[AdSense-A] The Costa’s Hummingbird (Calypte costae) is a species of hummingbird. The Costa’s Hummingbird is very small, a mature adult growing to only 3–3.5 in (7.6–8.9 cm) in length. The male Costa’s has a mainly green back and flanks, a small black tail and wings, and patches of white below their gorgeted throat and tail.…
The Red-tailed Comet (Sappho sparganura) is a medium-sized hummingbird found in the central Andes of Bolivia and Argentina. The male has a spectacular, long, iridescent, golden-reddish tail and reaches 22 cm in length. The female has a shorter reddish-bronze tail and reaches 15 cm in length. It has a hoarse chattery call. Common to frequent in the woodlands and scrub typical of the dry Interandean valles extended up into Polylepis forests, and into the shrubby transition zones to high elevation puna or the moister cloud forests. Frequently around human habitation in agricultural areas, cities and towns.
he American Robin (Turdus migratorius), also known as the robin, is a migratory songbird of the thrush family. It is named after the European Robin[2] because of its reddish-orange breast, though the two species are not closely related, with the European robin belonging to the flycatcher family. The American Robin is widely distributed throughout North America, wintering from southern Canada to central Mexico and along the Pacific Coast. It is the state bird of Connecticut, Michigan, andWisconsin.[3] According to some sources, the American Robin ranks behind only the Red-winged Blackbird (and just ahead of the introduced European Starling) as the most abundant, extant land bird in North America.[4] It has seven subspecies, but only T. m. confinis of Baja California Sur is particularly distinctive, with pale gray-brown underparts. The American Robin is active mostly during the day and assembles in large flocks at night. Its diet consists of invertebrates (such as beetle grubs, earthworms, and caterpillars), fruits and berries. It is one of the earliest bird species to lay eggs, beginning to breed shortly after returning to its summer range from its winter range. Its nest consists of long coarse grass, twigs, paper, and feathers, and is smeared with mud and often cushioned with grass or other soft materials. It is among the first birds to sing at dawn, and its song consists of several discrete units that are repeated. The adult robin is preyed upon by hawks, cats and larger snakes, but when feeding in flocks, it can be vigilant and watch other birds for reactions to predators. Brown-headed Cowbirds lay eggs in robin nests (see brood parasite), but robins usually reject the cowbird eggs.
The Indian Blue Robin (Luscinia brunnea) is a small bird found in South Asia. Formerly considered a thrush, it is now considered one of the Old World flycatchers in the family Muscicapidae. It was earlier also called the Indian Blue Chat. It is migratory, breeding in the forests along the Himalayas of Nepal, India and Myanmar. They winter in the hill forests of the Western Ghats of India and in Sri Lanka. The Indian Blue Robin is similar in size to the related Bluethroat at 15 cm long. The adult male has blue upperparts and rufous underparts. A bright white supercilium contrasts with a black mask that continues down the neck. The lower belly and undertail are also whitish. The female is olive brown above and buff below with a light eye-ring and rufescent rump. The breast and flanks are buffy. Young birds are dark brown with buff spots.
The Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) is a small thrush found in open woodlands, farmlands and orchards, and most recently can be spotted in suburban areas. It is the state bird of Missouri and New York. This species measures 16–21 cm (6.3–8.3 in) long, span 25–32 cm (9.8–13 in) across the wings and weigh 27–34 g (0.95–1.2 oz). Adult males are bright blue on top and have a reddish brown throat and breast. Adult females have lighter blue wings and tail, a brownish throat and breast and a grey crown and back. Eastern Bluebirds are found east of the Rockies, southern Canada to the Gulf States and southeastern Arizona to Nicaragua. The bright blue breeding plumage of the male, easily observed on a wire or open perch, fluttering down to the mowed grass to capture a grasshopper, cricket or beetle makes this species a favorite of birders. The male’s call includes sometimes soft warbles of jeew or chir-wi or the melodious song chiti WEEW wewidoo. Approximately two-thirds of the diet of an adult eastern bluebird consists of insects and other invertebrates. The remainder of the bird’s diet is made up of wild fruits. Favored insect foods include grasshoppers, crickets, katydids, and beetles. Other food items include earthworms, spiders, millipedes, centipedes, sow bugs and snails. Fruits are especially important when insects are scarce in the winter months. Some preferred winter food sources include dogwood, hawthorn, wild grape, and sumac, and hackberry seeds. Supplemental fruits eaten include black raspberries, bayberries, fruit of honeysuckle, Virginia creeper, Eastern Juniper, and pokeberries. Bluebirds feed by perching on a high point, such as a branch or fence post, and swooping down to catch insects on or near the ground. The availability of a winter food source will often determine whether or not a bird will migrate. If bluebirds do remain in a region for the winter, they will group and seek cover in heavy thickets, orchards, or other areas in which adequate food and cover resources are available.
The Black-and-red Broadbill (Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchos) is a species of bird in the broadbill family. It is monotypic within the genus Cymbirhynchus. It is found in Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropical mangrove forests.
The Blood Pheasant (Ithaginis cruentus) is the only species in genus Ithaginis of the pheasant family. This relatively small, short-tailed pheasant is widespread and fairly common in eastern Himalayas, ranging across India, Nepal, Bhutan and China. Since the trend of the population appears to be slowly decreasing, the species has been evaluated as Least Concern by IUCN in 2009. Blood pheasants have the size of a small fowl, about 17 in (43 cm) in length with a short convex, very strong black bill, feathered between bill and eye, and a small crest of various coloured feathers. The colour of the plumage above is dark ash, with white shafts, the coverts of the wings various tinged with green, with broad strokes of white through the length of each feather, the feathers of the chin deep crimson; on the breast, belly and sides feathers are lance-shaped, of various length, the tips green with crimson margins, collectively resembling dashes of blood scattered on the breast and belly. The tail consists of twelve sub-equal feathers, shafts white, rounded, the ends whitish, the coverts a rich crimson red. Both males and females have red feet and a distinct ring of bare skin around the eye that typically is crimson colored, but is orange in a few subspecies. Females are more uniformly colored, being overall dull brown and often with some gray to the nape. Although some of the subspecies that have been described are highly distinctive, others are not, and some variation appears to be clinal. Consequently the number of valid subspecies is disputed, with various authorities recognizing between 11 and 15. They mainly vary in the plumage of the males, especially the amount of red or black to the throat, forehead, neck, chest and tail, and the presence or absence of rufous in the wings.
The Black-and-yellow Broadbill (Eurylaimus ochromalus) is a species of bird in the Eurylaimidae family. It is found in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, and Thailand. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forestsand subtropical or tropical moist montane forests. It is threatened by habitat loss.
The Golden-fronted Leafbird (Chloropsis aurifrons) is a species of leafbird. It is a common resident breeder in India, Sri Lanka, and parts of Southeast Asia. It often includes the Sumatran Leafbird (C. media) from Sumatra as a subspecies, but the two differ extensively in, among others, morphology. Its habitat is forest and scrub. It builds its nest in a tree, laying 2-3 eggs. This species eats insects and berries. The adult is green-bodied with a black face and throat bordered with yellow. It has an orange forehead and blue moustachial line, but lacks the blue flight feathers and tail sides of Blue-winged Leafbird. Young birds have a plain green head. The southern Indian race, C. a. frontalis, has a narrower yellow border to black face. The throat is black and it has a blue sub-moustachial stripe and duller orange forehead. Towards the extreme south of India and Sri Lanka the race insularis occurs which is slightly smaller than frontal is
The sugarbirds make up a small genus, Promerops, of passerine birds which are restricted to southern Africa. In general appearance as well as habits they resemble large long-tailed sunbirds, but are possibly more closely related to the Australianhoneyeaters. They have brownish plumage, the long downcurved bill typical of passerine nectar feeders, and long tail feathers. The relationships of the sugarbirds have been the source of considerable debate. They were first treated as a far-flung member of the honeyeater family, which is otherwise restricted to the Australasian region. Looking at egg white proteins in the 1970s Sibley and Ahlquist mistakenly placed them with the starlings (the samples used were actually those of sunbirds). They have also been linked to the thrushes (Turdidae) and the sunbirds. Molecular studies find support for few close relatives, and they are treated as a family at present,[1] although it now is usually determined they form a clade with three enigmatic species. These species, from the mountains of East Africa, were formerly placed in the large taxon that includes the Old World babblers.
The Gurney’s Sugarbird is found from Zimbabwe southwards, except the extreme south of South Africa, where it is replaced by the Cape Sugarbird in the Cape provinces of South Africa. It has at times been considered conspecific with Gurney’s. The distribution of the Gurney’s Sugarbird is disjunct, and currently there are two accepted subspecies, one in the north and one further south.
Sugarbirds are dependent on Protea and are found in protea scrub. The Cape Sugarbird is found in Fynbos and has also moved into gardens and nurseries. The two sugarbird species are medium sized passerines that weight between 26–46 g (0.92–1.62 oz) and are 23–44 cm (9.1–17.3 in) in length. Between to 15–38 cm (5.9–15.0 in) of that length is in their massive elongated tails, with the tails of the Cape Sugarbird being overall longer than those of the Gurney’s Sugarbird. In both species the tail of the male is longer than the female, although the difference is more pronounced in the Cape Sugarbird. In overall body size the males are slightly largerand heavier than the females. Both species have long and slender bills that are slightly curved, and again the females have a slightly shorter bill, leading to differences in feeding niches. The skull and tongue morphology of the sugarbirds is very similar to that of the honeyeaters, the result of convergent evolution. The tongue is long and protrusible, and is tubular and frilled at the end. Nectar from the inflorescences of the Protea provide most of the energy these species require, and they are considered significant pollinators of the genus.
The birds’ diet is supplemented by insects attracted to the inflorescences.[3] Studies of the diets of sugarbirds found that bees in the family Apidae and flies formed a large part of the diet and that the insects were obtained by hawking.
The breeding behaviour and nesting habits of the two species of sugarbird are very similar.[1] Sugarbirds are monogamous, and male sugarbirds defend territories during the breeding season.[4] Females lay two eggs in a nest in a fork of a tree