The Caspian snowcock (''Tetraogallus caspius'') is a
snowcock in the pheasant family
Phasianidae
The Phasianidae are a family (biology), family of heavy, ground-living birds, which includes pheasants, partridges, junglefowl, chickens, Turkey bird, turkeys, Old World quail, and peafowl. The family includes many of the most popular Game (hunti ...
of the order
Galliformes, gallinaceous birds.
It is found in the mountains of eastern
Turkey,
Armenia,
Azerbaijan and throughout the
Alborz Mountains of Northern Iran. It breeds at altitudes from on bare stony ground with some alpine scrub. It nests in a bare ground scrape and lays 6–9 greenish
egg
An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...
s, which are incubated only by the female. Its diet consists of
seeds and vegetable matter. It forms small flocks when not breeding.
Description
This snowcock ranges from in length, in wingspan and in weight.
Its
plumage
Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, ...
is patterned with grey, brown, white and black, but this snowcock looks pale gray from any distance. The breast is pale gray, the throat and a white patch on the side of the neck are white, and the nape is dark gray.
In flight, this wary bird shows white flight feathers and undertail. Male and female plumages are similar, but juveniles are slightly smaller and duller in appearance. There are three races differing in plumage saturation, becoming paler from west to east.
The Caspian snowcock has a desolate whistling song, vaguely like a
Eurasian curlew
The Eurasian curlew or common curlew (''Numenius arquata'') is a very large wader in the family Scolopacidae. It is one of the most widespread of the curlews, breeding across temperate Europe and Asia. In Europe, this species is often referred t ...
, '. It differs from
Caucasian snowcock in that it does not have the drop in pitch at the end of the song shown by that species. The calls include loud cackles and bubbled '.
References
* ''Pheasants, Partridges and Grouse'' by Madge and McGowan,
External links
Caspian snowcock
Birds of Western Asia
Caspian snowcock
{{galliformes-stub