Daedalus had a nephew named Perdix, whom he had taken when a boy to teach the trade of builder. But Perdix was a very apt learner and soon surpassed his master in the knowledge of many things. His eyes were ever open to see what was going on about him, and he learned the lore […]
Category: Phasianidae
Bird stories, Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo)
The Seminoles have a story about the Turkey, who was once the king of the birds and flew high in the air like the eagle. He would swoop down on the council ground and bear away a man. Then people devised a plan to catch him. Four men were to roll four big balls along […]
Bird stories, Congo Peacock (Afropavo congensis)
The Congo peafowl was only discovered in 1936 in the rain forests of the eastern Congo and called Hokoe by the natives. The name is derived from its song, “Hokoe, hokoe, hokoe,” sung around 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. It is believed that this bird tells people to wake up or to return home from […]
Bird stories, Black Guineafowl (Agelastes niger)
By the Mbuti tribe of the DR Congo, the Black Guineafowl is considered to have such power to cause an illness. Several animals are thought to be sources of evil. The type of disease and its graveness vary, depending on the animals eaten. The most powerful and dangerous ones are avoided for most of the […]
Himalayan Quail (Ophrysia superciliosa)
[order] GALLIFORMES | [family] Phasianidae | [latin] Ophrysia superciliosa | [authority] Gray, 1846 | [UK] Himalayan Quail | [FR] | [DE] | [ES] | [NL] Himalaya Kwartel | [copyright picture] Birdlife Subspecies Genus Species subspecies Region Range Genus A single species from north-western India; possibly extinct. Physical charateristics Rather nondescript quail with red bill and […]
Territorial behaviour and population dynamics in red grouse Lagopus lagopus scoticus. II. Population models
Willow Ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) Science Article 1 abstract 1) Recent experiments on cyclic red grouse populations discovered that aggressiveness, induced by testosterone implants, depressed population density for more than a year after the implants were exhausted. 2) This confirms the observation, also made in previous studies of this territorial species, that aggressiveness can determine population […]
Willow ptarmigan chicks consume moss sporophyte capsules
Willow Ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) Science Article 5 abstract Willow Ptarmigan( Lagopus lagopus) chicks consumes sporophyt capsules, a moss, istichiumin clinatuma, at La Perouse Bay, near Churchill, Manitoba, Canada.S ix chicks(6 -16 days old) were examined over 3 yr, and crops of all chicks containemd moss capsules.In two chicks, capsules represented a substantial portion of the […]
Evidence of re-nesting after brood loss in Red Grouse Lagopus lagopus scoticus
Willow Ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) Science Article 9 abstract The Red Grouse Lagopus lagopus scoticus is a single-brooded species that can re-lay if a clutch is lost during the nesting period (Cramp & Simmons 1980). However, there is no reported evidence regarding second clutches being attempted after a brood of young chicks is lost. Indeed, there […]
The shape of red grouse cycles
Willow Ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) Science Article 7 abstract We examined 223 time-series of red grouse (Lagopus lagopus scoticus) numbers compiled from shooting bag-records from grouse moors located across England, Scotland and Wales for evidence of non-time-reversibility, asymmetry in cycle shape and non-linearity. We found 44% of time-series to be non-time-reversible. Over 80% of time-series spent […]
Local genetic structure in red grouse (Lagopus lagopus scoticus): evidence from microsatellite DNA markers
Willow Ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) Science Article 11 abstract Allelic variation at seven hypervariable tri- and tetranucleotide microsatellite loci was used to determine levels of population differentiation between 14 populations of red grouse (Lagopus lagopus scoticus) in northeast Scotland, UK. Despite the potential for long-distance dispersal in grouse, and a semicontinuous habitat, significant population divergence was […]