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The orange-breasted bunting is a species of passerine bird in the family Cardinalidae. It is endemic to Mexico, where its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests and subtropical or tropical dry shrubland. With its wide range and large total population, the International Union for Conservation of Nature considers it as being of “least concern”.
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The Spangle-cheeked Tanager (Tangara dowii) is a medium-sized passerine bird – averaging 13 cm in length (including tail) and weighs around 20g.
It has a mainly black head, upperparts and breast, with blue scaling on the breast, sides of the face and neck, and a rufous crown patch. The wings and tail have blue edgings. The rump is green and the belly is cinnamon.
The sexes are very similar, but adult males have more extensive blue scaling. Immatures are generally duller, with no crown patch, and less distinct blue scaling.
Distribution / Habitat:
This tanager is an endemic resident breeder in the highlands of Costa Rica and western Panama. It is common from about 1200 m to 3000 m altitude in the canopy of epiphyte laden wet mountain forests, and at lower levels in semi-open areas like clearings with trees, second growth and woodland edges.
Spangle-cheeked Tanagers occur in pairs, family groups, or as part of a mixed-species flock.
Nesting / Breeding:
The bulky cup nest is lined with bromeliad leaves and is built in a tree fork or on a branch high amongst the epiphytes. The normal clutch is two eggs.
Diet:
They eat small fruit, usually swallowed whole, insects and spiders.
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The long-tailed silky-flycatcher is a passerine bird which occurs only in the mountains of Costa Rica and western Panama, usually from 1,850 m altitude to the timberline. It is a thrush-sized species weighing about 37 g. The silky-flycatchers are related to waxwings, and like that group have soft silky plumage.
Distribution / Range
It occurs only in the mountains of Costa Rica and western Panama, usually from 1,850 m altitude to the timberline. Long-tailed Silky-flycatchers often perch prominently on high exposed twigs.
Description
The male Long-tailed Silky-flycatcher is 24 cm long and has a pale grey forehead. It is a thrush-sized species weighing about 37 g. The rest of the crested head, neck, throat and lower belly are yellow. The back, lower breast and upper belly are blue-grey, and the flight feathers and long pointed tail are black. The outer tail feathers are spotted with white.
The female is 21 cm long and generally duller than the male, with a darker grey forehead, olive body plumage and a shorter, duller black tail. Immatures are similar to the adults, but the central tail feathers are shorter and the white spotting on the outer tail is indistinct.
Diet
This species forages in small flocks when not breeding, flycatching for insects or taking small fruits, especially mistletoe.
Berries, any small insects, fruits, vegetables.
Phainopepla have a specialized mechanism in their gizzard that shucks berry skins off the fruit and packs the skins separately from the rest of the fruit into the intestines for more efficient digestion. So far this is
the only known bird able to do this.
Reproduction
The habitat of this bird is mountain forests, where the breeding pair builds a neat cup of lichen 2-18 m high in a tree, sometimes in loose colonies. It nests in the spring.
The female lays two brown and lilac-blotched grey eggs, and the incubation, done by both the male and female, takes fifteen days.
The young fledge 18-25 days after hatching, and are fed by both parents.
Calls / Vocalizations
The call of the Long-tailed Silky-flycatcher is a repeated chee-chip.
Phainopeplas have been found to imitate the calls of twelve other species, such as the Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo lineatus), and the Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus).
Green and yellow with a striking glossy black head with white cheeks and a distinctive two-syllable song. It is a woodland bird which has readily adapted to man-made habitats to become a familiar garden visitor. It can be quite aggressive at a birdtable, fighting off smaller tits. In winter it joins with blue tits and others to form roaming flocks which scour gardens and countryside for food.
The Great Tit (Parus major) is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is a widespread and common species throughout Europe in any sort of woodland. It is resident, and most Great Tits do not migrate. In the past this species was considered a ring species with several subspecies covering a wide distribution, but these have now been separated.
Great Tits come in many races, but they fall into three groups. Great Tits in temperate Europe and Asia are essentially green above and yellow below. Great Tits in China, Korea, Japan and southeastern Russia are green above and white or yellow-tinged white below, and Great Tits in India and south-east Asia are grey above and whitish below.
The Great Tit is easy to recognize, large in size at 14 cm, with a broad black line (broader in the male) down its otherwise yellow front. The neck and head are black with white cheeks and ear coverts. Upper parts are olive. It has a white wingbar and outer tail feathers. In young birds the black is replaced by brown, and the white by yellow.
It is, like other tits, a vocal bird, and has a large variety of calls, of which the most familiar is a “teacher, teacher”, also likened to a squeaky wheelbarrow wheel.
Great Tits are cavity nesters, breeding in a hole that is usually inside a tree, although occasionally in a wall, rock face, and they will readily take to nest boxes. The number in the clutch is often very large, but seven or eight white spotted red eggs are normal, with bigger clutches being laid by two or even more hens. The bird is a close sitter, hissing when disturbed.
The Great Tit is a popular garden bird due to its acrobatic performances when feeding on nuts or seed. Its willingness to move into nest boxes has made it a valuable study subject in ornithology, and it is one of the best studied birds in the world.
Autumn 