The twite (''Linaria flavirostris'') is a small brown

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

in the

finch The true finches are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. Finches have stout conical bills adapted for eating seeds and nuts and often have colourful plumage. They occupy a great range of habitats where they are usua ...

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Fringillidae The true finches are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. Finches have stout conical bills adapted for eating seeds and nuts and often have colourful plumage. They occupy a great range of habitats where they are usua ...

. It is similar in size and shape to a

linnet The common linnet (''Linaria cannabina'') is a small passerine bird of the finch family, Fringillidae. It derives its common name and the scientific name, ''Linaria'', from its fondness for hemp seeds and flax seeds—flax being the English n ...

, at long. It lacks the red head patch and breast shown by the linnet and the

redpoll The redpolls (genus ''Acanthis'') (in Great Britain also historically known as redpoles) are a group of small passerine birds in the finch family Fringillidae, which have characteristic red markings on their heads. They are placed in the genus ' ...

s. It is brown streaked with black above, and a pink rump. The underparts are buff to whitish, streaked with brown. The conical bill is yellow in winter and grey in summer. The call is a distinctive ''twit'', from which its name derives, and the song contains fast trills and twitters. Twites can form large flocks outside the breeding season, sometimes mixed with other finches on coasts and salt marshes. They feed mainly on seeds. The twite breeds in northern

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

and across the Palearctic to Siberia and China. Treeless moorland is favoured for breeding. It builds its

nest A nest is a structure built for certain animals to hold eggs or young. Although nests are most closely associated with birds, members of all classes of vertebrates and some invertebrates construct nests. They may be composed of organic materi ...

in a bush, laying 5–6 light blue

eggs Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...

. It is partially resident, but many birds migrate further south, or move to the coasts. It has declined sharply in parts of its range, notably in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. In the UK, the twite is the subject of several research projects in the Pennines, the Scottish Highlands and on the North Wales and Lancashire coastlines. Records show that the birds to the east of the Pennine hills move to the southeast coast in winter and those to the west winter between Lancashire and the Hebrides. The Welsh population winters almost exclusively in Flintshire. Ringing data has revealed that twite breeding in different parts of Britain use different non‐breeding areas, and that non-breeding areas of British twite do not overlap with non-breeding areas of continental twite.

Taxonomy

In 1758 the Swedish naturalist

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his Nobility#Ennoblement, ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalise ...

included the twite in the

10th edition 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. ...

of his '' Systema Naturae'' under the binomial name ''Fringilla flavirostris''. The genus name ''linaria'' is the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for a linen-weaver, from ''linum'', " flax" and ''flavirostris'' means "yellow-billed". The twite and the closely related

s were at one time placed in the genus ''Carduelis'' but were moved to a separate genus ''

Linaria ''Linaria'' is a genus of almost 200 species of flowering plants, one of several related groups commonly called toadflax. They are annuals and herbaceous perennials, and the largest genus in the Antirrhineae tribe of the plantain family Plan ...

'' based on a

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

analysis of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences. There are 10 recognised subspecies: *''L. f. bensonorum'' ( Meinertzhagen, R, 1934) - Outer Hebrides (western Scotland) (sometimes included in ''pipilans'') *''L. f. pipilans'' ( Latham, 1787) - northern Ireland and northern Britain *''L. f. flavirostris'' (

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

, 1758) - northern Scandinavia and northwestern Russia *''L. f. brevirostris'' ( Bonaparte, 1855) - Turkey, the Caucasus and northern Iran *''L. f. kirghizorum'' ( Sushkin, 1925) - northern and central Kazakhstan *''L. f. korejevi'' ( Zarudny & Harms, 1914) - northeastern Kazakhstan to northwestern China *''L. f. altaica'' ( Sushkin, 1925) - southwestern Siberia, northern and western Mongolia *''L. f. montanella'' ( Hume, 1873) - Kyrgyzstan to western China *''L. f. pamirensis'' (Zarudny & Harms, 1914) - Tajikistan, northern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan (sometimes included in ''montanella'') *''L. f. miniakensis'' ( Jacobi, A, 1923) - eastern Tibet and western China *''L. f. rufostrigata'' (Walton, 1905) - western and southern Tibet, northern India and northern Nepal

References

Works cited

* * *

External links

Oiseaux
Photos
Audio recordings from Xeno-canto
{{Taxonbar, from=Q10965357 Birds described in 1758 Birds of Eurasia Birds of Europe Birds of Norway Linaria (bird) Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus