Gray bird with a crest. Waxwings - migratory birds or not
Are waxwings migratory birds or not? You can often see elegant crested birds in cities. They scurry about in noisy groups, bursting into loud chirping. You can also see them in the evening. Whether they are waxwings and migratory birds or not, we will tell you now.
Waxwings - Crested Goldfinches Our ordinary sparrows have a close relative - the waxwing bird. They got their name from the sounds they make when singing: svi-ri-ri. But unlike the gray and rather inconspicuous sparrow, nature gave the waxwings a beautiful outfit. Appearance of waxwings The bird is small, up to 20 cm long, weighing only about 70 g. You won’t confuse this dandy with anyone thanks to the protruding crest on its head and its unique coloring. The main color of the body is delicate Pink colour with gray shades. But the wings are multi-colored, with black, yellow-orange and white stripes. The crest is pink, and there are also stripes at the tip of the tail.
In a word, not a bird, but a sight for sore eyes! There are three main types: common, American and Amur. But they are all very similar in appearance. Males and females are almost the same. However, as always, there are exceptions. There is a species of waxwings in which the color is completely black in males, and gray in females.
Where do waxwings live? The main habitat of these birds is the taiga and forest-tundra zone of Eurasia. They also live in North America. Flocks of calling birds can be seen not only in coniferous forests, but also in mixed forests, where spruce and birch trees grow. Birds are not migratory, but they can be called nomadic. In winter they move south in search of food. During these migrations, scientists study their behavior. During normal times of life in the north, the birds are quite secretive.
In the summer, waxwings feed on shoots of young plants, berries, and seeds. They open their short beak and, like flycatchers, catch midges, mosquitoes, dragonflies and even butterflies right on the fly. In winter, their main food is berries. In central Russia they feed in fieldfare, in other areas they peck the berries of barberry, mistletoe, viburnum, rose hips, lingonberries, and indeed any berry bushes. Waxwings eat a lot and fill their stomachs tightly. But most of these berries are not digested, so in winter the place where the crested beauties feasted is easy to recognize. Under a bare tree, the snow is strewn with bright spots of semi-digested berries with seeds and peeled peels. In nature it has great importance: The fallen seeds then germinate into a new plant.
In the warm weather of autumn, many berries spoil right on the bushes and begin to ferment. Voracious waxwings, having pecked at these berries, experience a state similar to intoxication. As a result, they are poorly oriented, crash on any obstacle and die. In the spring, this happens when birds drink fermented maple sap. Waxwings begin to build nests in May-June from any available materials. The materials used are twigs, fluff, blades of grass, and moss, twisted into a neat ball. Northern species build a nest, like crossbills, in spruce branches, where no one will notice it. Reproduction of waxwings During the mating season, the male, unlike other birds, does not dance, but brings berries to the female. And while she incubates her 5-7 laid eggs, she also feeds her. The eggs are gray-blue, speckled. The male does not sit in the nest, but after the chicks hatch after 14 days, he helps the female feed them.
Waxwings. For a very long time, people could not understand why at the beginning, or even in the middle of winter, these birds, noticeable with their bright plumage, called waxwings, suddenly arrive. Some even considered their arrival a bad omen. And only in the middle of the 19th century did scientific naturalists find the answer to the question of where waxwings appear in mid-latitudes in winter.
And everything is very simple. Their homeland is forest-tundra and in winter it is, oh, how uncomfortable it is. So they save themselves where it’s warmer and there’s more food. In winter they feed mainly on berries; they are very fond of rowan berries. If there is enough of it, they will stay for the winter, but if not, they will fly further south. In the summer (although in the forest-tundra it is difficult to even call it summer) they return to their homeland and breed there.
Nests at waxwings large, massive. The female usually lays five eggs. The chicks are fed exclusively, and at this time they themselves feed on them. At this time they are zealous enemies of six-legged animals, especially blood-sucking ones (horseflies, horseflies, etc.). In a couple of weeks of feeding, waxwings destroy as many pests as sometimes even a purely insectivorous bird cannot destroy.
Because of this, waxwings are valued in the forest-tundra and are not offended. Birds are accustomed to such attention, and therefore are not afraid of people even when they fly to us. You can get quite close to them and see their unusual plumage. And it is truly unusual. The keratinized scales hang on the feathers like falling droplets. By the way, the benefits of waxwings not just because they eat insects. Here they also work as “agronomists” on the side. The berry seeds are distributed around the area, which means trees are planted.
It's about the look BombycillagarrulusL. , which in Russian literature simply called waxwing. Dictionary Ozhegova indicates the masculine gender of this word. English name - Bohemian Waxwing.
The bird itself has quite characteristic features, and identifying the species is not difficult. Most bird lovers know it. Determining the sex and age of a bird is a more delicate task for amateurs, but in many cases it can be solved when four external specific signs are available for observation.
However, the task of identifying sex and age is nevertheless complicated by the following circumstance: these external signs in four groups (adult males and females, young males and females of the first year) partially overlap. And yet, knowledge of these signs in many cases can help with “fine identification.”
Indications of the personal characteristics of each sex and age group in waxwings are rarely found in the domestic literature for bird lovers, which prompts us to compile a review on this topic based on available foreign literary sources.
First, let's turn to such an authoritative source as Lars Svensson et. al. COLLINS BIRD GUIDE, 2nd Edition. “The Most Complete Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe.” 2010, p .448. The differences inherent in males, females and young birds in waxwings, according to Svensson, can be represented in the following Russified fragment of a drawing from this guide.
The picture shows from left to right a young female (first winter plumage), an adult female and an adult male. By clicking on the picture, you can view it in best quality. As can be seen from the above fragment, 4 areas with one or another external identification feature are indicated on the bird.
- Dark spot on the throat under the beak.
- Red leathery plates at the ends of the secondary and tertiary flight feathers of the wing
- V
- Yellow stripe along the edge of the tail
Let's consider them in order with the involvement of another source.
- A dark spot on the throat under the beak (“beard”).
According to Svensson:
Gender, age | Adult male | Adult female | Bird in first winter plumage* |
Sign | Black "beard with a clear lower border) | The lower border of the beard is “blurred” | The beard is smaller in size |
*) The figure shows a female in her first winter plumage, but the differences in young males and females are not discussed in the text.
The same sign in Kieran Foster's article on the websitehttp://www.davidnorman.org.uk/MRG/Waxwings.htm presented as follows: A) b) Comparative Features
a) adult male: "beard" larger size, black color is more contrasting, distinct lower border; b) adult female: The “beard” is smaller in size, in the lower half there is a transition from black at the top to gray tones at the bottom, the lower border is blurred.
2. Red leathery plates at the ends of the secondary wing feathers
According to Svensson:
Gender, age | Adult male | Adult female | Bird in first winter plumage |
Sign | There are red endings of the secondary flight feathers, which form on the folded wing wide red stripe. | There are red ends of the secondary flight feathers, which form a red stripe on the folded wing narrower. | There is no red stripe |
A) | b) |
Figures (a) and (b) show the open wings of an adult and a young bird (first winter), respectively. Both wings show red tips on the secondary and tertiary feathers. It can be seen that there are differences in their number and length. This data can be summarized in the following table:
Data on the number and length of red endings
Adult male | Adult female | Young male | Young female |
6-8 pcs. , 6-9.5 mm | 5-7 pcs., 3-7.5 mm | 4-8 pcs., 3.5-5.5mm | 0-5 pcs. , 0- 3.5 mm |
From the above data, only one obvious sign follows: if the bird does not have a red stripe on its folded wing, then this is a young female in her first winter plumage. All other cases are characterized by parameter overlap.
On a folded wing, a red stripe (ribbon) is located across the wing.On average, the red stripe on the folded wing of an adult male is slightly longer and wider than that of a female, and noticeably b o longer than in young birds (I repeat that a young female may not have it at all).
3.V -shaped markings at the ends of the primary flight feathers
This sign, perhaps, can be considered the most noticeable in waxwings. The folded wing of a waxwing has, as it were, a set of V -shaped signs, nested one inside the other and forming a chain along the wing. The right “wing” of the sign is yellow, the left is white. And they can have different degrees of manifestation.
As follows from the first drawing with birds, young birds have a chain of V -marks looks like a yellow line with a broken thickness, because the left wing is white V - there is no sign. This can be seen in Kieran Foster's open wing. In an adult male V -shaped sign is “bold”, in an adult female it is thin, especially the left white part.
4. Yellow stripe along the edge of the tail
Qualitatively, the situation with the yellow transverse stripe at the end of the tail feathers can be described as follows: the widest stripe is in an adult male, narrower in an adult female, and the narrowest in young birds.
An article by Kieran Foster gives the following numerical data on the height (width) of the yellow stripe at the end of the tail:
Adult male | Adult female |
||
At the center of the tail, mm | Outer steering, mm | At the center of the tail, mm | Outer steering, mm |
5,5-8,5 | 7-11 | 4-6 | 5-8 |
The yellow stripe on the tail is characterized by bò greater width at the edges of the tail compared to its width at the center tail feather. And these data confirm the above qualitative relationship between the size of the yellow stripe in a male, female and young bird.
In conclusion, it should be noted that the presence of overlap of the named characteristics in the considered groups makes identification more reliable when all 4 characteristics coincide, and a single characteristic may not work.