amnion, forms the amniotic sac and encloses the amnion, vitellus, and the embryo * The vitellus, or yolk, is the nutrient-bearing portion of the egg, containing most of its fat, minerals, and many of its proteins and blood vessels * The alb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird Nest
A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American robin or Eurasian blackbird, or the elaborately woven hanging nest of the Montezuma oropendola or the village weaver—that is too restrictive a definition. For some species, a nest is simply a shallow depression made in sand; for others, it is the knot-hole left by a broken branch, a burrow dug into the ground, a chamber drilled into a tree, an enormous rotting pile of vegetation and earth, a shelf made of dried saliva or a mud dome with an entrance tunnel. The smallest bird nests are those of some hummingbirds, tiny cups which can be a mere across and high. At the other extreme, some nest mounds built by the dusky scrubfowl measure more than in diameter and stand nearly tall. The study of birds' nests is known as ''caliology''. Not all bird species bui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magpie
Magpies are birds of the Corvidae family. Like other members of their family, they are widely considered to be intelligent creatures. The Eurasian magpie, for instance, is thought to rank among the world's most intelligent creatures, and is one of the few non-mammal species able to recognize itself in a mirror test. They are particularly well known for their songs and were once popular as cagebirds. In addition to other members of the genus '' Pica'', corvids considered as magpies are in the genera '' Cissa'', ''Urocissa'', and ''Cyanopica''. Magpies of the genus ''Pica'' are generally found in temperate regions of Europe, Asia, and western North America, with populations also present in Tibet and high-elevation areas of Kashmir. Magpies of the genus ''Cyanopica'' are found in East Asia and the Iberian Peninsula. The birds called magpies in Australia are, however, not related to the magpies in the rest of the world. Name References dating back to Old English call the bird a "p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird Migration
Bird migration is the regular seasonal movement, often north and south along a flyway, between breeding and wintering grounds. Many species of bird migrate. Migration carries high costs in predation and mortality, including from hunting by humans, and is driven primarily by the availability of food. It occurs mainly in the northern hemisphere, where birds are funneled onto specific routes by natural barriers such as the Mediterranean Sea or the Caribbean Sea. Migration of species such as storks, turtle doves, and swallows was recorded as many as 3,000 years ago by Ancient Greek authors, including Homer and Aristotle, and in the Book of Job. More recently, Johannes Leche began recording dates of arrivals of spring migrants in Finland in 1749, and modern scientific studies have used techniques including bird ringing and satellite tracking to trace migrants. Threats to migratory birds have grown with habitat destruction, especially of stopover and wintering sites, as wel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_e_(_Zonotrichia_Capensis_).jpg "Click for more on -> Brood Parasite")
