Bird World - Part 4 By Saronkorn Seuyouyong

The Reed Warbler Acrocephalus scirpaceus, shown here feeding its young belongs to a group of birds which even experienced birdwatchers have difficulty in identifying by sight, and the various Reed Warblers and their song. This is probably also the main way in which the various species identify their mates. Reed Warblers are only found in the Old World where they live in a wide variety of marshy habitats. Bird-lovers delight in the brilliant colours of the small finch-like tanagers of the New World. There are over 200 species and they nearly all retain their dazzling colours the whole year round. In the tropical jungles of South America the most vivid of these compact, active birds vie in colouring with the gaudy parrots as they fly through the trees.

The diversity in colour of the tanager family is amazing. Many species, such as the lovely Emerald-spotted Tanager Tangara punctata and the Black and Green Tanager Tangara nigrovirdis (bottom left), build open cup nests in bushes and trees, but there are also some species which build covered nests. Typical tanagers have short, stout beaks. One specialized group of nectar-eating tanagers, however, have long slender beaks which they use to hold and pierce flowers. Some tanagers are quite competent songsters while others, the blue tanagers among them, can scarcely sing a note.

The blue tanagers are busy little birds with a huge appetite for fruit and berries. They also eat insects which they catch, with amusing dexterity, on the wing. Their nests are shallow cups in trees or bushes and after mating a pair of blue tanagers nearly always stays together for the rest of the year. Frequent visitors to parks and private gardens, they are probably among the best known of all the tanagers. The picture is of the pretty Blue-headed Tanager, Tanagara cyanicollis.

Other well-known birds of the New World are the seed-eating cardinals. Perhaps the most popular of all the cardinals is the Red Cardinal Pyrrhuloxia cardinalis which is very common in the United States, where it is affectionately known as the ‘red bird’. A handsome bird, with its bold scarlet colouring, distinctive crest and stout conical-shaped beak, it is a familiar sight on the outskirts of cities such as New York. The female is easily distinguished from the male, as she is more brown than red.

Most cardinals build shallow cup nests which are similar to those of many of the tanagers, except that they are usually found on or very close to the ground. The three birds illustrated here are among the most colourful of the species breeding in North America. They are quite unrelated and have very different habits.

The Yellow Warbler Dendrica petechia is a summer visitor, arriving in North America when the apple trees are coming into blossom. The male is a loud and persistent songster, singing for most of the day and leaving the female to get on with building the nest. The Yellow Warbler is often parasitized by cowbirds but, unlike many other birds, Warblers will often build another nest over the top of the original if it contains the egg of a cowbirds; as many as six grow rapidly, leaving the nest about a fortnight later. Shortly afterwards the Yellow Warblers will set off on their journey south.

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Bird World - Part 3 By Saronkorn Seuyouyong

The Cowbird Molothrus bonariensis of North America is a pure parasite. During the breeding season it is very promiscuous, mating quite randomly and not forming lasting pairs. The female lays her egg in the nest of a smaller bird and, as with the Cockoo, the Cowbird’s egg hatches before the others in the nest, the nestling grows faster and soon starves its nest-mates out even if it does not actually crowd them out. During the summer months, the Cowbird is usually to be seen following, or even riding on, sheep and cattle to catch the insects disturbed by their feet.

Many of the whydah groups are also nest parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of the small waxbills. Not only do their eggs resemble those of the waxbill, their young have the same markings in their mouths as young waxbills as it is by these markings that the parent birds identify where to put the food and without them the nestling whydahs might starve. Only the male Long-tailed Window Bird, or Whydah, Diatropura progne has the long black tail from which it gets its name.

The Fantails are a group of nearly forty species of closely related birds found only in south-eastern Asia, the south-western Pacific and some Australasian regions. They are relatedto the Old World fly catchers and are easily recognized by their habit of cocking their tails. The Rufous Fantail Rhipidura rufifrous is shown here on its nest, fanning its tail. It is found in Australia, the Solomons, New Guinea and a few other islands, in a variety of habitats, including jungle, scrub and mangrove swamps.

The European Wren Troglodytes troglodytes , the only species occurring in Europe, is known in North America as the Winter Wren to avoid confusion with the other nine species found there. It is thought that the wrens evolved in North America and only colonized the Old World from the New, via the Bering Straits, either during or just after the Ice Ages. In many parts of Europe, the Wren is called the ‘king’ of birds (this may have originated from confusion with the Goldcrest) and there are many superstitions and rituals connected with Wrens. On Christmas Day in Britain, the Wren was once hunted and then stoned or clubbed to death. This ritual has obvious connections with the Christian ritual of death and rebirth, centred on Christmas and the New Year.

The cock Wren, in spite of its small size, is one of the loudest songsters in the dawn chorus, and is often heard breaking into a short snatch of its trilling song even in the middle of winter. At the onset of the breeding season, the male Wren builds severalnests and the female then selects one in which to lay her eggs. The nests are domed and of fairly flexible construction; as the youngsters, which may number up to about fifteen, grow in size, the nest will stretch slightly to accommodate them.

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