Ibisbill
Encyclopedia
The Ibisbill is a bird
related to the wader
s, but sufficiently distinctive to merit its own family Ibidorhynchidae. It is grey with a white belly, red legs and long down-curved bill, and a black face and black breast band. It occurs on the shingle riverbanks of the high plateau
of central Asia
and the Himalayas
.
which also includes the sandpipers, plover
s, tern
s, auk
s, gull
s, skua
s and others. Although its evolutionary relationships are not fully understood, the Ibisbill appears to be most closely related to a group including the oystercatcher
s, avocet
s, stilt
s and Pluvialis
plovers, but sufficiently distinctive to merit its own family, Ibidorhynchidae. There are no subspecies
. The species was described in 1831 by Vigors
based on painting by John Gould
although Brian Hodgson
had sent a manuscript to the Asiatic Society of Bengal two years earlier describing it as the "Red-billed Erolia" but this was published only in 1835 with an apology from the editor. Hodgson later suggested a new genus name of Clorhynchus for the bird stating that Gould's description of Ibidorhyncha was inaccurate while Vieillot
's Erolia had been rejected.
is duller. The bill is 6.8 – long and is slightly longer in females. The legs are greyish purple in the breeding adults and dull sepia in juveniles or greenish in younger or non-breeding adults. The legs of deceased Ibisbills change color to a crimson similar to the bill shade shortly after death. The tarsi is short and reticultated. The Ibisbill has three toes, lacking the hind toe. The outer and middle toes are connected by a small, idented web, while the middle and inner toes possess no webbing. The Ibisbill typically weighs 270 – and females weigh slightly more than males. In spite of its spectacular appearance it is inconspicuous in its stony environment. The call is a ringing Klew-klew similar to that of a Greenshank
. In flight, its outstretched neck and rounded wings give an ibis-like
appearance.
along stony riverbeds, typically between 1700 and 4400 m (5,577.4 and 14,435.7 ft), although there are records of the Ibisbill breeding as low as 500 m (1,640.4 ft). Outside the breeding season, it may descend as low as 100 m (328.1 ft). It typically is found in shingle-bed river valleys from 100 to 1500 m (328.1 to 4,921.3 ft) across with patches of sand and silt mixed in with pepples and small boulders. The river valleys frequented by the Ibisbill tend to have very little vegetation and gentle slopes to ensure a slow flow of water. It must live near slow-flowing water in order to feed, limiting its habitat despite a large range.
Wintering birds tend to be fairly inactive, while they become more active and noisy as the breeding season approaches.
breeder. During the breeding season, the Ibisbill is known to run short distances while holding the head down, only standing upright to look at its surroundings. The nest
is located on a bank, island or peninsula on the river
, and is little more than a scrape on the ground, which may sometimes be lined with small pebbles. Eggs
are laid in the end of April and the beginning of May (exact timing varies due to the weather). The clutch size
varies from two to four oval eggs. The behaviour of adults near the nest are said to be similar to lapwings. The exact time taken to incubate the eggs is unknown, but both parents share incubation
duties. It is suspected that chicks from the previous brood may act as helpers at the nest
.
larva
e that hide under boulders in streams, grasshoppers and also small fish.
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
related to the wader
Wader
Waders, called shorebirds in North America , are members of the order Charadriiformes, excluding the more marine web-footed seabird groups. The latter are the skuas , gulls , terns , skimmers , and auks...
s, but sufficiently distinctive to merit its own family Ibidorhynchidae. It is grey with a white belly, red legs and long down-curved bill, and a black face and black breast band. It occurs on the shingle riverbanks of the high plateau
Plateau
In geology and earth science, a plateau , also called a high plain or tableland, is an area of highland, usually consisting of relatively flat terrain. A highly eroded plateau is called a dissected plateau...
of central Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
and the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
.
Taxonomy
The Ibisbill belongs to the order CharadriiformesCharadriiformes
Charadriiformes is a diverse order of small to medium-large birds. It includes about 350 species and has members in all parts of the world. Most Charadriiformes live near water and eat invertebrates or other small animals; however, some are pelagic , some occupy deserts and a few are found in thick...
which also includes the sandpipers, plover
Plover
Plovers are a widely distributed group of wading birds belonging to the subfamily Charadriinae. There are about 40 species in the subfamily, most of them called "plover" or "dotterel". The closely related lapwing subfamily, Vanellinae, comprises another 20-odd species.Plovers are found throughout...
s, tern
Tern
Terns are seabirds in the family Sternidae, previously considered a subfamily of the gull family Laridae . They form a lineage with the gulls and skimmers which in turn is related to skuas and auks...
s, auk
Auk
An auk is a bird of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. Auks are superficially similar to penguins due to their black-and-white colours, their upright posture and some of their habits...
s, gull
Gull
Gulls are birds in the family Laridae. They are most closely related to the terns and only distantly related to auks, skimmers, and more distantly to the waders...
s, skua
Skua
The skuas are a group of seabirds with about seven species forming the family Stercorariidae and the genus Stercorarius. The three smaller skuas are called jaegers in North America....
s and others. Although its evolutionary relationships are not fully understood, the Ibisbill appears to be most closely related to a group including the oystercatcher
Oystercatcher
The oystercatchers are a group of waders; they form the family Haematopodidae, which has a single genus, Haematopus. They are found on coasts worldwide apart from the polar regions and some tropical regions of Africa and South East Asia...
s, avocet
Avocet
The four species of Avocets are a genus, Recurvirostra, of waders in the same avian family as the stilts.Avocets have long legs and long, thin, upcurved bills which they sweep from side to side when feeding in the brackish or saline wetlands they prefer...
s, stilt
Stilt
Stilt is a common name for several species of birds in the family Recurvirostridae, which also includes those known as avocets. They are found in brackish or saline wetlands in warm or hot climates....
s and Pluvialis
Pluvialis
Pluvialis is a genus of plovers, a group of wading birds. There are four species which breed in the temperate or Arctic Northern Hemisphere.In breeding plumage, they all have largely black underparts, and golden or silvery upperparts...
plovers, but sufficiently distinctive to merit its own family, Ibidorhynchidae. There are no subspecies
Subspecies
Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...
. The species was described in 1831 by Vigors
Nicholas Aylward Vigors
Nicholas Aylward Vigors was an Irish zoologist and politician.Vigors was born at Old Leighlin, County Carlow. He studied at Trinity College, Oxford. He served in the army during the Peninsular War from 1809 to 1811. He then returned to Oxford, graduating with a B.A. in 1815 and in 1817 with an...
based on painting by John Gould
John Gould
John Gould was an English ornithologist and bird artist. The Gould League in Australia was named after him. His identification of the birds now nicknamed "Darwin's finches" played a role in the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection...
although Brian Hodgson
Brian Houghton Hodgson
Brian Houghton Hodgson was an early naturalist and ethnologist working in British India and Nepal where he was an English civil servant. He described many species, especially birds and mammals from the Himalayas, and several birds were named after him by others such as Edward Blyth...
had sent a manuscript to the Asiatic Society of Bengal two years earlier describing it as the "Red-billed Erolia" but this was published only in 1835 with an apology from the editor. Hodgson later suggested a new genus name of Clorhynchus for the bird stating that Gould's description of Ibidorhyncha was inaccurate while Vieillot
Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot
Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot was a French ornithologist.Vieillot described a large number of birds for the first time, especially those he encountered during the time he spent in the West Indies and North America, and 26 genera established by him are still in use...
's Erolia had been rejected.
Description
This bird is 38 – long and is quite unmistakable in appearance. The adult is grey with a white belly, a crimson, long down-curved bill, and a black face and black breast band. The sexes are similar, but young birds lack the black on the face and breast, and the billBeak
The beak, bill or rostrum is an external anatomical structure of birds which is used for eating and for grooming, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for food, courtship and feeding young...
is duller. The bill is 6.8 – long and is slightly longer in females. The legs are greyish purple in the breeding adults and dull sepia in juveniles or greenish in younger or non-breeding adults. The legs of deceased Ibisbills change color to a crimson similar to the bill shade shortly after death. The tarsi is short and reticultated. The Ibisbill has three toes, lacking the hind toe. The outer and middle toes are connected by a small, idented web, while the middle and inner toes possess no webbing. The Ibisbill typically weighs 270 – and females weigh slightly more than males. In spite of its spectacular appearance it is inconspicuous in its stony environment. The call is a ringing Klew-klew similar to that of a Greenshank
Greenshank
The Common Greenshank is a wader in the large family Scolopacidae, the typical waders. Its closest relative is the Greater Yellowlegs, together with which and the Spotted Redshank it forms a close-knit group...
. In flight, its outstretched neck and rounded wings give an ibis-like
Ibis
The ibises are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae....
appearance.
Distribution and habitat
The Ibisbill breeds across southern Central AsiaCentral Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
along stony riverbeds, typically between 1700 and 4400 m (5,577.4 and 14,435.7 ft), although there are records of the Ibisbill breeding as low as 500 m (1,640.4 ft). Outside the breeding season, it may descend as low as 100 m (328.1 ft). It typically is found in shingle-bed river valleys from 100 to 1500 m (328.1 to 4,921.3 ft) across with patches of sand and silt mixed in with pepples and small boulders. The river valleys frequented by the Ibisbill tend to have very little vegetation and gentle slopes to ensure a slow flow of water. It must live near slow-flowing water in order to feed, limiting its habitat despite a large range.
Behaviour
During the autumn and winter, the Ibisbill typically is solitary, though they can be found in pairs or in small flocks of up to eight birds. One group of 25 Ibisbills has been reported. Ibisbills breed solitarily and are territorial, though limited habitat availability can cause Ibisbills to breed while neighboring others. They are generally not shy of humans. They are good swimmers and prefer crossing rivers by swimming instead of flying.Wintering birds tend to be fairly inactive, while they become more active and noisy as the breeding season approaches.
Breeding
The Ibisbill is apparently a monogamousMonogamy
Monogamy /Gr. μονός+γάμος - one+marriage/ a form of marriage in which an individual has only one spouse at any one time. In current usage monogamy often refers to having one sexual partner irrespective of marriage or reproduction...
breeder. During the breeding season, the Ibisbill is known to run short distances while holding the head down, only standing upright to look at its surroundings. The nest
Bird nest
A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American Robin or Eurasian Blackbird, or the elaborately woven hanging nest of the...
is located on a bank, island or peninsula on the river
River
A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...
, and is little more than a scrape on the ground, which may sometimes be lined with small pebbles. Eggs
Bird egg
Bird eggs are laid by females and incubated for a time that varies according to the species; a single young hatches from each egg. Average clutch sizes range from one to about 17...
are laid in the end of April and the beginning of May (exact timing varies due to the weather). The clutch size
Clutch (eggs)
A clutch of eggs refers to all the eggs produced by birds or reptiles, often at a single time, particularly those laid in a nest.In birds, destruction of a clutch by predators, , results in double-clutching...
varies from two to four oval eggs. The behaviour of adults near the nest are said to be similar to lapwings. The exact time taken to incubate the eggs is unknown, but both parents share incubation
Avian incubation
Incubation refers to the process by which certain oviparous animals hatch their eggs, and to the development of the embryo within the egg. The most vital factor of incubation is the constant temperature required for its development over a specific period. Especially in domestic fowl, the act of...
duties. It is suspected that chicks from the previous brood may act as helpers at the nest
Helpers at the nest
Helpers at the nest is a term used in behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology to describe a social structure in which juveniles and sexually mature adolescents of either one or both sexes, remain in association with their parents and help them raise subsequent broods or litters, instead of...
.
Feeding
The Ibisbill feeds by probing under rocks or gravel on stream beds. It will take a variety of terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates including caddisfly and mayflyMayfly
Mayflies are insects which belong to the Order Ephemeroptera . They have been placed into an ancient group of insects termed the Palaeoptera, which also contains dragonflies and damselflies...
larva
Larva
A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...
e that hide under boulders in streams, grasshoppers and also small fish.
Conservation status
This species has an extremely large range, estimate at 5 million square kilometres (1.9 million square miles) which is not believed to declining or fragmentating. Although its population is unknown, it is not thought to be declining. For these reasons the species is evaluated as Least Concern.Other sources
- Simmons, KEL (1987) The head-scratching method of the Ibisbill Ibidorhyncha struthersii. Ibis 129(1):114–115.
- Cordeaux, WW (1897) Notes on Ibidorhynchus struthersii. Ibis 7 3(12):563–564.
- Stanford, JK (1935) On the occurrence of the Ibisbill Ibidorhyncha struthersii (Gould) in Upper Burma. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 38(2):403–404.
- Bailey, FM (1909) Nesting of the Ibis bill (Ibidorhynchus struthersi). J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 19(4):993–994.
- Whymper, SL (1910) A breeding ground of the Ibisbill (Ibidorynchus struthersi). J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 20(2):519–520.
- Whymper, SL (1906) Nesting of the Ibis-bill (Ibidorhynchus struthersi) and the Common Sandpiper (Totanus hypoleucus). J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 17(2):546–547.
External links
- Ibisbill videos, photos & sounds on the Internet Bird Collection