The white-breasted crake , or the white-breasted small shepherd [1] ) ( Latin Amaurornis phoenicurus ) is a bird from the shepherd's family. It is widely distributed throughout Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The back, sides and top of the head are of a dark ashen color, while the chest, abdomen and front are pure white. They are somewhat bolder than most other shepherd's, and they are often seen with their tail turned upright, slowly moving along open swamps or even in drainage ditches along roads with heavy traffic. They are mostly active at dusk, and during the breeding season, immediately after the first rains, they emit loud and repetitive desires resembling a frog croaking ( apparently, this subspecies occurring in Russia does not apply. See the record from Khasansky r- on ).
| White-thief |
 |
| Scientific classification |
|---|
| No rank : | Bilateral symmetric |
|
| International Scientific Name |
|---|
Amaurornis phoenicurus Pennant , 1769 |
| The approximate distribution of white-breasted crake |
|---|
|
| Security status |
|---|
Least concernIUCN 3.1 Least Concern : 22692640 |
|
Content
In adult white breasts, the upper body and sides are dark gray, the front part of the head, neck and chest are white. The lower part of the abdomen and the undertail of a reddish-brown color. The body is as if flattened from the sides, which provides greater ease of movement through the thickets. White-breasted hunters have long fingers, a short tail and a yellow beak and legs. There is no sexual dimorphism in coloring, but the size of the female is somewhat smaller. Immature individuals are much more dull colored than adults. Downy chicks are black, like all shepherd's [2] [3] .
Immature birds are almost completely gray, and only on the chest and throat have whitish marks.
Several subspecies have been allocated to denote widely distributed populations. The nominative subspecies was described from Sri Lanka, but its distribution area is often expanded, including the A. ph. chinensis , due to the mainland of the Indian subcontinent and adjacent regions in Asia to the west to Arabia and the east almost to Japan. The remaining subspecies are those of the islands and include [2] [3] .
- Amaurornis phoenicurus phoenicurus - South Asia , Malay Archipelago and the Philippines .
- Amaurornis phoenicurus maldivus - Maldives .
- Amaurornis phoenicurus insularis - Andaman and partly Nicobar Islands .
- Amaurornis phoenicurus midnicobaricus - The central part of the Nicobar Islands.
- Amaurornis phoenicurus leucocephala - Kar-Nicobar Island.
- Amaurornis phoenicurus leucomelanus (S. MΓΌller, 1842) - Sulawesi , west of the Moluccas and the Lesser Sunda Islands .
- Amaurornis phoenicurus javanicus - the island of Java .
- Amaurornis phoenicurus chinensis (Boddaert, 1783)
Their nesting biotopes are swamps of all South Asia from Pakistan, Maldives, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to southern China, the Philippines and Indonesia. They mostly inhabit the plains, but were also found in the mountains and foothills, such as in Nainital (1300 m) and in the mountains in Kerala (1500 m) [4] [5] . These large 32 cm long leads are sedentary throughout the range. But they are moving to small distances in order to colonize new areas. They were noted as one of the earliest settlers on the volcanic island of Rakata , which arose as a result of the eruption at Krakatau [6] [7] . Although they are most often found near freshwater bodies, they are also noted near brackish waters and even on the shores of the seas, with no fresh water at all, like on the volcanic island of Barren (Desert) on the Andaman Islands [8] .
In Russia
There are several known arrivals of the Amaurornis phoenicurus chinensis (Boddaert, 1783) subspecies: in Primorsky Krai [9] [10] , on Sakhalin [11] and on Kamchatka [12] . Nesting is not proven.
Territorial cries,
Bangalore .
These birds are usually observed singly or in pairs, as they feed slowly along the edge of water bodies, mainly on the ground, but sometimes, and climbing low vegetation. The tail is held up high, and they twitch at movement. They probe sludge and dirt with a beak or peck food objects in shallow water, being guided by sight. They mainly eat insects (a large number of beetles have been recorded [8] ), small fish, aquatic invertebrates and seeds, such as, for example, seeds of Pithecolobium dulce [13] [14] . Sometimes they can feed on deeper ground in the manner of a marsh hen [15] [16] [17] [18] .
The nesting season lasts mainly from June to October, but is locally variable. For the nest, they choose a dry place on the ground among dense marsh vegetation, the laying consists of 6-7 eggs. The ritual of courting includes bowing, billing, and nibbling. Chicks hatch after about 19 days of incubation [19] . Both sexes take part in the incubation of eggs and the care of the chicks. Nestlings often dive under water to escape from predators [8] . It has been observed that adult hugs build temporary or brood nests (or perches) where chicks and adults rest [20] .
Many shepherd's are very secretive, but white-breasted pursuers are often seen in fairly open habitats. They can be quite noisy, especially at dawn and dusk, uttering loud hoarse cries. Andaman subspecies A. ph. insularis produces something like a quack [8] .
In Sri Lanka, this bird has in Sinhalese the imitative name korawakka [21] .
Naturalist writer , known as Echo , describes the cry of this kind in this way: [18] "It began with a loud, sharp roar that could be extracted from a bear if it was slowly fried on a big bonfire, but then suddenly changed to clean notes, repeating like cooing of turtle-dove " [22] .
- β Boehme RL , Flint V. Ye. The five-language dictionary of animal names. Birds. Latin, Russian, English, German, French / Under total. ed. Acad. V.E. Sokolova . - M .: Rus. LANGUAGE, RUSSO, 1994. - 845 p. - 2030 copies - ISBN 5-200-00643-0 .
- β 1 2 Birds of South Asia. The Ripley Guide. Volume 2. - Smithsonian Institution & Lynx Edicions, 2005. - P. 142.
- β 1 2 Abdulali, Humayun. Four new races of birds from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Eng.) // J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. : journal. - 1964. - Vol. 61 , no. 2 - P. 410-417 .
- β Robertson, Andrew. Some altitudinal records of birds from the High Range, Kerala (Eng.) // J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. : journal. - 1990. - Vol. 87 , no. 3 - P. 456 .
- β Smetacek, Victor. The Kumaon Hills (English) // J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. : journal. - 1974. - Vol. 71 , no. 2 - P. 299-302 .
- β Zann, RA; Darjono. The birds of Anak Krakatau: the assembly of an avian community (Eng.) // GeoJournal : journal. - Springer , 1992. - Vol. 28 , no. 2 - DOI : 10.1007 / BF00177240 .
- β Buden DW; S Retogral. Range Expansion of the White-breasted Waterhen (Amaurornis phoenicurus) into Micronesia (Eng.) // The Wilson Journal of Ornithology : journal. - Wilson Ornithological Society , 2010. - Vol. 122 , no. 4 - P. 784-788 . - DOI : 10.1676 / 10-012.1 .
- 2 1 2 3 4 Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan. Volume 2. - 2. - Oxford University Press, 1980. - P. 169β172.
- β Nazarov Yu. N., Kazykhanova M. G. 1988. Another find in the USSR of the white-breasted crakeon is Amaurornis phoenicurus (Pennant). // Rare birds of the Far East and their protection. Vladivostok, s. 141.
- β Elsukov S. V. 1999. Birds. // The cadastre of vertebrates of the Sikhote-Alin reserve and the northern Primorye. Vladivostok, s. 29-75.
- β Kozin, A.N. 1995. Finding a new species of shepherd for Sakhalin - white-breasted green-billed calves. // Bulletin of the Sakhalin Museum, 2. Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, p. 289.
- β Gerasimov, Yu. N. 1996. The august of the white-breasted small shepherdess Amaurornis phoenicurus to Kamchatka. // Rus. Ornitol. journals Express Issue 5 p. 6.
- β Relton, A; Moses, A Alagappa; Wesley, H Daniel. Addition to the dietary of Whitebreasted Waterhen Amaurornis phoenicurus (Pennant) (Eng.) // J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. : journal. - 1991. - Vol. 88 , no. 2 - P. 282 .
- β Mason CW. Memoirs of the Department of Agriculture in India. Volume 3. The Maxima-Lefroy, H. β Imperial Department of Agriculture in India, 1911. β P. 252.
- β Sugathan, R; Rajan, S Alagar. Notes on the Amaurornis phoenicurus at Point Calimere (Eng.) // J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. : journal. - 1988. - Vol. 85 , no. 1 . - P. 191 .
- β Balachandran, S. Unusual Waterhen ( Amaurornis phoenicurus ) (English) // J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. : journal. - 1988. - Vol. 85 , no. 3 - P. 615-616 .
- β Baker, EC S. Fauna of British India. Birds. Volume 6 . - 2. - Taylor and Francis, 1929. - P. 23β25.
- Ford Blanford, W. T. Fauna of British India. Birds. Volume 4 . - Taylor and Francis, 1898. - P. 173-174.
- β Dhindsa, Manjit S; Sandhu, PS; Toor, HS. Waterhen Amaurornis phoenicurus chinensis (Boddaert) (English) // J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. : journal. - 1983. - Vol. 80 , no. 1 . - P. 213-214 .
- Ss Loss of wetland breeding habitats and population of White-breasted Waterhen, Amaurornis phoenicurus phoenicurus (Pennant) - A case study // Proceedings of Taal 2007: The 12th World Lake Conference. - 2008. - p. 529β536.
- β Anonymous. Vernacular Names of the Birds of the Indian Subcontinent (Eng.) // Buceros: journal. - 1998. - Vol. 3 , no. 1 . - pp . 53-109 . Archived April 1, 2010. Archived copy from April 1, 2010 on Wayback Machine
- β Whistler, Hugh. Popular handbook of Indian Birds . - Gurney and Jackson, 1949. - P. 437β438. - ISBN 1-4067-4576-6 .
