The bullfinch or common bullfinch is a songbird of the genus Bullfinch, a family of finches.

The genus includes 9 species.

The bullfinch is considered a well-known and widespread bird; it is a very noticeable and attractive bird.

Habitat of the common bullfinch

The bullfinch lives in Europe, Western and Eastern Asia, Siberia, and Japan. It can live in both highland and lowland forests, avoiding only treeless areas. In Russia, the bird lives in forest and forest-steppe zones, where coniferous trees can be found in large quantities. Most of all, bullfinches like spruce forests in river valleys.

Appearance of the common bullfinch

The bird is small in size, slightly larger than a sparrow. The top of the head, around the beak and eyes is black. The flight feathers and tail feathers are also black, with a blue metallic tint. The loin and undertail are white. The male's back, shoulders and neck are gray. The cheeks, lower neck, belly and sides are red. The tone and intensity of color on the underside of the body depends on the subspecies and individual characteristics. The neck and shoulders of the female are gray. The back is brownish-brown. The cheeks, neck below, belly and sides are gray-brown. The plumage of the chicks is predominantly ocher-brown. The chicks do not have a “black cap” on their heads, like in adults.

In addition to the bright special coloring, this bird has another distinctive property - the song of the bullfinch. Its voice cannot be confused with the voice of another bird, although it is quite difficult to describe the sounds produced in verbal form. A more appropriate comparison is a metal creaking or whistling noise.

It doesn’t even immediately become clear that bullfinches make this sound, but they really have such a unique voice and are able to surprise the listener with their special song. Most often, such a trill can be heard during the mating season. It is also surprising that both males and females perform it.

Lifestyle, nutrition of the common bullfinch

Bullfinches usually do not fly away from central Russia. Bullfinches are sedentary birds. That is, they stick to their small territory and do not fly away anywhere.

In the warm season, bullfinches lead a secretive lifestyle - they settle in dense forests, where there are always a lot of seeds and tree buds that these birds love so much.

With the onset of cold weather, many bullfinches are forced to move closer to human habitation, to where they can find food. Therefore, in winter, bullfinches can more often be seen in parks and gardens, pecking at rowan bunches.

Birds living in northern latitudes fly to warmer regions for the winter, sometimes flying over vast distances.

You can meet wintering bullfinches in Mediterranean countries, as well as in northern Africa and even Alaska. The birds return to their usual nesting sites around the end of March - beginning of April, and the female almost immediately begins to make a nest.

Bullfinches eat tree buds, nuts, seeds and small berries. Sometimes they eat insects, but they don’t even know about it: this happens by accident and very rarely. The shape of their beak allows them to easily extract seeds from cones. They deal with berries in a special way: they take out the pulp from them and throw it away. Only the seeds are eaten.

Reproduction of the common bullfinch

From April to May, bullfinches begin to split into pairs. Males whistle in a special way, attracting individuals of the opposite sex. Bullfinches mate once in a lifetime.

During the mating season, the male yields the largest and juiciest bunches of berries to the female. When the pair is collected, the search begins for a convenient nesting site. They choose spruce trees for their nests, and in rare cases, juniper bushes. The male does not participate in the construction of the home. It is woven by the female from flexible branches and grass. At the end she insulates it with moss.

After constructing a secure nest, the female lays 4 to 6 blue eggs with reddish spots. Only the female incubates them, but all this time the male gets food for his girlfriend and also protects the family. The chicks are born helpless. They are covered with long gray down. For 2 weeks they constantly squeak and ask their parents for food. After this time, the first flight from the nest and the first steps towards independent life are made. Another month passes before the chicks are able to fly long distances. As soon as this happens, young bullfinches leave the nest.

In the old days they noticed that if the bullfinch arrived, then winter would soon come. But, oddly enough, in our city bullfinches appear when winter has already arrived, and in February you can open the window and hear a quiet bullfinch whistling.

And it happens like this: you leave the house in the morning - there are unsmiling people around, everyone is in a hurry somewhere, and suddenly your gaze falls on a rowan tree, all the branches of which are covered not only with clusters of berries, but also with beautiful birds in dark caps and with bright breasts, as if they had flown to our world is from a fairyland. These are bullfinches. Most often they sit motionless, as if deliberately letting people admire their beauty.

Most likely, it is in February that the birds begin to migrate towards the north, and the middle strip lies on their path in the middle of winter.

Common bullfinch , or shrub - Pyrrhula pyrrhula - a small bird from the finch family.

The bullfinch is not much larger than a sparrow, its body length is up to 16-18 cm. The bird weighs 32-34 g.

In winter, bullfinches puff up their thick plumage, making them appear thicker than they actually are.

A nest in the form of a flat bowl is usually built by the female from thin spruce and other dry twigs, blades of grass, roots, moss and lichen. It turns out to be quite loose. The inside of the nest is lined with wool, feathers, hair, and dry thin blades of grass.

The diameter of the nest can reach 2 meters, the height of the nest is 1 meter, the diameter of the tray is also up to 1 meter, and the depth of the tray is 40-60 mm.

The female lays 4-6 eggs in May, light blue in color with dark or red-brown spots, dots and lines.

Only the female incubates for about two weeks. The male guards the nest all this time and feeds the female.

Then the hatched chicks spend another two to three weeks in the nest.

Both parents feed them, but most of the care for the growing offspring goes to the male.

The main food of little bullfinches is plant-based, these are unripe small seeds, soft buds, etc., but their parents also feed them insect larvae.

The chicks that fly out of the nest are fed by their parents from the crop for some time.

A pair of bullfinches usually has two clutches during the summer.

At the end of July - beginning of August, bullfinches begin molting, which lasts until mid-September. In its process, young males acquire the bright plumage of adult birds.

After molting, bullfinches gather in small flocks, often birds from the same family. In October they begin to migrate south and stay together until the end of winter.

The bullfinch is believed to bring wealth and happiness.

There is also a bullfinch museum. Unfortunately, it is so far the only one in the world and was opened in the Moscow region in the holiday village of Snegiri in August 2007.

The museum is very popular; next to it is the Snegiri holiday home, as well as dachas and cottages.

They say that the place there is very beautiful - dense coniferous forests, in which bullfinches live, flying to the village for the winter and coloring the snowy white landscape with bright red shades of dawn.

And everyone who admires this bird for even a day will be happy and successful in love and business all year.

If you can’t go to this wonderful place, and you can’t see bullfinches on the streets of the city, then you can hang embroidery, a drawing in your house, or put a figurine of a bullfinch in the living room, and he will certainly look into your house.

Bullfinches are a small genus of birds, well known for the bright colors of some of its representatives. There are 9 species of these birds in the world, but the most famous among them is the common bullfinch. Systematically, bullfinches belong to the family of finches; their closest relatives are grosbeaks, goldfinches, crossbills and finches, and more distant relatives are canaries.

Male bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula).

Bullfinches are the size of a sparrow or even smaller, but they appear larger due to their dense build. These birds are characterized by a cone-shaped, massive and sharp beak, black beady eyes, and a short neck, which is why their head seems to merge with the body. The wings are also relatively short, and the tail, on the contrary, is moderately long. Contrary to popular belief, most bullfinches are rather plain than bright birds. As a rule, they have a black cap or mask on their head, covering only the eyes. The flight feathers of the wings and tail are also black (sometimes with white spots), the back is gray. The color of the abdomen in females is gray or brownish; in males its color varies from pinkish-gray to bright crimson or orange. However, in some species (brown, white-cheeked, Azores, gray bullfinches) sexual dimorphism is not expressed, so males and females have the same inconspicuous coloring. Despite the fact that bright colors are characteristic only of the males of some species, bullfinches are generally well known, since they appear near homes in winter and their crimson breasts are clearly visible on the white snow. This explains the name “bullfinch”.

The brown bullfinch (Pyrrhula nipalensis) has no sexual dimorphism: males differ from females only by an inconspicuous red spot on the wing.

The appearance of bullfinches near homes in winter gave rise to the idea of ​​these birds as northern ones. In fact, they inhabit not only temperate, but also subtropical and even tropical zones. The common bullfinch has the most extensive range: from west to east it stretches from Ireland and Britain to Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, from north to south it stretches from Scandinavia to the Caucasus, Western Asia and the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula. Even further south in Europe, the Azores bullfinch lives - it is found on the Azores Islands, lost in the Atlantic Ocean approximately at the latitude of Gibraltar. But bullfinches reach their greatest diversity in the Himalayas and Southeast Asia, with the southernmost reaching the Philippine Islands and Taiwan.

The red-headed bullfinch (Pyrrhula erythrocephala) is the most abundant species of this genus in the Himalayas.

All types of bullfinches are exclusively forest birds. They inhabit dense and dense forests, avoid vast open spaces, and during the nesting period they stay away from human habitation. The common bullfinch, for example, clearly prefers dark spruce forests rather than light pine forests. In general, bullfinches are secretive and cautious birds, which are rarely seen in summer. Depending on feeding conditions, they can be sedentary or migratory. In years with a good supply of food, bullfinches remain to spend the winter where they grew up; in years with a shortage of food, they migrate 100-300 km to the south. During this period, they willingly visit city parks and immediately catch the eye of people. The nature of the flocks also changes with the seasons. In summer, bullfinches stay exclusively in pairs, and after hatching their chicks, they live in small family groups. In winter, several such groups can unite into a larger flock, but even in this case, bullfinches do not form very large concentrations.

Bullfinches are calm and friendly birds; fights between them occur very rarely, and the entire flock will fly to the squeak of a bird in trouble.

Bullfinches feed on plant food. The basis of their diet is dry seeds of spruce, ash, maple and other trees. In addition, they love to eat rowan, viburnum and bird cherry berries, although they do not swallow them whole, but only select the seeds, and usually throw away the pulp. Bullfinches can also include buds, young shoots and flowers in their diet; they eat insects extremely rarely. These birds are quite voracious; they wipe the remains of berries that stick to their beaks on twigs, sometimes seeds also get stuck in the pulp, thus bullfinches contribute to the spread of forest plants.

An orange-breasted male bullfinch greedily pecks at berries.

Their nesting period begins soon after arriving from wintering grounds - in March-April. At this time, the males begin to sing their simple songs. Their calling cry sounds like “whew-whew”, and during normal communication in a flock, the voices of bullfinches resemble creaking. The pair builds a nest in April-May. It is almost always located on spruce branches, usually at a height of 2-5 m. The nest of bullfinches has the shape of a half-bowl made of thin twigs, roots and wool, it is always very skillfully camouflaged. The female lays 4-6 bluish eggs with reddish specks and incubates them for 13-15 days. At this time, the male brings her food and occasionally replaces her on the nest. The hatched chicks spend about 2 weeks in the nest and then roam with their parents. As a rule, bullfinches have another clutch in the summer.

A female common bullfinch at a carefully camouflaged nest with chicks (right).

Bullfinches live in captivity for 10-12 years; in nature, their life expectancy is shorter. The enemies of bullfinches are the same predators that hunt all passerine birds: small owls, sparrowhawks, martens, wild forest cats. Most species of bullfinches are not rare, but the range of the orange bullfinch in the Himalayas is very small and this species needs protection. The Azores bullfinch, represented in nature by several hundred pairs, is under threat of extinction; this species is threatened with destruction due to habitat destruction.

Azores bullfinch (Pyrrhula murina).

Thanks to their bright colors, people paid attention to bullfinches back in the Middle Ages. In that era, bullfinches were captured and kept as songbirds. Bullfinches take root well in captivity. To keep them, you need a spacious cage, which must be equipped with perches (it is better to use natural twigs). During the nesting period, it is better to attach a spruce branch to one of the corners of the cage so that it creates a shelter, this will stimulate the birds to reproduce. In captivity, bullfinches are fed with grass seeds, melons, watermelon, small grains, birch and pine buds, juniper berries, bird cherry, and rowan (they can be purchased at a pharmacy and soaked before feeding). It is also useful to give fruits, juicy greens (knotweed, lemon balm), twigs of pine, cherry, birch, apple, willow, viburnum and fresh bark of these trees. In the spring-summer period, the diet must contain eggshells, activated carbon, clay, chalk and animal feed (grasshoppers, mealworms, brine shrimp). In our country, bullfinches have now become exotic pets, and in Western Europe they are often kept in homes. Several color forms of bullfinches have been bred here; interspecific hybrids of bullfinches with linnets, canaries, goldfinches, spruce crossbills and even tits are also known.

The Ussuri bullfinch (Pyrrhula griseiventris) differs from the common bullfinch in that only its throat is colored red.

Winter is the time of bullfinches. When the trees dress up in snowy clothes, against the background of snow-white frost it is impossible not to notice the bright feathers of the bullfinch. Illuminated by the winter sun, these birds seem like overseas flowers that accidentally fell into our frosts.

Plumage

A very easily recognizable bird arrives in winter - the bullfinch. Describing it is not difficult, since it has very characteristic plumage features by which everyone recognizes it. In any case, the male of this bird. Because the colors of the male and female bullfinch are very different. The description of a bullfinch for children is somewhat different from the same words for adults. It is enough for a child to say that it is a small bird, slightly larger than a sparrow, has a red breast and flies to human habitation only in winter. An adult will have to give a more detailed answer.

So, the male bullfinch has a red chest, cheeks and neck. The color is very bright, even over the entire area of ​​​​painting. The back is gray-blue, while the tail and rump are white. Since the bird's head is black, it appears to be wearing a black hat. This color takes up space both on the neck and around the beak. At the same time, the border between red and black is very clear, noticeable from a distance. The tail and wings are black, only the wings have slightly whitish stripes. The beak is thick, wide, black - it is designed to get seeds of various berries.

The female bullfinch, the description of which is somewhat different from the description of the male, generally has a similar coloration to him except for one, the brightest, detail - her breast is not bright red, but grayish-brown.

The coloring of young specimens of the bird, which has the name “bullfinch,” is interesting. A description of the bird for children and adults would be incomplete without adding that the young of this bird are dark brown in color before their first moult. And only in the fall, having completely changed its feathers, the baby becomes indistinguishable from the adult part of the flock.

Now, if you happen to meet a bullfinch, the description will make it possible to immediately recognize which of them is which.

They have a stocky, dense build. In winter, in the coldest weather, they try to fluff up their feathers more, which can make them even seem fat. The length of the bird reaches 18 centimeters. Its temperament is very different from, for example, a siskin or a tap dancer. The bullfinch, whose description gives hope for a cheerful disposition, is in fact quite phlegmatic, extremely unfriendly and inactive. Females are especially scandalous. Despite the fact that in winter and autumn the birds try to stay in flocks, they constantly quarrel. And in all cases, it is the females who start the scandal, who have complete power over the males. Fights are a rare occurrence among lazy birds, but opening your beak and hissing threateningly at your opponent is a cute thing.

Habitats

The description of the bullfinch for children must be supplemented with information about the place of residence of this bird.

So, it is distributed throughout almost all of Eurasia, excluding its southernmost and northernmost regions. In temperate climates, bullfinches most often live sedentary or fly away near the main nesting site. Those who live in more northern regions migrate closer to the south for the winter.

In our country, the bird is most widespread in the forest zone, excluding the southern part of the Far East. In the summer, birds live in the forest, sometimes choosing open forests along the edges of clearings for nests. Given their habit of being secretive, they are difficult to notice in the warm season.

In winter, they migrate far to the south, as the description says. The bullfinch flies to Transbaikalia, Central Asia, the Crimea, to the Amur basin and can even reach northern Africa. During the period of nomadism, it stops in parks and gardens of cities and rural settlements. In the opposite direction, to the native nesting site, the flocks move during March and April.

Settlements

Where does the bullfinch live? A description of a bird for children cannot be considered complete without mentioning the favorite habitats of this bird - dense forests and woodlands. Bullfinches prefer to make nests on coniferous trees, more often spruce trees. The most common houses of bullfinches are found at a height of 2 to 5 meters. The material for the nest is moss, thin twigs, and sometimes animal fur. The inside is lined with feathers, hair and dry grass. The appearance of the structure is loose and flat.

Nutrition

The bullfinch, a photo and description of which can be found in this article, eats a very varied diet. The diet of this bird is entirely of plant origin. Thus, bullfinches happily consume buds, seeds and berries of various plants. They cannot pass by the seeds of ash, maple, linden, birch or alder indifferently. The wide beak is designed specifically for removing seeds from fruits of any shape and type. Bullfinches themselves do not eat the berries; they simply crush them, take out the seeds and feast on them with pleasure.

Chicks

In April, the bullfinch prefers to hatch chicks. A description of a bird cannot be complete without a description of this process.

Most often there are up to five eggs in a clutch. They are green-blue in color, with dark spots. Chicks develop in 14 days, and the same amount of time is required to feed the chicks. It is not precisely established whether the male participates in incubation, but it is his direct responsibility to feed the female sitting on the eggs. After the chicks fly out of the nest, they are mostly taken care of by the male. It is surprising that it was not possible to detect a brood of chicks with their mother, while a family of several fledglings headed by a male is a common occurrence. The chicks are fed plant food.

These birds nest once a summer, forming flocks by July. Young chicks spend the entire first year of their life with their parents.

Bullfinch at home

Oddly enough, the bullfinch very easily gets used to humans. He can learn simple melodies by whistling them in his free time.

The cage with the bird must be kept cool, since not only the heat, but the bullfinch will not survive even the heat.

It is necessary to feed in the same way as a bird feeds in nature - seeds of grasses, shrubs and trees. It is imperative to include berries in the diet so that the plumage does not change color due to vitamin deficiency.

Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

GOU VPO

"Kaluga State University named after. K.E. Tsiolkovsky.

Course test:

“Phenological changes in different natural zones”

Option 6.

4th year students, gr. NOZ – 41

Institute of Pedagogy

Correspondence courses

Direction of training "Pedagogical education"

Profile "Pedagogy and methodology of primary education"

Kudryavtseva I.A.

Checked by: Titova V.V.

Characteristics of 5 species of birds: bullfinch, waxwing, sparrow (field and house sparrow), rook, magpie.

1. Bullfinch, or common bullfinch(lat. Pyrrhula pyrrhula) - a songbird of the bullfinch genus ( Pyrrhula), family of finches.

The bird is small in size, slightly larger than a sparrow. The top of the head, around the beak and eyes is black. The flight feathers and tail feathers are also black, with a blue metallic tint. The loin and undertail are white. The male's back, shoulders and neck are gray. The cheeks, lower neck, belly and sides are red. The tone and intensity of color on the underside of the body depends on the subspecies and individual characteristics. The neck and shoulders of the female are gray. The back is brownish-brown. The cheeks, neck below, belly and sides are gray-brown. The plumage of the chicks is predominantly ocher-brown. The chicks do not have a “black cap” on their heads, like in adults.

The bullfinch got a good name. Almost throughout the entire territory of our country, except for its more northern parts, it is one of the early winter guests that migrate to us from the north along with the first snow and frosts. Among the impoverished autumn and winter nature, the bullfinch is especially noticeable with its very bright and beautiful coloring. The male and female differ sharply in plumage (sexual dimorphism). A characteristic feature of the plumage of these birds is the distribution of bright colors in continuous batches, without streaks, spots or other markings on the feathers. The male's chest, neck and cheeks are bright red, pure and even in tone. The back is bluish-gray, and the rump and tail are bright white. On the head - from the beak to the back of the head - there is a black cap. The black color extends onto the throat, around the beak, and everywhere is very sharply demarcated from the red. The wings and tail are black, with light, whitish stripes on the wings. The bullfinch's beak is very unique: it is black, plump and wide, well adapted for peeling seeds from the berries of rowan, elderberry, bird cherry, etc. The female bullfinch is similar to the male in everything, but her chest is an even brownish-gray tone (lighter and browner than on the back). Speaking about the coloration of bullfinches, one cannot fail to note another interesting feature. Their young are dark brown until the first autumn molt (only the wings and tail are black). When you have to observe a brood of bullfinches, these sharp differences between males, females and young ones are very striking and involuntarily attract attention.
Bullfinches have a dense, stocky build. In winter, when it’s cold, they puff up their thick plumage and then even seem fat. They are noticeably larger than a sparrow (length up to 18 centimeters). In terms of its temperament, the bullfinch is the direct opposite of tap dancers or siskins. This is a phlegmatic, sedentary and not very accommodating bird. Female snowbirds are especially “grumpy”. Although bullfinches stay in flocks all autumn and winter, they often have quarrels. And the instigators are always the females, who keep the males in complete submission. Lazy birds usually don’t come to the point of fights and brawls, but the wide-open beak and threatening creaking hiss are quite expressive.

Wandering across central Russia and in some winters flying even to the Black and Caspian Seas, and from Siberia to Kazakhstan and Transbaikalia, bullfinches feed at this time exclusively on buds, seeds of woody, berry and herbaceous plants (for example, quinoa, buttercups). It is difficult to list all the variety of their winter food, but they especially love the seeds of ash, hornbeam, Norway maple, alder, birch, and linden. With their wide, blunt beaks and flat, hard palates, they quickly remove seeds from a wide variety of fruits. Flying in flocks onto rowan, bird cherry, buckthorn, currant and many other wild and cultivated berry plants, bullfinches deftly crush the berries and, discarding the pulp, eat the seeds. They also skillfully deal with black juniper berries and hop cones.
Having eaten on one tree, the flock does not fly away for a long time. The birds preen themselves, sit frowning and quietly call to each other with abrupt, high-pitched “ki... ki... ki...” or melancholy whistle their unsightly song (both males and females sing). But if a flock hears another from a distance, a roll call begins with other calls, by which bullfinches cannot be confused with any other birds: it is a ringing, as if multi-tone (in consonance), rather low whistle, like “ju... ju... ju... “With a roll call, the birds take off and quickly fly away. And on the snow under the tree there remain crumbled remains of seeds or torn pulp of berries - material evidence of their recent visit. This is how flocks roam along forest edges, small forests, gardens and vegetable gardens.
At the end of winter, in February, in central Russia (for example, in the Moscow region), bullfinches become noticeably more numerous. It is the birds that flew south in the fall that are beginning to return to the north. At this time, you can already observe males courting females. Closer to spring, the courtship of males becomes more persistent, in flocks one can even distinguish couples staying together, but still the dominance of females over males remains. Males always yield to them a more magnificent cluster of berries and a branch with abundant seeds, but not voluntarily, but under the threat of a wide-open creaking beak.
In April, bullfinches almost completely disappear from the southern and central regions of Russia. Only a few pairs of them remain for the summer and nest, for example, in the Moscow region, Tatarstan and Bashkiria. The main nesting zone of our bullfinches stretches across the northern forests (to the Arctic Circle) - from Scandinavia, through the Urals and throughout Siberia to Kamchatka. It is interesting that towards the east, in Siberia, the size of the birds becomes larger and the color becomes lighter (a large and light-colored Kamchatka subspecies has been identified). In the Caucasus, on the wooded mountain slopes, there lives a sedentary small subspecies of bullfinch, which differs from the northern one except in size, with a black cap that does not extend far to the back of the head and a paler coloration of the chest. The Caucasian bullfinch is very close to the Western European bullfinch, which is sometimes classified as a special species - the western bullfinch.

Bullfinches are distributed throughout almost the entire forest zone, except for the south of the Far East. They inhabit all of Europe, Western Asia, East Asia, including Siberia, Kamchatka, and Japan. The southern border runs approximately along the latitude of northern Spain, the Apennines, northern Greece and northern Asia Minor. Bullfinches inhabit both lowland and mountain forests and are absent in treeless areas and to the north of the forest zone. In Russia, bullfinches are distributed throughout the forest and, partially, forest-steppe zone, where coniferous trees are found, from west to east.

The bullfinch lives in forests with dense undergrowth, and can also be found in city gardens and parks (especially during migrations). In summer, the bird lives in both dense forests and open woodlands, but it is rarely seen. In winter, flocks of bullfinches are very clearly visible, as are individual birds on the leafless trees of the park against a snow-white background. Male bullfinches have a pinkish-red breast, while females have a brownish-gray breast. The bullfinch is a predominantly sedentary bird, completely migrating for the winter only from the northern taiga, and is found on migrations as far as Central Asia and Eastern China.

The nest is made of closely intertwined thin spruce and other dry twigs and herbaceous stems. The tray is lined with soft plant material mixed with a small amount of wool and feathers. Sometimes moss and lichen are present in the outer walls.

The nest is cup-shaped, somewhat flattened. Socket diameter 110-200 mm, nest height 40-80 mm, tray diameter 70-100 mm, tray depth 35-60 mm.

A clutch of 4-6 eggs is light blue in color with spots, dots and dashes of red-brown and dark brown color, forming a corolla at the blunt end. Egg dimensions: (19-23) x (14-15) mm.

Bullfinches arrive at nesting sites in the second half of March - early April. Nests with clutches were noted on different dates in May, fledglings and already flying chicks were observed in June. Only the female incubates for 13-15 days; the chicks stay in the nest for about two weeks. In September - October, bullfinches emerge from the forest and join the northern populations migrating to the south. It is not known whether the male takes part in incubation, but after the chicks fly, the main care for them falls on the male. It is almost impossible to observe a brood of young brown bullfinches with their mother, while a family of 4-5 fledglings with a red-breasted male is a common occurrence in bullfinches nesting areas.
The chicks are fed mainly with plant food. Only a few ornithologists (for example, Libo) indicate that in the summer bullfinches also take insects (beetle larvae - according to analysis of stomachs). But fledglings with tails that have not yet fully grown (“half-tails”) and broods are fed with unripe small seeds, buds and berries. Bullfinches nest once a summer, and already in July the broods flock together. Soon they begin to move south.
In central Russia, where bullfinches remain in the summer, it is difficult to trace their seasonal movements. But banding data show that individuals that nested in the summer fly south in the fall, and new flocks appear in their place from the north. In some years, local flocks fly away before the wintering ones appear, and then their replacement is more noticeable.
By the nature of their diet, bullfinches do not bring significant benefit or harm, but their raids are, of course, undesirable for berry gardens. They especially love currants, sometimes clearing large plantings clean.

The bullfinch feeds on seeds, buds, some arachnids and berries (in particular, rowan). Feeding on berries, it eats the seeds out of them, leaving the pulp. The chicks are fed mainly with plant food, adding insects and berries.

The bullfinch nests in coniferous and mixed forests, preferring areas dominated by spruce. In Russia, the nesting population of the common bullfinch is maximum in spruce forests associated with river valleys; the minimum is in pine forests.

Waxwing.

The three known species of waxwings (Bombycilla) are extremely similar in appearance, color, and lifestyle. These are densely built, short-legged birds. Their thick fluffy plumage has a delicate smoky color with wine-chestnut shades, and the top of the head is decorated with a sharp crest. The pointed wings and shortened tail are decorated with a pattern of black, white and yellow feather edges. The most characteristic feature is the bright red shiny horny plates at the ends of the secondary flight (and sometimes tail) feathers. Because of this feature, in English the waxwing is called waxwing.

Makes a gentle murmuring trill “sviriririri”.

Waxwings are migratory nomadic birds with a crest on their heads. They appear in our strip at the beginning of winter and early spring. These painted birds with a crest on their heads are difficult to confuse with other birds. Migratory birds manage to hatch their chicks before they begin to fly to warmer places closer to the south with the onset of cold weather. Waxwings manage to fly to the Caucasus, Crimea and Central Asia. Along the way (twice a year) in autumn and early spring, large flocks arrive in the middle zone. Ornithologists have more opportunities to study these birds during migrations. In the sparsely populated and inaccessible northern territory, waxwings lead a secretive, sedentary lifestyle.

Waxwings feed on berries (lingonberries, rowan, viburnum, mistletoe...), small fruits, buds, young shoots of plants and insects. Birds have become adept at grabbing mosquitoes, dragonflies, butterflies and midges on the fly and finding larvae. In autumn, waxwings have to fly away from these places not so much from the cold as from hunger. They are driven by the need to find places where there is a lot of food. Waxwings usually become "vegetarians" during their travels. If there are a lot of berries, then the birds stop for a while and eat their fill. They like the berries of rowan, juniper, viburnum, rose hips, barberry and other trees and shrubs.

Waxwings have an excellent appetite. Voracious waxwings eat a lot and quickly. They swallow the berries whole. In such quantities that their stomachs do not have time to digest food. Seeds “from waxwings” germinate in the most random places. These birds sometimes visit feeders and willingly peck seeds and dried berries.

After several weeks of gluttony, the flocks fly away, wandering from one place to another. The flight distance depends on the amount of food in new places. At the end of winter - at the beginning of spring, waxwings again appear in our strip, feeding on the remaining berries and the swollen buds of aspens and poplars. After the chicks hatch, a pair of waxwings engages in feeding together. At first, the young feed on insects and larvae, and later switch to plant foods. In 2.5 weeks, the chicks become almost independent and in the winter go on a nomadic journey along with adult birds. Birds become sexually mature by the age of one year. Every year pairs are formed anew. The average life expectancy in natural conditions reaches 10-13 years.

.Waxwing or common waxwing(lat. Bombycilla garrulus) - a songbird of the passerine order.

Body length is 18-23 cm, weight up to 60-67 grams. There is a noticeable crest. The color is pinkish-gray, the wings are black with yellow and white stripes, the tail, throat and stripe through the eyes are black. The tips of the secondary flight feathers are transformed into small bright red plates, visible only up close. There is a yellow stripe along the edge of the tail, and a narrow white stripe on the wing. The song of the waxwing is a murmuring trill “svi-ri-ri-ri-ri”, similar to the sound of a pipe. The flight is fast and straight.

The waxwing is widespread in the taiga forest zone of the Northern Hemisphere. It lives in sparse coniferous and mixed forests, on overgrown mountains and clearings. Waxwings migrate short distances outside the mating season, moving in winter somewhat south of their summer range.

It nests in open forests and trees. Sexual maturity occurs at the age of one year. The nesting season lasts from May to July. Nests are made on pine and spruce trees, not very high above the ground, hidden in the branches, at a height of 2-16 m from the ground. A cup-shaped nest made of grass, hair, moss and branches of coniferous trees is built in the upper crown of trees, often at the edge of the forest, near reservoirs and other breeding pairs. The female lays from 3 to 6 bluish-gray eggs with black speckles. Egg dimensions: (21-28) x (15-18) mm. The female incubates the clutch for 12 to 14 days, while the male takes care of the food, consisting of insects and berries. Young birds become independent after about 15-19 days. Every year the waxwing looks for a new partner. Courtship of the female includes feeding her berries.

The lifespan of birds can be 13 years.

Birds live in large flocks. In summer they feed on insects, which are often caught in flight, larvae, various berries and young shoots of plants. At other times, they feed mainly on berries and fruits, for example, lingonberries, viburnum, and mistletoe. In winter, they are often found in the cities of central Russia, where they feed mainly on rowan berries.

Amur waxwing, or Japanese waxwing (lat. Bombycilla japonica) is a small songbird of the genus Waxwings of the order Passeriformes.

The body length is about 16 cm, smaller than the common waxwing, differing from it in the red tips of the tail feathers and the red color on the wings. Sexual dimorphism is not expressed.

Lives in northeast Asia. In Russia, it is widespread in the Amur region and in the north of Primorye. Winters in Japan, Korea, and northeastern China.

Breeds in cedar and larch forests. Mating occurs in late winter. To lay eggs, the female builds herself a small nest, which is often located on the thin outer branches of tall trees. It is stuffed with plant fibers. There are 2-7 blue-gray eggs in the clutch. Hatching lasts 12-16 days. The brood period lasts 16-25 days, both parent birds participate in feeding the chicks.

It feeds primarily on fruits and berries, in the spring also on buds, and in the summer the diet is supplemented with insects.

American waxwing, or cedar waxwing (lat. Bombycilla cedrorum)- a songbird of the genus Waxwings of the order Passeriformes. It lives in open forest areas of Canada and the northern United States. The wintering range is extensive and extends to the very south of Central America.

The cedar, or American, waxwing is distributed from Canada to Venezuela and lives in open forest areas. The wintering range is extensive and extends to the very south of Central America. The body length of this bird reaches 15-18 cm and weighs about 30 g. In summer, waxwings feed on insects, grabbing them in the air, like flycatchers. Their main winter food is berries. Outside the breeding season, birds roam widely in flocks, sometimes appearing even outside the breeding area. During migrations, groups of waxwings attract attention with a song that rings like a bell - “sviririsviriri”, for which the birds received their Russian name.

The cedar waxwing can feed exclusively on berries for several months. During one feeding, they eat a lot of berries, the juicy pulp of which is quickly digested, and the hard seeds remain practically untouched. After passing through the waxwing's digestive tract, they do not lose their germination, and thus waxwings are important distributors of tree seeds. The cedar waxwing is very sensitive to alcohol intoxication and can die if it eats fermented or fermented berries. In summer, the diet of waxwings changes - in the crowns of trees and bushes they collect insects, which they feed on themselves and feed their chicks in need of protein food. Sometimes waxwings catch prey in the air, in a short throw from a perch, like flycatchers.

With the arrival of spring, waxwings seem to disappear completely. In fact, they migrate to their nesting places - to the northern coniferous forests. A significant portion of birds do not breed in summer and continue to live in flocks. Others settle in separate pairs, high on trees growing along the edges of swamps, clearings, and burnt areas. During the mating season, the male performs a special “jumping” dance in front of the female. A pair of birds often sits side by side and passes small objects, such as flower petals or insects, to each other as part of a mating ritual. In their area they behave very secretively, and finding a nest located on a tree is a rare success. The nest is a loose open bowl made of grass and twigs and is usually located 2 to 6 meters above the ground. Only the female builds the nest, and it takes her 5-6 days. There are 3-5 eggs in a waxwing clutch; the female incubates them for 11-13 days. The chicks are fed by burping and leave the nest 14-18 days after hatching. As a rule, waxwings manage to raise two broods per season.

3. Tree sparrow (lat. Passer montanus).

This is a widespread bird of the passerine family, a close relative of the city-dwelling house sparrow. Unlike the latter, it is less dependent on a person. It is found on the outskirts of populated areas, in abandoned villages and near grain crops, orchards and vineyards. In the wild, it is distributed in light forests, bushes and steppes. Somewhat smaller than the house sparrow, it differs from it primarily in the brown cap on its head, distinct black spots on the white cheeks, a much smaller black “bib” on the throat and a collar of white feathers on the sides of the neck.

A flocking bird, it leads a sedentary or nomadic lifestyle. It is never found on the same piece of land with the more pugnacious house sparrow, with which it competes. In places where populations of both species overlap, tree and house sparrows stay apart, albeit in close proximity. Originally a Eurasian species, it was introduced to North America, Australia and some Pacific islands. It nests in tree hollows, old bird nests and mammal burrows, in populated areas under the roofs of houses. Willingly occupies nest boxes. It feeds on plant and animal foods. Common, locally abundant species. Other Russian names are red-headed, village sparrow.

A small, graceful sparrow. Body length is 12.5 - 14 cm. It has an external resemblance to the male house sparrow, with which it is united by a brownish-red back with wide black stripes, a whitish belly, a black throat and frenulum, as well as a white stripe on the wing. The top of the head and the back of the head are chestnut in color, the cheeks are white with a distinct black spot on the ear coverts. The front part of the neck (“bib”) is also black, but unlike the house sparrow, the spot is not so large and does not cover the chest. The loin and rump are buffy-brown. The wings are dark brown with two thin white stripes on the coverts (the house sparrow has one stripe). The belly is grayish-white. The beak is slate-gray in summer, darkens and becomes almost black in winter. The rainbow is brown.

From the outside, a flock of field sparrows can be identified by the monotony of color; in contrast to the well-defined sexual dimorphism of the house sparrow, males and females of the field sparrow do not differ from each other. Females are colored the same or more uniformly. They are very similar to adult and young birds, standing out with slightly paler plumage and a less pronounced pattern on the head. Vocalization is a characteristic chirping, in comparison with the house sparrow it is rather disyllabic, sharp and more nasal. Moves on the ground by jumping.

Distributed throughout almost the entire territory of Europe and most of Asia, with the exception of the Far North and Middle East. In Northern Europe and Siberia it rises to 65-72° N. w. The species is predominantly sedentary, but in the northern parts of its range, during cold winters it migrates to the south or concentrates near human habitation. European and Siberian populations are rarely found within large populated areas, avoiding multi-story buildings and preferring rural areas, gardens, parks or natural landscapes - sparse forests, small groves, bushes. In the steppe, it settles in floodplains of rivers, where it occupies burrows of swallows and other birds along steep banks. In Central and East Asia, Kazakhstan and southern Siberia, people gravitate more towards settlements, including large ones - unlike Europe, they choose the central parts of the city. In the wild, it settles among rocks, in Tajikistan rising to mountains up to 3500 m above sea level. In the Philippines, it is common in large cities, where it can often be seen sitting on wires. In Australia, he avoids populated areas, preferring the suburbs. Distributed almost throughout the country. Less common than the house sparrow.

During the breeding season, it usually stays close to well-moistened soils and avoids intensively cultivated agricultural lands. The beginning of the breeding season depends on climatic factors and food availability. In Europe, it usually falls in the second half of March - early April and lasts until July, and for example, in western Malaysia, in the area of ​​​​poultry farms, the construction of nests begins in December, and flight chicks appear at the end of May. It is generally considered to be monogamous, although observations have shown cases of copulation with members of another pair, which may indicate genetic polygamy. Thus, studies by Hungarian ornithologists conducted in a bird colony in a city park showed that about 9% of the eggs were fertilized by the males of another pair, and in 21% of cases there was at least one chick in the nest that was not genetically related to its intended mother.

The tree sparrow, much less often than the house sparrow, nests in buildings and is found in cities only in winter, looking for food in common flocks. In the summer, it is almost completely insectivorous and only in the fall flies in flocks to fields and vegetable gardens for seeds. Favorite nesting places are old hollow lindens, willows and sedges near hay meadows, in gardens and orchards, along the outskirts of villages and river banks. Even in winter, these hollows are used for sleeping on frosty nights. The tree sparrow avoids dense forest areas and settles in them only along the edges.

Typically, tree sparrows nest in pairs, less often in colonies of several to several dozen pairs. The nest is made in various niches, both natural and artificial. It settles in hollows of trees, cavities of stumps, rock crevices, burrows of birds and mammals, under the roofs of houses and in other secluded places. Up to a dozen pairs can nest simultaneously on an old tree with numerous voids. There are known cases of arranging their nest at the base of the residential nests of some birds of prey - in this way, sparrows provide themselves with protection from uninvited guests and feed on insects that flock to leftover food. They willingly occupy birdhouses and nest boxes.

The nest is a neat spherical structure with a small flight hole, made from the stems of cereals or other herbaceous plants, with an admixture of wool, feathers and other soft material. It takes quite a long time to build (sometimes about a month) and is similar in appearance to a house sparrow's nest, although somewhat rougher. The inside of the nest is lined with down and feathers. The diameter of the nest is about 125 mm, the height is about 60 mm, the diameter of the tray is about 50 mm, the depth of the tray is about 30 mm. There are two, rarely three clutches per year, each of which contains 3-7 (usually 5-6) eggs. The tree sparrow is as sociable as the house sparrow. In old hollow trees, sometimes very close, two or three nests are built. In April, females are already sitting on full clutches. The testicles are noticeably smaller than those of the house sparrow (19 millimeters long), and they are usually so densely covered with small spots that they appear entirely dark brown or brownish. During the incubation of eggs, males fly nearby in flocks, carry food for females and, with sharp chirping, warn neighbors of approaching danger. In central Russia, eggs are usually laid at the end of April or beginning of May, and the first fledglings appear in July. The color of the eggs is variable, most often white, gray or yellowish-gray with dense small specks and spots from dark gray to reddish-brown. There is also a monochromatic brownish or ocher-brown color. Both birds of the pair incubate alternately, starting with the last egg or a little earlier, for 11-14 days. The chicks that are born are naked and helpless; they are cared for by both parents, warmed and fed mainly with animal food - insects and their larvae, arachnids and other small invertebrates. At the age of 15-20 days, the grown and fledged chicks acquire the ability to fly, although they are fed by their parents for about two more weeks, after which they gather in separate flocks and stay close to the nesting sites until cold weather.

One of the reasons for the tree sparrow's wide distribution is its wide range of food choices, which easily vary depending on availability in a given area and at a particular time of year. During the breeding season, it feeds mainly on animal food, destroying large quantities of small invertebrates: insects and their larvae, spiders, centipedes, etc. In the second half of summer, sparrows roam in large flocks across agricultural fields, eating emerging wheat, millet, hemp, and sunflower. After harvesting the fields, they switch to feeding on weed seeds. You can often observe how, in search of prey, it skips through the tops of beets or turnips that have grown in the garden bed, climbs under wide cucumber leaves, or, fluttering in the air, grabs a butterfly, fly, or beetle. Among its prey are many harmful insects (for example, caterpillars of cabbage butterflies, rutabaga, various cutworms, bread beetles, weevils). Clover crops and hay meadows are also under his constant supervision.
But the chicks hatched, became stronger, began to feed on their own and formed flocks. By this time, the variety of insects has become somewhat scarce, and berries, fruits, and seeds begin to ripen in gardens and fields. The sparrow gradually switches to plant food, thereby losing its seasonal beneficial value (in summer) and in some conditions even becoming harmful (in autumn). In the fall, it switches to seeds and fruits of plants, often migrating to harvest sites - orchards, fields of rice and other grains and oilseeds, and vineyards. The flocks swoop down on hemp, millet, and buckwheat; in vegetable gardens they shell unripe seeds, and in gardens they pluck cherries, strawberries and other berries. At this time, gardeners hate sparrows. But if we take into account the benefits that they brought here, nearby, in spring and summer, then it will turn out to be, perhaps, more significant than the harmful activities since half the summer. But at this time, a large concentration of sparrows can cause significant damage to agriculture, and therefore in a number of regions it is considered a harmful bird. However, methods of fighting tree sparrows can also have the opposite effect. Thus, in the 1950s in China, a decision was made to significantly reduce the number of tree sparrows through its mass extermination. However, the resulting effect turned out to be short-lived - the next year, the multiplying insects practically destroyed the entire new crop. In winter, they switch to feeding on weed seeds or buds on trees.

In populated areas, the sparrow is not afraid of human presence and sometimes flies indoors in search of food. At the same time, he shows intelligence, adapting even to automatically closing doors.

4. House sparrow- This is the most famous bird in the whole world.

The sparrow belongs to those few species of birds that have become indispensable inhabitants of rural and city streets. It seems that without these nimble neighbors, life would be boring for us. It produces a variety of chirps, most often the well-known chirp.

The house sparrow is a small bird, its body length is about 15-17 cm, weight - 24-35 g, but it has a strong build. The head is round and quite large. The beak is about one and a half centimeters long, plump, conical in shape. The tail is approximately 5-6 cm, the paws are 1.5-2.5 cm. Males are larger in size and weight than females. Males also differ in the color of female feathers. They have the same upper body - brown, lower part - light gray and wings with a white and yellow stripe located across. A noticeable difference between females and males is the color of the head and chest. Males have a dark gray top of the head, light gray plumage below the eyes, and a clearly visible black spot on the neck and chest. Females have a light brown head and neck. Males and females differ in color. The female house sparrow is brown-gray with a brown back and a faint light eyebrow, her beak is yellowish-brown. The male has a black beak, the underside of the body is lighter - pure gray, the top is brown with black streaks, sometimes chestnut, on the head there is an ash-gray “cap” bordered on the side of the neck with a chocolate “bracket”, under the beak there is a black throat spot.

The bird is sedentary, but sensitive to cold (usually winters in warm sleeping nests).

Sparrows live near human habitation; they have now scattered almost all over the world, but initially most of Europe and Western Asia are considered the homeland of these birds. The house sparrow is found in populated areas from the west of Europe to the shores of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, in the north of Europe it reaches the Arctic coast, Siberia is also inhabited by these agile little birds. The sparrow does not live in most of East and Central Asia. Birds are able to adapt perfectly to the conditions in which they find themselves. These are sedentary birds, only from the cold northern places during the frosty winter they migrate to where it is warmer, in a southern direction. (From the mouths of the Pechora or from northern Yakutia, the main mass of sparrows migrate south for the winter and return only in early April.) In Yakutsk, the sparrow began to winter only from 1850-1853. As mentioned earlier, the house sparrow likes to settle next to people, perhaps because of this it received the name “brownie”. Gray birds can live in pairs, but it happens that they create entire colonies. For example, when feeding they always gather in large flocks. When there is no need to sit in nests on eggs or with chicks, sparrows roost at night in bushes or on tree branches. In the air, the bird reaches a flight speed of up to 45 km/h; the sparrow cannot walk on the ground, like most other birds; it moves by jumping. He won’t drown in a pond, because he can swim, and he’s also a good diver.

Sparrows in nature live quite a long time, their life expectancy is about 10-12 years. A case of longevity has been recorded - a sparrow originally from Denmark lived for 23 years, another of its relatives did not live up to its twentieth birthday. The problem with these birds is that many young birds die before they reach one year of age. The hardest time for young animals is winter. If they manage to live to see their first spring, then they have a chance to meet old age. At this time, about 70% of young sparrows do not survive to one year.

During the mating season, house sparrows divide into pairs, then the male and female begin building a home together. Nests are built in crevices of structures and buildings, in hollows, in burrows, on the slopes of ravines, in bushes and on tree branches. The sparrow house is made from small twigs, dry grass and straw. Throughout April, the future mother sparrow lays eggs; in the nest there are from 4 to 10 eggs, white with brown spots. 14 days after the female sits on the eggs, helpless chicks are born. Mom and dad take care of the hatched offspring together and feed the babies insects (bugs and worms). After just two weeks, the chicks fly out of the nest.

The house sparrow can easily do without water; it receives the amount of moisture necessary for its existence from juicy berries. They feed mainly on plant foods, but the chicks are fed and in the spring they themselves feed on insects. In the taiga they feed mainly on insects and seeds of wild plants and fruits. In cities and towns it sticks to places where there is grain, farmyards, markets, etc. Favorite delicacy is grain seeds. The sparrow eats whatever it comes across; its diet includes grass seeds, tree buds, and various berries. These birds also do not disdain waste food from garbage cans; experience tells them that in these iron boxes you can find a lot of tasty things. Insects are rarely included in the sparrow's menu; only during the period of feeding the chicks do bugs and worms become daily food, since this is what the parent birds feed their young. Sparrows also do not forget about sand; it is necessary for the bird's stomach to digest food. If you can’t get hold of sand, then small pebbles are used. The percentage of harmful insects eaten by an adult sparrow (for example, Prussians, turtles) is very small in relation to the total food. Therefore, the house sparrow cannot be considered useful for agriculture. In autumn they attack fruits in gardens, nibbling cherries, plums, and grapes. In the summer, insects eaten mainly include moth caterpillars and hawkmoths; in the south, orthoptera (crickets, grasshoppers), beetles, and ladybugs. Among the insects it eats there are also beneficial ones, such as ladybugs and flower flies. The chicks are fed mainly on insects, of which up to 88 percent are Orthoptera. But of the total number of insects fed to chicks, harmful ones make up only 21-31 percent. The majority of insects are of no interest to the farm. Nesting chicks are also fed wheat. In some places in Uzbekistan, about 40 percent of the opened stomachs contained wheat. It is interesting that sparrows prefer some varieties of wheat to others, which is apparently due to the structural features of the ears. Very spinous and dense ears of corn are more difficult for birds to husk, and they hardly touch them. A study of the house sparrow's nutrition in the southern agricultural regions makes it considered an absolute pest in the summer months. It turned out to be harmful in America, where immigrants brought it. They are now spending a lot of money to fight it.

5. Rook, or grak, or gaivoron (obsolete)- Corvus frugileus.

Order Passeriformes, Family Corvidae - Corvidae, Genus Crow - Corvus.

The body is 46 cm long, black, with a blue metallic sheen. The beak is thinner than that of the crow, and adult birds have a base and white skin around the beak. The wings are somewhat narrower than those of a crow, the plumage of the legs is slightly elongated and, as it were, tousled. Makes a hoarse “kraa”.

Common in fields, shelterbelts, and also in large cities.

Distributed in forest-steppe and cultural landscapes almost everywhere, except for most of Siberia and the Far East. It is common south of the forest zone, and in the central regions it probably appeared only during agricultural development in the 9th-12th centuries. In Central Yakutia, it settles in meadows that form among the taiga in areas with disturbed permafrost.

Winters in the south of Russia, some birds live together with crows and jackdaws in the populated areas of the Central zone. Such wintering individuals sometimes catch the eye of journalists, and, starting in mid-February, our newspapers take turns reporting on the “unusually early arrival of rooks.” In Rus', rooks have always been cherished, considering them the first heralds of spring (in fact, large seagulls usually arrive a little earlier).

In the middle zone, the rook is the harbinger of spring. He is the first of the migratory birds that flies to us from the south after a long winter. When they say: “The rooks have arrived,” it means that spring has come into its own. Rooks arrive in central Russia in early March, when the first thawed patches appear.
Rooks nest in large colonies in trees. Rookie colonies sometimes exist for decades. Nesting in April-May. For construction, they choose a birch grove, a linden garden or old willows on the shore of a pond outside the village outskirts. The rook needs small, bright copses surrounded by arable fields, meadows and vegetable gardens - these are the places where he finds the necessary food, where he feeds his chicks and teaches them the art of living.
Having settled in a colony in the intended place, the rooks return here year after year, and it is very difficult to drive them away. If they annoy you with their screams and noise, the stench of garbage accumulating on the ground under their nests, and the damage to trees, then only systematic destruction of nests and regular shooting can force them to leave the colony.
The male and female both take an active part in the construction of the nest. The nest is built from the branches of the trees on which the colony has settled. The lower layer of the rook's nest consists of tightly connected thicker branches, the upper layer of thin ones. The tray is lined with soft grass, bast, rags and scraps of wool, which rooks pick up near sheepfolds, in barnyards and pastures. Unlike a crow's nest, a rook's nest is vast and deep, so that only one tail is visible from the rook sitting in it. The male does not incubate the chicks; during incubation, he carefully brings food to the female. When the rook flies in with food, the female screams in the same way as rooks scream when they demand food from their parents.
From the moment when chicks emerge from the eggs in all nests of the colony, noise rises again on the rookery. Now the cry becomes even stronger, as numerous chicks join their voices, greedily demanding food. Parents tirelessly carry food all day long. At this time, they visit arable lands and meadows, where they look for worms, larvae, beetles, harmful fillies and rodents. This is where the extremely useful side of the rook’s activity comes into play. When plowing, they gather in flocks, walk importantly, following the plow, and grab the larvae of June beetles, blackbirds and other insects in the torn up layers of earth. The rook also destroys large numbers of May beetles (Khrushchi). In one stomach of a rook in Ukraine, up to 133 harmful beet weevils were found, and in Western Siberia - more than 500 wireworms.
From constant picking in the ground, the rook develops a “white beak”. In this way it immediately differs from the black crow, which it is somewhat similar to in its uniform black coloring with a purple tint. The black crow has gray base feathers on its back and other parts of the body, while the rook has entirely black feathers.
Strictly speaking, the rook’s beak does not turn white, but the facial parts become bare of feathers. The light skin on these parts and around the base of the beak gives the characteristic appearance of the old rook. Young people do not have such exposure; it appears after the rooks begin to rummage diligently in the ground, sticking their beaks into the soil.
In June, the young are already out of the nests and flying well. For some time the old people continue to feed them. Then it is not uncommon to see how in a tree or in a meadow a young rook, with his mouth open and often flapping his wings, reaches out to his flying parents. At this time, the entire colony of rooks goes to the surrounding fields early in the morning and spends the whole day there. They are often joined by starlings, jackdaws, and sometimes crows.
Having gathered in large flocks, rooks visit grain fields, where in the spring they cause damage by pulling out sprouted seeds (especially corn), and later attack melon fields, pecking at watermelons, cucumbers, and melons. They love to feast on young field pea pods. They attack orchards and bread stacked in piles. “But all this and much more that the rook may still be guilty of,” says D.N. Kaigorodov, “can and should be forgiven for his other very important services: wandering in the spring, all summer and most of the fall in numerous flocks of fields and meadows, the rook destroys a myriad of different small creatures, including many harmful ones, such as snails, various worms, beetles, caterpillars, larvae and pupae of insects and mice.” Rooks free trees from voracious leaf beetles and prevent these pests from laying eggs, from which hatch larvae that harm plants and their roots.
“And the more significant is the benefit brought by the rook to agriculture and forestry,” Kaygorodov further notes, “that this bird always acts in droves, in large numbers, in flocks of hundreds and even thousands. We happened to see such countless flocks of rooks (together with crows and jackdaws) in freshly plowed fields in places near Moscow that literally, as they say, there was nowhere for a stone to fall, and these birds remained in one place for hours. You can imagine what kind of “cleaning” they did on the arable land; and their droppings remained right there, but that’s worth good manure. In England, through experience, they were convinced that in areas where rooks were exterminated, there were crop failures for several years in a row, and only after that they realized that rooks should be spared. Rooks are of great benefit during massive raids of locusts, which they destroy in large numbers.”
In the middle zone, rooks disappear in October. They migrate to the southwest, gathering in huge flocks. In the Caucasus and southern Ukraine, rooks apparently live sedentary lives. They winter, by the way, in Turkmenistan, where they are sometimes seen roosting in the reeds. Countless flocks of these birds fly along the sea coast in Transcaucasia during their autumn migration, stretching for kilometers. They winter there in the coastal strip and in the southern part of the Rioza Valley. Every day a large number of rooks gather in corn fields. The rook does not nest in Transcaucasia, but appears, for example, in the vicinity of Batumi in October and remains here until the end of April.
The main masses of rooks move to wintering grounds, apparently even further to the south - to Africa, Afghanistan and India. Many of these birds die in foreign lands. The Nile Valley, although abundant in food, probably cannot accommodate all the arriving rooks. They have to fly further. Flying through the Sahara, they sometimes die there in the thousands. In some oases, where palm trees surround the springs, rooks were observed roosting for the night. The next morning they were found dead from hunger, lying next to each other in the number of several hundred.

The rook plays an important role in agriculture, where it destroys larvae, beetles, harmful fillies and rodents on land.

Magpie - Pica pica.

A black and white bird with a very long stepped tail. Flight is an alternation of frequent flapping and gliding on outstretched wide wings.

Makes a sharp chirping sound.

Inhabits open landscapes with isolated trees or hedges. Often found in towns and city parks.

Distributed throughout almost the entire country, except for the tundra and most of Eastern Siberia. In winter, they settle down or make short-distance migrations.

It is difficult to imagine a village where, in the autumn, a magpie would not be spinning and chirping on the roof of a hut or in the trees near the outskirts. This bird is distinguished from other corvids by its long stepped bluish-green tail. Its head, back and chest are shiny black, with a metallic green tint on its wings. The lower part of the chest, belly and stripes on the shoulders are white, the plumage of the lower leg and undertail are black. The magpie attracts attention not so much with the variegation of its outfit, but with its mobility and chirping. She is always looking for something, either jumping along the ridge of the roof, or flitting from a tree to a fence, and from there to the barn, or, raising her tail high, jumping on the ground. Nothing escapes her attention: now she is trying to steal a piece from the pig’s trough, and the next minute she is already trying to climb into the chicken coop and peck at, or even carry away, the egg that the chicken has just laid. Like a lizard, the magpie often leaves its long tail in the teeth or claws of a predator. Until the next moult, when the tail feathers grow back, the unfortunate bird is a clumsy black and white clump of feathers, barely able to fly.
The magpie is very careful: even in remote places it does not let a person with a gun get close. Unlike other corvids, the magpie rarely flies far. Seeing danger, she usually flits from one tree to another, just long enough to be out of reach. During nesting time, magpies most like to stay in small, young forests or groves among fields. In the south, this bird is attracted to orchards, as well as dense bushes along river floodplains or steppe ravines.

The magpie's distribution area in Russia is very large. It extends north to Murmansk, south to the Caucasus and Central Asia, and east to Kamchatka inclusive. In some places this bird is less common, in some places it is not found at all, for example on the southern coast of Crimea. In the Caucasus, this is a common bird of flat areas, where it can be found in every village. But the magpie does not rise high in the mountains.

Being sedentary in many places, it begins to nest very early - in March, or even in February. The magpie builds its complex, spherical nest in the trees in the forest. If the places are remote, little visited by people, then it is not located very high from the ground; in other cases, nests are at a height of up to seven meters. Magpies are especially willing to settle in trees such as wild pears or apple trees.

The nest is usually located in dense bushes, in deciduous young trees at a height of 2-15 m, usually 2-4 m from the ground. It is very well hidden from the eye of the observer.
The outer part of the nest is made of large branches intertwined with the stems of herbaceous plants and held together with clay; the inner part is made of thinner twigs. The deep tray of the nest, also coated with clay from the inside, is covered on the sides and top with branches, forming a high roof. The litter in the nest consists of moss, soft grass, roots, and wool.

The nest is a rather large and complex structure. The nest has a spherical shape. The roof of the nest plays an important role in the life of a magpie: it reliably protects the bird sitting on the eggs, and subsequently the chicks, from attacks by predators. The diameter of the nest, taking into account the protruding ends of the branches, is 700 mm, the diameter of the main body, fastened with clay, is 200-250 mm, the height of the nest with the roof and ends of the branches is 600-700 mm, the height of the main body is 230-270 mm, the diameter of the tray is 140-200 mm, depth tray 100-170 mm.

Usually noisy and lively, the bird stays very quietly near the nest. It is very well hidden in a dense thicket of trees or bushes. In floodplains, magpies often build it where water has stood for a long time under the trees since spring. Later, when the chicks hatch, green foliage will hide the nest on all sides. Only in the fall, after the leaves have fallen, can such a nest be easily found. But then, of course, it will be too late: its inhabitants long ago hatched their chicks and flew away. The walls of the nest are not dense: through the branches from which it is composed, the magpie sitting in the nest sees the approaching danger, no matter who it is: a person or a predatory animal.

The magpie lays 6 to 8 greenish eggs, densely covered with brownish spots. Egg dimensions: (31-35) x (22-25) mm. The female incubates them for 18 days. The male only stays nearby, guards the nest and warns his girlfriend about the danger. When attacked by predators, birds sometimes unite to jointly defend against the enemy. At the beginning of June, the chicks already fly out of the nest. They keep in broods, and the older birds keep an eye on them. By autumn, the broods break up and the young are left to their own devices.

After the young birds fly out, molting begins in the old birds. At this time, they stick to dense bushes and do not fly far from the edge of the forest. The young, whose tail feathers have not yet grown sufficiently, are also attached to the thicket of small forests. Closer to autumn, as the feathers grow, when both molting old people and young people begin to fly more confidently, magpies even appear in the fields and gather in small flocks. At the same time, they approach human settlements, preferring small villages and hamlets. In big cities they are found only on the very outskirts.

Being an omnivore, the magpie sometimes attacks small songbirds and pecks eggs and chicks in their nests. If a magpie, which is rightly called a “thief,” gets into the habit of flying into the yard, then it will not only regularly steal eggs from the chicken coop, but can destroy all the chickens. She sometimes decides to attack even large animals: she pecks at the backs of sheep and the humps of camels in order to profit from lard. This leaves large, difficult-to-heal wounds.

This bird combines many of the qualities inherent in corvids: it is careful, cunning and very smart, so in the daily life of a collective farmer it can cause a lot of trouble. In such cases, forty have to be destroyed. They are difficult to shoot, so in America they lay poisoned chicken eggs for them.

But it would be a big mistake to consider this bird everywhere harmful. In the fields, in the forest, in the steppe, the magpie brings undoubted benefits, destroying many harmful insects and rodents. So, for example, by opening the stomachs of magpies in the Buzuluk forest, E.P. Knorre established that “the main food of magpies in the period from May 1 to October 1 is insects, and forest pests are found in the stomachs more often than insects that are more beneficial to the forest.” Knorre found 20 cockchafers in one magpie stomach. Vlasov and Teplov sorted out the contents of 1,070 magpie pellets found in winter at bird roosting sites in Tatarstan. In 684 of them, remains of rodents were found, mainly the gray vole, which is very harmful to crops. The useful work that the magpie performs most of the year pays for the harm it causes by destroying bird nests.
In Russia, only one species of common magpie is common, which is divided into seven subspecies, or geographical forms.

Magpies are known to love shiny objects, which they usually drag into their nest. There are times when they steal valuables.

1. Bird life in winter.

Winter is a difficult time for many animals.

In our latitudes, only mammals and birds - warm-blooded animals - remain active for the winter. They are not afraid of frost. If only there was enough food. However, food is scarce in winter. Therefore, not all animals and birds can survive in the winter where they always lived.

Birds must adapt to seasonal changes in living conditions. Most of them simply leave our region for the winter, making an autumn migration to their wintering grounds, only to return again when we have more favorable living conditions for them. If we talk about the tundra, then almost all birds fly away from there, even white partridges migrate closer to the forest or directly into the forest, where there is more food.

In the Moscow region, out of 195 nesting bird species, only 52 species remain for the winter, the rest fly away. True, 15 more species fly to us from the north. In any case, 195 species of birds in summer and 67 in winter - the difference is noticeable. From this you can clearly see how unfavorable our winter is for bird life.

First of all, insectivorous birds fly away. Herbivores partly fly away, partly remain. However, some insectivorous birds can also winter in temperate latitudes.

The pika is a small, gentle bird, but with its thin curved beak it can climb into the most inconspicuous cracks in the bark of a tree and look for a pupa, a caterpillar, or good food - a clutch of eggs - nestled there for the winter. The pika works all day. She works hard at this time for the benefit of the gardener, destroying insects and garden pests (as well as forests). There is a known case when gypsy moth butterflies appeared in an orchard and laid eggs in large numbers in the fall. Big trouble was to be expected next year! However, pikas and tits, attracted to the garden by such abundant food, worked so hard that the next summer there were no silkworms in this garden at all.

But still, only a few insectivorous birds can stay with us for the winter. Pikas and tits can find food in winter, but swallows, flycatchers, and warblers will find nothing: they all need to fly away.

Herbivorous birds also have a hard time in winter. Many of them must also fly away for the winter. In fact, how will birds that feed on ground food, larks and others find food for themselves? Due to the dense thickness of snow, ground food becomes completely inaccessible to them.

Where the snow is not very thick, birds feeding on the ground can sometimes spend the winter. This is only possible if there are large ungulates. In search of food, they break the snow with their hooves and thus make ground food available to birds.

The proximity of humans in winter also helps birds. Previously, when there were no cars and only horse-drawn transport existed, many species of birds took to the roads and found ample food there. Buntings, which live sparsely in the copses in summer, stay near the outskirts of the forest in winter, or even in the village itself. Flocks of tap dancers scurry through hedges and vegetable gardens, and waxwings feed on the weeds not covered with snow. Some hunting birds - gray partridges - also huddle close to people in difficult times. What kind of food is there in an open field, especially in a snowy winter! And near people, on the threshing floors and near the sheds, you can always profit from something.

Recently, a good rule has emerged and become widespread: feeding birds in winter. Various feeding tables are arranged for small birds, which allow them to survive especially difficult days of winter, and then, lo and behold, fed in winter, they remain to nest nearby and pay a person a hundredfold for his care by destroying pests.

But in winter we also need to take care of game birds. The gray partridge, a prolific bird, sometimes lays up to 20-29 eggs and easily multiplies its numbers if there are favorable conditions. But if circumstances are unfavorable, the number of gray partridges drops sharply. Heavy snow and subsequent lack of food have a particularly bad effect on partridges.

Southern birds sometimes find themselves in an equally difficult position. An excellent hunting bird in Azerbaijan in the past, the turach, which was excellent in all respects, can serve as an object of sport and even commercial hunting when there is a lot of it. There are really a lot of turachs in the relatively small territory of the republic. But it happens that snow also falls in Azerbaijan, which is accompanied by mass deaths of turkish tourists. After snowfalls, such a “chionophobic” (not liking snow) bird like the pheasant dies. Especially if you take into account that even now there are poachers who go after snowfalls to places inhabited by pheasants and destroy them there, sometimes simply beating them with sticks. The biology of pheasants, hawks and gray partridges has been studied quite well. Winter hardships, which have a catastrophic effect on the numbers of these birds, are also well known. Therefore, it is always necessary to monitor the winter life of these birds. We must not allow birds that are weakened and have become trusting of humans to become victims of an unscrupulous shooter. We need to help the birds survive snowfalls and feed them. As a last resort, it is necessary to catch birds in trouble and keep them in aviaries or simply in sheds, and then, next summer, the hunter’s care will be many times justified by the multitude of partridges and pheasants, depending on the location. It is known that in some places, even in such a warm place as Crimea, the number of partridges after severe winters sharply decreases not for one year, but for several years.

Perhaps forest and bush birds feel best in winter. The wind in the forest is significantly weakened, snow drifts are not so large, and they are not so terrible for birds, because they find food mainly in the trees. For many birds, such food is pine and spruce cones (seeds of coniferous trees), and in the Siberian taiga - pine nuts. The hazel grouse diligently trims earrings, buds and even twigs of alder and birch in winter. This food usually makes up more than 77% of the contents of the hazel grouse's crop in winter. In winter, wood grouse feed on pine needles, depending on the location, pine, spruce or cedar. Black grouse eat catkins and birch buds and juniper berries in winter.

It is clear that these birds are not at all afraid of snowfalls - their food remains available regardless of the thickness of the snow cover. The worst of all in this regard, perhaps, are the white partridges. They very willingly eat willow buds: for them this is the main winter food. And willow bushes are sometimes covered with snow, especially along the edges of forests, where large snowdrifts blow up. Then the partridges switch to feeding on birch buds and catkins. In this regard, white partridges, which in winters with little snow stay along the northern edge of the taiga, in the most severe and snowy winters climb into the very depths of the forest.

However, snow can sometimes interfere with birds feeding on trees. Sometimes a dense snow cap forms on the branches. Tits can then hang from the underside of the branches, but large chicken birds cannot feed on such trees. In addition, black ice - icing on tree branches - also interferes with chickens.

In this regard, forest chicken birds have their own adaptation (adaptation) to winter life. In the fall, they begin to grow peculiar horny fringes, or combs, along the edges of their fingers. By the end of September - mid-October they reach their fullest development. It is precisely at this time that the birds switch to feeding in the trees. Fringes make climbing thin, frosty or icy branches much easier. But the desired prey for the hazel grouse - buds and catkins - grow precisely on thin branches, on which frost is more heavily deposited during icy conditions.

The adaptations to life in snowy conditions of the white and tundra partridges are interesting. By autumn, the toes of these birds are covered with a thick cover of dense flexible feathers, which form a kind of ski - wide and elastic. In addition, the length of the claws of partridges increases in winter and thus the supporting surface of the paws of these birds increases several times, which allows them to run through the snow without sinking any deep.

But adaptations to the winter lifestyle (morphological) consist not only in adaptations to movement in the snow or along branches. Birds wear warmer fur coats in winter. Winter feathers, for example, on capercaillie and partridge, are larger than summer feathers; the side trunk on the feathers is strongly developed and the downy part of the feather is also more developed.

The bare, unfeathered parts of the bird's body (primarily the paws) are more intensively supplied with blood in winter. The capillary vessels become somewhat wider and merge with each other in many places. This allows hot blood to flow more abundantly and quickly through the paws, which prevents them from freezing.

However, even birds well adapted to winter conditions strive to warm up when possible. The best way to do this is snow. In frosty winters, hazel grouse spend no more than 2-3 hours feeding, and for the rest of the day (21-22 hours) they hide in snow holes, which they dig out themselves each time.

Black grouse, as larger birds, are in better conditions for heat transfer (in this case it is better to say heat preservation) than hazel grouse, but they, too, hide in the snow several times a day to warm themselves. These birds spend the night in the snow. To do this, a grouse rushes from a tree or directly from the flight into the snow and breaks through its upper, usually harder layer. After this, the bird sticks its head into the snow and, helping itself with its wings, forms a passage in the snow in the form of an elongated cave, in which it remains overnight. In the event of a snowstorm, the bird lingers under the snow the next day, sometimes for several days. It happens that a snowy bed becomes a death trap for black grouse. This happens if, when the weather changes, the snow becomes covered with a very hard crust that birds cannot break through from below. Then the black grouse die.

Despite the described cases of birds dying under the snow (and this is rare), snow cover, especially in harsh winters, is favorable for upland game. After all, this is her insulation. Therefore, if there is no snow or very little snow, a difficult time comes for the birds. The black grouse is deprived of the opportunity to spend the night under the warming cover of snow and dies. In such cases, there is a sharp drop in bird numbers the following summer. So it turns out that the same winter factor - snow cover - has different meanings for different birds.

For gray partridge, gourd, and pheasants, a winter with a lot of snow is dangerous; for black grouse and hazel grouse, a winter with little snow is dangerous, especially if it is cold.

In winter, intraspecific relationships in birds manifest themselves differently than in summer. During breeding, many birds lead a paired lifestyle; after hatching their chicks, they live in families. True, polygamous birds do not form pairs. Having met for a short time on a lek, both black grouse and wood grouse then live alone. But by autumn, the birds begin to transition to a flocking lifestyle.