Small black bird with an orange tail. The waxwing is a bird with a crest on its head. Drunken waxwingers. The great black woodpecker is yellow. Report with photos and video

Redstart (lat. Phoenicurus)- a small bird from the passerine family. The males have a gray back, a rusty-red belly and sides, and a bright red plumage on the tail - that's why the redstart got its name. The wings are brown, the forehead area is white, the cheeks, throat, goiter are black. The females are brown with reddish markings. The body length of the bird is up to 16 cm, weight is up to 20 grams. In young birds, the color is inconspicuous, brown with buffy spots.

photo: Common redstart or coot

Redstarts include 13 species of birds, most of them inhabit China, India and other Asian countries. In Russia, you can most often find the common redstart, nigella, white cap and Siberian redstart. Birds prefer to settle in the forest-steppe and forest zones, in parks and gardens, but in the steppe it can be seen extremely rarely, it avoids redstart and pine forests.

photo: Black Redstart

Distribution, nutrition, reproduction of redstarts

The redstart returns in mid-April, the first to arrive are old males, followed by young and females. It is the males who are looking for a place to nest, for the best sites the real struggle begins. Bird nests are built in hollows, on thick branches of trees, in bushes, old stumps. The female builds a nest in May-June, as building material using pieces of bark, grass stalks, dry leaves, it lines the rookery from the inside with threads, feathers, ropes, and scraps of paper. In one clutch there are 6-7 eggs with a bluish shell, the female is engaged in incubation. After 2 weeks, chicks appear, both parents bring them food for another 2-3 weeks. Babies begin to fly about a month after birth. Some pairs of birds make 2-3 clutches during the summer. The young roam not far from the nesting place, near water bodies and in thickets of bushes.

photo: Siberian redstart

Food for redstarts are mainly insects - flies, mosquitoes, small beetles, caterpillars, as well as small spiders. Birds are not averse to eating berries - currants, elderberries, raspberries. In October (some species even in November), birds migrate to Central Africa, where they spend the winter. You can keep redstarts in cages, but they get used to a person for a long time, and they will sing in captivity at most 2 months a year.

photo: White-headed redstart

Representatives of this species sing almost around the clock, they are especially active early in the morning and late in the evening;
characteristic feature the behavior of the bird is the constant shaking of its tail, because of this, the red plumage shimmers in the sun, like a fire;
The redstart is also called the coot, kaluferka, goristovka;
When kept in captivity, the wings are tied up for the first time, as they often injure themselves. With proper care, they live 5-6 years.
In 2015, the redstart was declared the bird of the year in Russia

Redstart video

The jay belongs to the corvid family and forms separate view living in Eurasia. Bird forest and inhabits almost all of Europe, including the northern and central regions of Russia, Great Britain and Scandinavia. It lives in Asia Minor, in the Caucasus, in the western regions of Iran and in northern Africa. It comes across in the Himalayas, inhabits a vast region of Southeast Asia, as well as Japan, Korea, Sakhalin. Representatives of the species also live in the Asian part of Russia. These are the Urals, the southern regions of Siberia and the Far East.

In length, together with the tail, the bird reaches 30-40 cm. The wingspan is 50-55 cm. The wing length is 15-17 cm. The tail reaches a length of 12-15 cm. The body weight is 170-200 grams. There is a crest on the head. The rump is white, the tail is black. The plumage on the body is light brown. The wing coverts are blue with transverse black stripes.

The color of the feathers on the head varies depending on the region of habitat. In Asia, a light brown tint prevails; in Europe, the plumage is light and diluted with brown streaks. The inhabitants of Asia Minor and the Caucasus have a dark head, rather even black. There are black stripes from the beak to the neck. The beak is also black. Legs are reddish brown. The throat is light, almost white. In a word, the jay looks very nice. Its flight is slow, and its wings are rounded.

Reproduction and lifespan

The mating season for this bird begins at the very beginning of spring. The female and male form a pair and immediately start building the nest. For this, dark areas of the forest are selected. The nest is located on both coniferous and deciduous trees. It is done on the side branches. The height from the ground is usually 2-5 meters. The outer frame is woven from tree branches, and last year's grass is laid inside. It turns out a small bowl. Its bottom is lined with grass and feathers. The diameter of the nest reaches 20-30 cm. The depth reaches 15 cm.

There are 5-8 eggs in a clutch. Incubation lasts two and a half weeks. Chicks are born in mid-May. They are fed by their parents for a month. At the end of June they take to the wings. But the family does not break up until the end of August. Only at the beginning of autumn, young people begin an independent life. She huddles in groups and looks for permanent habitats. Jay lives in wild nature 5-7 years. The maximum life expectancy is 20-22 years.

Behavior and nutrition

This species does not migrate to warm countries in winter. In the southern regions leads a sedentary lifestyle. Inhabitants of colder regions try to stick to their feeding territories all year round and move only in case of starvation. Therefore, migrations are not regular. Usually, with the advent of snow cover, birds forage not only in the forest, but also fly out to open areas. They even come close to towns.

But it should be noted that the jay under any circumstances remains an inhabitant of the forest. She spends most of her life there. The diet includes plant foods, insects, as well as frogs, lizards, eggs small birds. Pichuga attacks chicks, as well as young songbirds that have just taken a wing. Representatives of the species are very smart. To get to caterpillars hiding in tree trunks, they stick their beak under the bark and break off pieces. In this way they get to the insects. Collect acorns and hide them in reserve. True, sometimes these reserves are found

Sometimes walking through the woods with a gun or just walking down the street you can meet a strange little bird very similar to a sparrow. Many are wondering who it is, and the question of what kind of bird looks like a sparrow can be very often found on various forums, social network groups and question and answer services. We decided to find out who it could be and answer this question.

sparrows

Sparrow is a small bird with brownish-gray plumage, for all its nondescriptness, the bird is very interesting, in habits and behavior, including useful for mankind, and as history has shown, they can greatly influence the ecological balance in nature. The destruction of their population has already led to an ecological disaster.

In the territory Russian Federation two species live, the house sparrow, which is also a city sparrow, and the village sparrow, which is also a field sparrow. As the name implies, some live in cities, others outside the city.

We will not describe sparrows from a scientific point of view, there are specialized scientific publications for this, so we will simply give the main characteristics of the species and Interesting Facts about this bird:

In view of the large family of the passerine order, in our forests there are very often birds that have an external resemblance to sparrows, so we decided to compile a list of the most common twins of the common sparrow.

gray thrush

He is a thrush, fieldfare, he is a mess. It is similar in color to a sparrow, but has a larger size.

It is often found in gardens and orchards, or in places where berries and various fruit crops accumulate, it feeds on the same berries.

With all this, the bird is quite edible, and according to the famous hunter Aksakov S.T. one of the few birds that, on a par with snipe, can be cooked without gutting (The quote is not verbatim).

In the USSR, it was considered conditionally a hunting resource, and passing hunting was allowed for it in the implementation of any other legal hunting.

Video of thrush fieldfare (Video from Yotube.com/

It would seem that everyone knows the nightingale, and everyone is familiar with his ringing singing, but oddly enough, many do not know what he looks like. The nightingale has a very strong external resemblance to sparrows, but their habitat is different.

Nightingales are more moisture-loving birds and live mainly in floodplain forests, nest in deciduous shrubs and trees near water bodies. In color, the nightingale is very similar to the sparrow, but slightly larger and has a longer body shape.

lark

The lark is slightly larger than the sparrow, lives mainly in the fields, it can often be heard by its sonorous singing.

It has a more attractive color, although not as plain as the hero of the article, sometimes crested larks come across.

It is an object of prey for hunters, and there are some connoisseurs of a rather difficult spring hunting for larks. The bird is insectivorous and migratory; it does not hibernate in the Russian Federation.

On the territory of the Russian Federation there are larks of the following types: common lark, crested lark, hoopoe, forest, steppe, have minor differences.

Belongs to the finches family and looks and has the size of a sparrow, except for a brighter and more attractive color.

It lives mainly in forests, in the cold season it gathers in flocks, sometimes together with sparrows and other finches.

In the cold season, due to the small amount of food in the forests, they may appear in settlements joining a flock of sparrows.

Hunters are not interested, sometimes they are kept in captivity.

Video and singing of a lark (Yotube.com/

Oatmeal

In Russia, reed and reed oatmeal, or reed bunting, are mainly common.

It has a very strong resemblance to sparrows, the main difference is a slightly different body shape and color, and a pronounced black head color.

The habitat follows from the name is reeds and reeds. Therefore, it can be found mainly only near water bodies.

Video and singing of oatmeal (Yotube.com/

These are the most common and widespread birds on the territory of Russia that have an external resemblance to sparrows in appearance and color.

If you know more, write in the comments, be sure to add.

Many people know a small black bird with a bright red tail, which she constantly shakes, living in gardens and parks. For a bright tail, noticeable from afar, she received the name redstart. And if the males of this bird are very noticeable - still, they are dark themselves, and the tail is bright red, then the females and young birds are not so conspicuous. They are brownish-gray in color, with a lighter belly and throat. But a characteristic distinguishing feature - they also have a red swaying tail.

To begin with, a short video with a characteristic cry (not a song!) of a redstart. It sits on a branch swaying from the wind, shaking its tail and emits a characteristic cry - “fuit-tik-tik-tik”:

The most famous and widespread in our country is the common redstart (it is also the garden redstart, coot redstart). This small, smaller than a sparrow, bird of the flycatcher family has a bright red tail, which it often twitches. As a result, the reddish spot becomes clearly visible against the background of the gray back and brown wings of the bird and resembles a flaming ember. Other external signs of this bird: in males, the entire lower body is red, the sides of the head and throat are black, and the forehead is white (hence the name coot). Females are light brown, darker above, with brown wings. Juveniles are brown with dark spots. The main identifying feature - an orange-red tail - is present in males, females, and young birds.

The red, “burning” tail of the bird became the reason for its Russian name. The fiery tail was also noted by Carl Linnaeus, who in 1758 described the redstart under the Latin name Phoenicurus phoenicurus, which can be translated as “Phoenix tail”. Phoenix, we recall, according to ancient tradition, burned in the fire and was reborn again, and the Greek word οὐρά means tail.

In English, the redstart is called redstart. The word start in this case comes from Middle English stert and Old English steort "tail". It has nothing to do with the word start, which means “to start” (from the Old English styrtan “to jump up”). The red tail of the bird caught the eye of other peoples. Therefore, in many languages, the name redstart means "red tail" (Italian codirosso, Swedish rödstjärt, Greek κοκκινούρης, Danish rødstjert, Belarusian orestart). In Spanish, the redstart also has the name abanico, which literally means "fan". Apparently, the attentive Spaniards noticed how the male redstart periodically opens its tail, like a fan. The Finnish name for the redstart is leppälintu "alder bird". The Romanians call it codraş, which can be translated as "forester", but they also know the name coadă-roşie "red tail".

Redstart lives in deciduous forests, often in gardens and parks. She arranges nests in hollows, in stumps, sometimes even on the ground under bushes. The redstart also settles in the niches of human buildings, even in wood piles. Usually the redstart keeps low, on the branches of trees, on bushes, flies to the ground, where it searches for food. However, the singing male can also occupy a place at the top of the tree.

The connoisseur of bird singing Ivan Shamov wrote about the redstart: “In April, as soon as the gardens begin to dry out after the spring thaw, the redstart is already here, flew from distant countries to its nesting places, from year to year looking for its corner without error, and from early in the morning, as soon as a strip of light appears in the east, the bird fills the garden with its modest characteristic song; in the month of May, her song is not interrupted even at night. To the ear, it seems to come out with the words: fi! re-re-re-re, bloom-bloom!... so invariably repeats itself in one plan, but it's wonderful that the redstart almost never puts the same ending in her song, but every time a new one. And this bird is very entertaining, you always listen with pleasure and try to make out what the ending will be. It usually consists of calls different birds. In addition to this song of the redstart, the reader undoubtedly heard her characteristic call: whit! wow!, which she repeats loudly and for a long time, especially before a bad weather, and when she is worried about something, she shouts: whit-te-tek! (“Our Songbirds”, 1910).

In the singing and cries of many birds, people are used to hearing meaningful words and phrases. For example, it was believed that the lapwing asked: “Whose are you? Whose are you?” and lentils: “Did you see Vitya? Have you seen Nikita? The singing of the redstart did not escape such folk interpretation. The peasants of the Smolensk province believed that the redstart boasted: "I was in St. Petersburg, I was in St. Petersburg ... Peter saw, Peter saw."

The redstart feeds on insects. The bird looks for them on the ground and on the branches, it can catch them on the fly. Ornithologist A.N. Promptov in 1940 calculated that a redstart feeding chicks brought food to the nest 469 times a day. Redstarts prey on both flying insects and caterpillars. The diameter of the hunting area reaches 200 - 300 meters. At the end of summer, the redstart adds berries to its diet.

The summer apartment of the common redstart can be located in large gardens, on the edge of the forest, in the fields. These birds build their nests in the hollows of old trees. Common redstarts feed their chicks most often with pests, which is why gardeners and gardeners love them so much.

Pairs of redstarts often persist for several years. Males return to nesting sites earlier than females. They are looking for a place to nest: usually it is a hollow or a pile of deadwood. Having found a place, they call the females without moving away from the site: after all, they can take the place. There is another way to call the female - to climb into the hollow and put out the "flaming" tail. The female searches for the male and flies into the hollow. After the appearance of a partner, the male immediately begins mating games. When the female approaches the future nest, the male sings a song and bows his head, showing a white forehead, spinning around his axis. After that, the birds mate and together line the hollow with dry grass, bark and moss. At the final stage, the "children's room" is insulated with down and wool. The female lays 6-7 eggs and incubates them for two weeks, leaving the nest from time to time to satisfy her hunger. For the chicks that appeared two weeks later, both birds bring food.

It is also the responsibility of the male redstart to keep the nest clean during the first days after the chicks appear. The male carries the baby's feces out in his beak. 2 weeks after birth, the chicks learn to fly. However, even when the female incubates the second clutch, the male continues to patronize the chicks from the first brood. After the birth of chicks from the second clutch, older chicks begin an independent life.

In Europe, the redstart lives in light mixed forests, and in Africa and Asia Minor it also inhabits mountain forests. She leaves rocky places and rocks near mountain meadows to a close relative, the black redstart.

In some gardens, both species of these birds coexist. Among the redstart's favorite places to live are old parks and alleys, where there are many old hollow trees. In Berlin, redstarts inhabited city parks, gardens and cemeteries. Today, urban populations of redstarts outnumber populations in suburban forests. At the end of August, redstarts begin to prepare for departure to warm Africa. Winter is spent in countries located south of the Sahara.

Redstarts feed on various insects and spiders that they find on the ground, on tree trunks, branches and leaves. Occasionally, birds catch insects in the air, looking for prey from an ambush.

The redstart is in no hurry to eat the caught prey - first it takes it to a safe place. It stuns large insects, for example, beetles, by hitting the ground in advance, and tears off the legs of grasshoppers. In addition to caterpillars, ants, small mollusks and centipedes, the bird eats berries and fruits. Small chicks are able to swallow only crushed food, so adult birds first crush the caught insects and only then give them to the chicks.

Voracious chicks often bring their parents to full physical exhaustion, because birds fly to the nest up to 500 times a day, each time bringing food to the chicks in their beaks.

The redstart often nests next to the nuthatch or chickadee. She willingly lays her eggs in specially prepared nesting houses. The higher its house in the garden is located, the greater the chances for successful breeding of the bird, of course, provided that there is enough food in the area. Gardeners rejoice when these insectivorous birds appear on their plots. The “friendship” of people with redstart brings them great benefits. After all, the bird saves gardens from various pests: grasshopper beetles, bedbugs, caterpillars, leaf beetles and mosquitoes.

Interesting Redstart Facts:

Redstarts, like wagtails, swing their tails up and down.
The common redstart can attack its reflection when it sees it, for example, in the glass of a window.
The male hunts prey in flight, while the female searches for food on the surface of the earth.
The name of this bird suggests that it has a brightly colored tail. It “burns”, because the tail feathers have a fiery color.
It is in the nest of the redstart that the cuckoo most often leaves its eggs. Redstarts take care of cuckoos like their own chicks.

On the territory of Russia there are several more representatives of the redstart genus. Siberian redstart (Phoenicurus auroreus) lives in eastern Siberia. Grey-headed redstart (Phoenicurus caeruleocephala), red-backed redstart (Phoenicurus erythronotus) and red-bellied redstart (Phoenicurus erythrogastrus) are found in the Altai, Sayan and Tien Shan mountains. The last of these species can also be found in the Caucasus.

We see a bird with a long beak or a feathered bird jumping on the ground, we watch migratory flocks and feed those who stayed for the winter. There are many different birds around us. And each species deserves special attention, because it is unique in its own way. From this article, you will learn a lot of interesting things about birds living next to a person, and discover this world from a new perspective.

Our feathered neighbors

The reasons why birds choose to be with us are many and obvious. The main one is inextricably linked with the search for food and shelter. Remember swallows. They build their nests under the roofs of houses. If we talk about crows, doves and sparrows, these birds are an integral part of the atmosphere of any city.

Being close to a person significantly increases the chances of birds to survive on hungry and cold days. But, there are also forest birds that are comfortable away from the benefits of human civilization. And about those, and about others, we will now tell. You will find out which characteristics distinguish birds from each other and stop confusing birds that are similar in appearance.

We recognize the titmouse by the characteristic yellowish color of its breast, the dark green plumage of the wings and tail. It belongs to the order of sparrows. The size of an individual is about 14 cm, and the weight is 20 g. It has about 30 subspecies. Depending on the place of residence, it leads both a sedentary and a migratory lifestyle.

The tit is found almost everywhere on the planet. It lives in the regions of Eurasia, North Africa, and Indonesia. Residents of cold countries tend to fly to warmer climes during periods of severe frost in their homeland.

Yellow-breasted birds are not only tits. Among birds similar to them, there are siskin, oatmeal, mountain wagtail, blue tit, and yellow finch.

Beak and tail as a point of pride

A person is surrounded by groups of birds that cannot be overlooked. And the amazing beaks and tails that such birds possess are to blame. They need a beak to catch small insects under the bark of trees and in the ground. The tail orients in space and serves as a steering.

"Tailed" advantages have long-tailed tit, yellow wagtail. Being one of the smallest birds, they carry a tail that is disproportionately long relative to their body, resembling a spoon.

A graceful thin and long beak is a distinctive feature of such birds as pika, mocking and red-winged wall climber. Individuals more familiar to our eyes, which nature has awarded with a long beak - rooks, starlings, nuthatches, and also chicks.

Friends and relatives

Birds live in Russia, to which we have long been accustomed. They build their nests and have offspring, both in the city and in countryside. Some representatives of the bird kingdom are recognized by people due to their bright head plumage and beak color.

Individuals with a bright yellow beak live on the territory of our country. These are blackbirds and alpine jackdaws. The blackbird gradually wanders from the forest to country gardens, where it massively destroys the work of summer residents. The jackdaw belongs to the crows, although it is inferior in size to most of its relatives. This is a sociable bird that lives close to humans. Its food sources are fruit trees, hence parks, gardens and agricultural land.

Bright and effective

There are birds that we recognize as soon as we see them. Their business card- original crest. Linnet, tap dance, waxwing, carduelis (in some tropical species) are given out by their peculiar plumage, similar to a cap. As a rule, it is painted in contrasting bright colors. Most often, red, yellow, black and white shades of plumage predominate. In the natural environment, such individuals settle in forests, in vast areas where human presence is minimized.

There are many spectacular crested birds in our area and they live everywhere. Due to the climatic features of the region, some of them are migratory.

Remarkable bird crossbill-spruce. This bird, in addition to bright plumage, is distinguished by an unusual beak shape. Its ends are bent so that, crossing, form the letter "x".

chest forward

Some birds that live in our vast latitudes, with a brightly colored breast, arouse increased human interest.

The most famous representative of such birds is the bullfinch. In Russia, he was always treated with respect. We associate it with snowy winter. Songs are sung about this bird with a red breast, poems and children's tales are composed.

The songbird belongs to the finches family. Bullfinches live in Europe, Asia, Siberia, Kamchatka and Japan on the territory of forest zones. Its color on the tail, head and wings is dark blue and gray with a metallic sheen. The contrasting pink-red color of the breast makes the bullfinch a very effective representative of the feathered class. The bird feeds on insects and small mollusks. It breeds twice a year. One clutch contains five to seven eggs, from which a brood of chicks appears in a couple of weeks.

Other birds with bright breast plumage:

some types of thrushes: white-throated, white-rumped shama;
starlings various kinds: emerald, brilliant Hildebrant's starling;
varakusha;
redstart;
black-headed coinage;
coinage meadow and black-headed;
red-breasted warbler.

Some birds boast a spotted breast: nutcracker, millet.

Interestingly, the redstart differs from the sparrow mainly in the bright orange color of the breast and the larger size.

Birds the color of the sun

Some birds nature endowed especially generously. Their plumage shimmers with all sunny colors and shades.

Oriole is among the lucky ones, but it is not completely yellow. The monochrome black plumage of the wings contrasts against the background of rich yellow. Oriole singing is a favorite theme of poets and musicians.

The canary or canary finch also has a sunny color. For this, the bird is very much loved and often planted as a singing pet. Motherland canary finch Canaries, Azores and Madeira are considered. The bird arrived in the Old World with the Spanish conquistadors, after which it became the favorite of noble nobles and kings.

We have birds called canaries for the consonance of their original habitat (Canaries).

Inconspicuous, but still special

Man is surrounded not only by exquisite showy birds. V Everyday life most often we meet individuals whose plumage merges with trees, earth and gray asphalt. This feature of their appearance not random. It is conditioned climatic conditions habitat, choice of nest sites, foraging methods, and the need for camouflage.

The gray color of the feathers is characteristic of pigeons, field sparrows, turtledoves. In contrast, neck white stripes appear on their body.

Brown birds, often found with us: sparrow, thrush, lark and nightingale.

Black birds: crows, rooks, jackdaws, red-billed choughs. Crows are sometimes confused with their closest relatives, the Australian magpie and the rook.

Bright accents

There are birds whose appearance is characterized by special marks by which they are recognized. In particular, we are talking about lazorevka. Her neck and white head are framed with blue plumage against the background of yellow-gray shades of other parts of the body.

The goldfinch is distinguished by the red color of the feathers in the head area. Its yellow-feathered wings are outlined in black. The entire body of the bird is brown-beige.

The chough, gull, and inca tern are red-skinned individuals with paws. Mother nature awarded this color to the duck, painting it with the bird's powerful beak.

Red pigment is found not only in the color of the skin, appendages and feathers. Look at a dove or an owl. You will notice the presence of a bloody tint in their eyes.

Black and white world

A common occurrence in the feathered family is a black and white “classic”. It is not considered exotic and is found everywhere. Sometimes black feathers are mixed with grayish ones. This color is due to the lifestyle of birds, their habitat and other factors. Among the brightest representatives of this color group are the pied flycatcher, common magpie, little auk, and also the white wagtail.

Dark gray and black birds with white stripes in the wing area: gray shrike, magpie, pied flycatcher.

The ptarmigan, contrary to its name, does not always look completely monochromatic. Her head is often painted black, sometimes brown.

Our vast world is replete with a variety of birds. Some of them are radically different, others are similar. But, one way or another, watching them is a very interesting and informative activity.

If you liked the article, leave comments about what you read, and also share information with your friends on social networks.