Saturday 5 May 2018
23-4-2018 OKAVANGO DELTA, BOTSWANA - AFRICAN STRIPED SKINK (Trachylepis striata)
The African striped skink (Trachylepis striata), commonly called the striped skink, is a species of lizard in the skink family (Scincidae). The species is widespread in East Africa and Southern Africa. It is not a close relation to the Australian striped skink, Ctenotus taeniolatus.
T. striata is brown or bronze-coloured with two yellowish stripes that run lengthwise on either side of the spine. Both sexes grow to a total length (including tail) of 25 cm (9.8 in).[2] Their tails are often missing due to predators.
4-5-2018 ULAL DE BOLDOVI, VALENCIA - GULL BILLED TERN (Gelochelidon nilotica)
Juvenile Sandwich terns have a short bill, and are frequently mistaken for gull-billed tern where the latter species is uncommon, such as North Sea coasts.
It breeds in warmer parts of the world in southern Europe, temperate and eastern Asia, both coasts of North America, eastern South America. This bird has a number of geographical races, differing mainly in size and minor plumage details.
All forms show a post-breeding dispersal, but the northern breeders are most migratory, wintering south to Africa, the Caribbean and northern South America, southern Asia and New Zealand.
The gull-billed tern is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.
The gull-billed tern breeds in colonies on lakes, marshes and coasts (including bays and earthen levees). It nests in a ground scrape and lays two to five eggs. While widely distributed in freshwater areas in Eurasia, it is associated almost solely with saltwater, coastal areas in North America.
This is a somewhat atypical tern, in appearance like a Sterna tern, but with feeding habits more like the Chlidonias marsh terns, black tern and white-winged tern. It does not normally plunge dive for fish like the other white terns, and has a broader diet than most other terns. It largely feeds on insects taken in flight, and also often hunts over wet fields and even in brushy areas, to take amphibians and small mammals. It is also an opportunistic feeder, and has been observed to pick up and feed on dead dragonflies from the road.
Gull-billed Terns are graceful fliers that swoop above saltmarshes and beaches. They're pale silvery gray and white, with a shallowly forked tail, heavy bill, and (in summer) a neat black cap. The heavy bill is a key to its diet, which is broader than a typical tern's and does not center on fish. They forage in the air for insects, seize crabs and lizards from the ground, pluck fish from the water surface (without diving into the water), steal food from other birds, and even prey on chicks of other species.
Unlike most terns, Gull-billed Terns have a broad diet and do not depend on fish. Instead they commonly feed on insects, small crabs, and other prey snatched from the ground, air, or even bushes. They are also known to eat small chicks of other tern species.
Although mostly restricted to saltwater habitats in North America, Gull-billed Terns are found in a variety of freshwater habitats across Eurasia.
The oldest recorded Gull-billed Tern lived to be at least 20 years old and was found, and banded, in California.
The Gull-Billed Tern prefers inland waters although it is also present in coastal areas. To nest, it uses sandy islets of lagoons and reservoirs, marshes and salt flats. With regards to feeding this bird benefits from crops, olive groves, pastures, flooded areas and inland dry environments.
Summer species present in Malaga during the breeding period. It breeds in colonies at the end of April and makes an annual laying of 2 eggs. Nest on the ground. This tern feeds on insects, both terrestrial and flying, which hunts in flight at ground level. It also captures amphibians, fish, crustaceans and even micromammals or small birds.
Friday 4 May 2018
4-5-2018 EL PERELLO, VALENCIA - LITTLE BITTERN (Ixobrychus minutus)
The little bittern or common little bittern (Ixobrychus minutus) is a wading bird in the heron family, Ardeidae. Ixobrychus is from Ancient Greek ixias, a reed-like plant and brukhomai 'to bellow', and minutus is Latin for 'small'.
The little bittern is native to the Old World, breeding in Africa, central and southern Europe, western and southern Asia, and Madagascar. Birds from temperate regions in Europe and western Asia are migratory, wintering in Africa and further south in Asia, while those nesting in the tropics are sedentary. It is rare north of its breeding range.
In Britain there were intermittent reports of breeding in the nineteenth century, and again in 1946 and 1957, but none of these records were proven. The first proven British breeding record is from Yorkshire in 1984, and the second from the Avalon Marshes in Somerset in 2010, by 2017 this species had been present in this area for nine consecutive years.
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Carl Linnaeus described the little bittern in 1766. Member of a cosmopolitan superspecies with I. exilis (North and South America), I. sinensis (Asia) and I. dubius (New Guinea, AUS). I. [m.] minutus itself consists of three clearly differentiated subspecies (groups) to which all-species status could be assigned:
I. m. minutus – (Linnaeus, 1766): nominate, found in Europe, Asia, northern Africa; winters in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia
I. m. payesii – (Hartlaub, 1858): found in sub-Saharan Africa, resident
I. m. podiceps – (Bonaparte, 1855): found in Madagascar, resident
The Australian little bittern (I. dubius) and the extinct New Zealand little bittern (I. novaezelandiae) were formerly considered subspecies of the little bittern.
Comparative studies, especially on shouting / courtship behavior and genetics, are lacking.
The little bittern has a length of 33–38 centimetres (13–15 in) and a wing span of 52–58 centimetres (20–23 in). It is the smallest of the breeding herons of Europe and is characterised by its tiny size, long and sharp bill and thick neck. The males are distinctively patterned and both sexes show pale forewing panels. The males have black with a faint green sheen on the crown, nape, back, tail and scapulars. The underparts are pale buff and the wing has a pinkish buff oval shaped panel which contrasts with the otherwise black wings and is formed by the inner wing coverts. The underwing is completely whiteish in colour. The female is duller than the male and has brownish black upperparts with paler feather margins visible at close range. The underparts of the female are not as clean as those of the male and are streaked with dark buff and brown. The female's wing panel is less obvious than the male's. The juveniles are duller and more rufous than the females and are more heavily streaked on both their upperparts and underparts, including their wing coverts.
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