Rufous Treepie
Encyclopedia
The Rufous Treepie is an Asia
n treepie
, a member of the Corvidae
(crow
) family
. It is long tailed and has loud musical calls making it very conspicuous. It is found commonly in open scrub, agricultural areas, forests as well as urban gardens. Like other corvids it is very adaptable, omnivorous and opportunistic in feeding.
The sexes are alike and the main colour of the body is cinnamon with a black head and the long graduated tail is bluish grey and is tipped in black. The wing has a white patch. The only confusable species is the Grey Treepie
which however lacks the bright rufous mantle. The bill is stout with a hooked tip. The underparts and lower back are a warm tawny-brown to orange-brown in colour with white wing coverts and black primaries. The bill, legs and feet are black.
The widespread populations show variations and several subspecies are recognized. The nominate subspecies is found in the northeastern part of peninsular India south to Hyderabad. The desert form is paler and called pallida, vernayi of the Eastern Ghats is brighter while parvula of the Western Ghats is smaller in size. The form in Afghanistan and Pakistan is bristoli while the form in southern Thailand is saturatior. E C Stuart Baker describes sclateri from the upper Chindwin to the Chin Hills and kinneari from souther Myanmar and northwest Thailand. The population in eastern Thailand an Indochina is sakeratensis.
up to the Himalayas
, and southeasterly in a broad band into Burma (Myanmar
), Laos
, and Thailand
in open forest consisting of scrub, plantations and gardens.
s; it has also been known to take flesh from recently killed carcasses. It is extremely agile while searching for food, clinging and clambering through the branches and will sometimes travel in small mixed hunting parties
with unrelated species such as drongo
s and babblers
. It has been observed feeding on parasites of wild deer. Like many other corvids they are known to cache food. They have been considered to be beneficial to palm cultivation in southern India due to their foraging on the grubs of the destructive weevil Rhynchophorus ferrugineus
. They are known to feed on the fruits of Trichosanthes palmata which are toxic to mammals.
The breeding season in India is April to June. The nest is built in trees and bushes and is usually a shallow platform. There are usually 3-5 eggs laid.
This species has a wide repertoire of calls, but a bob-o-link or ko-tree call is most common. A local name for this bird kotri is derived from the typical call while other names include Handi Chancha and taka chor (="coin thief").
A blood parasitic protozoan Trypanosoma corvi has been described from this species and Babesia
has been reported from this species. Trematode parasites, Haplorchis vagabundi, have been found in their intestines. A species of quill mite Syringophiloidus dendrocittae has been described from this species.
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...
n treepie
Treepie
The treepies comprise four closely related genera of long-tailed passerine birds in the family Corvidae...
, a member of the Corvidae
Corvidae
Corvidae is a cosmopolitan family of oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs and nutcrackers. The common English names used are corvids or the crow family , and there are over 120 species...
(crow
Crow
Crows form the genus Corvus in the family Corvidae. Ranging in size from the relatively small pigeon-size jackdaws to the Common Raven of the Holarctic region and Thick-billed Raven of the highlands of Ethiopia, the 40 or so members of this genus occur on all temperate continents and several...
) family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
. It is long tailed and has loud musical calls making it very conspicuous. It is found commonly in open scrub, agricultural areas, forests as well as urban gardens. Like other corvids it is very adaptable, omnivorous and opportunistic in feeding.
Description
Grey Treepie
The Grey Treepie, also known as the Himalayan Treepie, is an Asian treepie, a medium sized and long-tailed member of the crow family. They are widely distributed along the foothills of the Himalayas in South Asia and extending into Southeast Asia...
which however lacks the bright rufous mantle. The bill is stout with a hooked tip. The underparts and lower back are a warm tawny-brown to orange-brown in colour with white wing coverts and black primaries. The bill, legs and feet are black.
The widespread populations show variations and several subspecies are recognized. The nominate subspecies is found in the northeastern part of peninsular India south to Hyderabad. The desert form is paler and called pallida, vernayi of the Eastern Ghats is brighter while parvula of the Western Ghats is smaller in size. The form in Afghanistan and Pakistan is bristoli while the form in southern Thailand is saturatior. E C Stuart Baker describes sclateri from the upper Chindwin to the Chin Hills and kinneari from souther Myanmar and northwest Thailand. The population in eastern Thailand an Indochina is sakeratensis.
Distribution
The range of this species is quite large, covering all of mainland IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
up to 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...
, and southeasterly in a broad band into Burma (Myanmar
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....
), Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
, and Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
in open forest consisting of scrub, plantations and gardens.
Behaviour and ecology
This is a typically arboreal species feeding almost completely in trees on fruits, seeds, invertebrates, small reptiles and the eggs and young of birdBird
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...
s; it has also been known to take flesh from recently killed carcasses. It is extremely agile while searching for food, clinging and clambering through the branches and will sometimes travel in small mixed hunting parties
Mixed-species feeding flock
A mixed-species feeding flock, also termed a mixed-species foraging flock, mixed hunting party or informally bird wave, is a flock of usually insectivorous birds of different species, that join each other and move together while foraging...
with unrelated species such as drongo
Drongo
The drongos are a family of small passerine birds of the Old World tropics, the Dicruridae. This family was sometimes much enlarged to include a number of largely Australasian groups, such as the Australasian fantails, monarchs and paradise flycatchers...
s and babblers
Old World babbler
The Old World babblers or timaliids are a large family of mostly Old World passerine birds. They are rather diverse in size and coloration, but are characterised by soft fluffy plumage. These are birds of tropical areas, with the greatest variety in Southeast Asia and the Indian Subcontinent...
. It has been observed feeding on parasites of wild deer. Like many other corvids they are known to cache food. They have been considered to be beneficial to palm cultivation in southern India due to their foraging on the grubs of the destructive weevil Rhynchophorus ferrugineus
Rhynchophorus ferrugineus
The red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, is a species of beetle also known as the Asian palm weevil or sago palm weevil. It is relatively large, between two and five centimeters long; usually a rusty red colour, but many colour variants exist and have been often been named as different...
. They are known to feed on the fruits of Trichosanthes palmata which are toxic to mammals.
The breeding season in India is April to June. The nest is built in trees and bushes and is usually a shallow platform. There are usually 3-5 eggs laid.
This species has a wide repertoire of calls, but a bob-o-link or ko-tree call is most common. A local name for this bird kotri is derived from the typical call while other names include Handi Chancha and taka chor (="coin thief").
A blood parasitic protozoan Trypanosoma corvi has been described from this species and Babesia
Babesia
Babesia is a protozoan parasite of the blood that causes a hemolytic disease known as Babesiosis. There are over 100 species of Babesia identified; however only a handful have been documented as pathogenic in humans....
has been reported from this species. Trematode parasites, Haplorchis vagabundi, have been found in their intestines. A species of quill mite Syringophiloidus dendrocittae has been described from this species.