Ordinary gray fortygun (lat. Lanius Excubitor) a detachment of sparrows, family family.
Description
Ordinary gray fortygun is a fairly large bird, the size of a thrush, with an impressive head and small, short wings and a long tailshaped tail. The size of the fortyback is about 28 cm, and its weight does not exceed 80 g. The color of the bird is most often gray, but in some subspecies it can be darker and lighter. So, the eastern populations are characterized by a brownish tint. Cheeks, chin and place over the eyes have a white color. From the beak to feathers, a wide strip of black color passes on the head, and it is with its help that a peculiar identification mask is formed.
The shoulders of the bird are decorated with white feathers, and the wings of the black color that have light fields from the white foundations of flyer feathers. The bottom is whitish and darker in the chest. The beak is massive, black with a brightened base and a long hooked oversleep.
Appearance
A forty-gun is a bird with a contrasting plumage that forms an ash-gray top and an almost whitish bottom, black wings, central tail feathers, as well as a strip from the beak to the back of the head. The head has a massive shape, and, as a rule, ends with a short neck. This bird practically does not issue sound accompaniment, but its chicks are sometimes even too noisy.
Sexual dimorphism is not developed in a fortyfoot, which means that females are difficult to excite from males under ordinary conditions. If you compare them in detail, you can notice a darken coloring of the female abdominal, and the presence of wavy transverse pattern. Adult outfit birds receive after the first spring molting period.
Lifestyle and behavior
Gray fortygun is recognized as the only one of its type, which not only nests in a certain territory, but also spends the winter there. Moreover, it is in winter that its population increases due to individuals from the northern territories.
Fortybends live in marsh redheads with rare wood, not so often master the lowland swamps, sometimes choose the edges of the swamp forests, thickets on river floodplains, swampy meadows. Can also be found in the anthropogenic landscape.
Where they live
The spread of this species is the territory of the temperate and subarctic climate, mainly the northern hemisphere: forty-gun nesting in Eurasia and North America, south of the 50th parallel. As an exception, it can be found in the mountainous regions of Central Asia (from Tien Shan to the mountains of Altai). It is almost impossible to meet in Iceland and Britain. In many territories of Europe (Czech Republic, Romania, Switzerland, Germany) this species is marked only by a single stay.
What they eat
Gray fortygun is a bird with habits and a predator diet. He is able to hunt not only large insects (bear, beetles), but also on small amphibians and reptiles, as well as rodents (lizards, mice, small birds). Usually this species pricks prey on knots, creating peculiar pantries. During the hunt, it can freeze above the ground, looking out for the prey.
Reproduction
At the nesting places of fortybears can be found at the beginning or midspring. It is the males who are engaged in the selection of the site, and only then actively guard it. Birds nest in pairs with significant removal from other individuals (at least 500 meters). At first, the males clamp, flying into the air, jumping from a branch to a branch around the female.
Males finish building a nest on coniferous trees for 6 days, where the female lays up to 9 light green speckled eggs. She trifles them for several weeks, and at the age of 21 days the chicks are already able to leave the nest.
